A log line is the DNA of your story, the code of your project, and whether you're an author or screenwriter, developing a one-sentence log line might save your story's life. Keeping your log line in focus throughout your outlining, plotting, and writing helps the writer stay on track to insure your project works on all levels. Learn how to write the log line, the one sentence pitch, to tease to get an agent to ask for more.

What should you have ready for a producer? How can you help make your project “the one”?

Join our three panelists to get the inside scoop. Topics for discussion: * Think about the Business - Research the genre, trends and the different distribution pipelines before wasting time writing something that doesn’t have a current path to sell. What resources are available to help you do this? * Diversify - Have multiple projects that you are passionate about so that when the right person at the right time is looking for your film…you are ready to present it with a full pitch deck and screenplay. What does a pitch deck and one sheet look like and how do you make them? * Key personnel –surrounding yourself with the right producer, director, etc. will help guide writers to protect the IP, find the right investment partners, legal team, etc. How do you make those contacts? What is a LOI?

Our keynote speaker for Young Author's Day is New York Times and bestselling author, Jason Reynolds, the 2020 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Reynolds is the author of thirteen books for young people, including his most recent, Look Both Ways: A tale told in Ten Blocks. 
An inspiring speaker, we were all moved to tears.

Join these next-level screenwriters from the Northwest Screenwriters Guild Compendium Group for a panel on writing processes, choosing a project, staying motivated, stacking projects and genres and finding a manager to represent your work. Learn what works and what doesn't and how to get traction for your career.
Presenters: Kristin Raven – President of the Northwest Screenwriters Guild and Awarded Screenwriter. Carrie Wachob – Film maker and Awarded Screenwriter. Siena – International Screenwriters Association Fellowship Screenwriter. Kim Hornsby – Bestselling Author, Sold & Optioned Screenwriter.

Does your marketing copy earn its keep? This two-hour session hits loglines and blurbs head-on with a hard look at the language of hooks and high concept. We'll unpack the knack of boiling any project into words that close the sale, before and after publication. You’ll learn to summarize your story’s strongest selling points and leave with dynamic promo language that sells your stories.

Do you, like many writers, struggle to capture the essence of your project in a single line? In this seminar, Ellen offers tools you can use immediately to craft a clear and powerful premise line-- your first and most important pitch tool. Plus, practical tips on effective pitching techniques, including the one simple thing that changes everything. This is a participatory seminar. Questions welcome.

Plot, whether in fiction or film, is not a structural device into which characters are inserted. Nor will characters merely behaving in an interesting way magically generate a plot. In this three-hour intensive workshop, award-winning author David Corbett (The Art of Character, The Compass of Character) will guide students in an exploration of how character generates structure, not the reverse. We’ll examine how to link inner needs with the outer goals and ambitions of the story to ensure character drives the action, not the reverse. Finally, we’ll see how the characters’ pursuit of their need-driven ambitions can create conflict, trigger meaningful action with profound stakes, and prompt the kinds of insights – whether on the part of the characters or the reader/audience – that produce thematic richness, dramatic tension, and moral resonance.

It’s no secret that the current TV industry has exciting possibilities for writers and that agents, producers and executives are all looking for original pilots. If you’ve got a feature script, a play, novel, short story, or a stand-up act, it could have a second life as a TV series. In this practical masterclass, Ellen identifies the essential differences between a single story narrative and a pilot, and she gives you the keys to transform your story into an engine for a lot of stories—in other words, a series pilot. PLUS Ellen gives you a breakdown of a series proposal (aka “bible”). BONUS: She reveals the absolute best tool to beat your inner critic and get your script written! You don’t have existing material to adapt? But you do have an unfinished project or maybe an idea for a pilot? That’s enough, this workshop will set you on track to develop it. Questions and Live participation encouraged.

You wrote a screenplay. Or at least a draft that might be anywhere from a vomit first draft to a polished masterpiece. Now what? In this class you'll learn how to support your work as a screenwriter by taking the next step towards the business of marketing and hyping your work. If you're in it to win it, you need to know how to take those next steps towards getting your name and work out there to managers, agents, producers and studio execs, all to support your work and play the Hollywood game. Kim Hornsby, an awarded, sold, optioned screenwriter will talk about contests, your brand, networking, querying, pitching and developing your business as a screenwriter that will be taken seriously. Don't miss this class if you're serious about taking your scripts to the next level, whether features or scripts for TV.