We apologize, but this class has been canceled. Please email aaron@delveworks.com for more information.

Top 10 Lessons YA Movies Can Teach Novelists 
with Trai Cartwright

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Here’s a little known secret: young adult novels behave a lot like movies do! From structure to character struggle to world building, their storytelling DNA is nearly identical. Want to take that Hollywood know-how and use it to make your book as compelling as The Hunger Games or The Perks of Being a Wallflower? This workshop presents the Top 10 Lessons YA Movies Can Teach Novelists via a range of great modern YA films, and shows you how to capitalize on them for your own writing. We’ll crack the story structure code that’s used in both Hollywood movies and YA books, and check out some of the most elegant and efficient character-building tools in the storytelling business. Perfect for refining your own novel, YA or otherwise! 

Learn what movies know and novelists should, too:

  • Movies know just what’s at the heart of a Young Adult story, and how to make that struggle universal to everyone—not just teenagers.
  • Movies know how to quickly and efficiently build character, and how to maximize their dramatic potential.
  • Movies know world building—how to do it, how much to do it, and how to make it thematically relevant.
  • Movies know what information we need right away—and how to do it artfully and kinetically.
  • Movies know that stories work in circles, from the opening image to the closing, and that there are no coincidences.
  • Movies know just how to stay "on message," using themes, structure, and dialogue.
Movies we’ll explore: The Hunger Games, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Divergent, The Spectacular Now, Easy A, Coraline, Harry Potter, and The Way Way Back.

TRAI CARTWRIGHT, MFA, has over 25 years experience as a professional story developer.  While in Los Angeles, Trai was a development executive for HBO, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s online ventures. Four of Trai’s screenplays were optioned, she’s produced three independent films, and she has consulted on literally thousands of scripts and books. She brings her in-depth knowledge of story building to all writing formats as a creative writing and screenwriting teacher for UNC, the Colorado Film School, writers groups, conferences, and one-on-one. And when she writes, she writes YA. Trai can be found at www.craftwrite.com.  
Saturday, January 24, 2015

12 pm - 1:30 pm EST
11 am - 12:30 pm CST
10 am - 11:30 pm MST
9 am - 10:30 pm PST

Price
$40 Standard Registration
$30 for Members of SCBWI
(Note: You'll be asked for the name of your chapter when you register)