Finding The Heart of Your Story

The biggest thing missing in a lot of stories is the heart of the story. The emotional core, life lesson, comfort, or enlightenment that the audience takes away from the story. Not the plot, but the theme, the message that glues the audience to the plot. People watch movies and read books to feel something. Sometimes people want to laugh, cry, be scared, but whatever the case people are looking for an emotional experience when they dive into a story.

This course will help us find that emotional core of our writing. What is that message that you so badly would like to put out into the world? What have you experienced from your own life that you know would help others if you put it out there in your art of writing? We’ll focus on finding the theme and developing our character's journey to define that message. This will be mostly seminar style, with lecture and discussion, with a couple in class exercises to help discover the heart of your story.