How To Keep The Stakes High In Your Story With The Emmy-Nominated Writers Of THE HANDMAID'S TALE
Summary
Learn how you can keep the stakes high at all times in your screenplays from the Emmy-nominated writers of the critically acclaimed series THE HANDMAID'S TALE
PLUS! You'll receive a downloadable copy of the pilot script for THE HANDMAID'S TALE!
Do you ever wonder why you are so drawn to your favorite series and films? What is it about the story that hooks you and keeps you glued to the screen? What makes you fear for your favorite characters while hoping they accomplish their goals and defeat their foes?
While there are a number of facets that make a story compelling - nuanced characters, solid world building, and sound story structure to name a few - there is one fundamental aspect of storytelling that keeps audiences engaged: maintaining high stakes. If you’ve ever heard the term “raise the stakes” you’re familiar with the notion of putting your characters in situations that provide the greatest risk if they do not accomplish their goal. While obvious examples of high stakes can be seen in most action films (i.e. defusing the bomb, saving the planet, winning the war), high stakes don’t need to be existential or life threatening; rather, the stakes are as big as their meaning to the characters.
While the stakes can vary from story to story, it is critical that you, the writer, maintain high stakes for your characters no matter what you are writing. However, how can you create high stakes and maintain them throughout the course of your story? How can your characters face their stakes in a way that is meaningful and doesn’t feel cheap to the audience? How can you milk the conflict for as long as possible to draw out the tension?
Here to answer all these questions and teach how to keep the stakes high in your writing are John Herrera and Nina Fiore, Emmy-nominated writers and producers on Hulu’s critically acclaimed series THE HANDMAID’S TALE. John and Nina are instrumental in keeping audiences engaged in the show and are excited to share their screenwriting knowledge with the Stage 32 community. John and Nina have also written on BLOOM, a new show for Netflix that will be coming soon - and on USA’s THE PURGE, Syfy’s NIGHTFLYERS, BLOOD DRIVE, ALPHAS, and EUREKA.
PLUS! You will receive a copy of the pilot script for THE HANDMAID'S TALE.
If you’re a screenwriter looking to tell an engaging story that will keep your audience begging for more, this webinar is a must!
What You'll Learn
- The Most Important Question: “Why Do We Care?”
- “We” – the audience cares because you care
- Why does the main character care?
- The 4 Key Elements In Raising The Stakes
- DRIVE
- POV
- PARAMETERS
- EXPECTATION
- Surprising Your Audience
- Don’t ever cheat them
- Information, revelation is your friend
- Make your audience comfortable by giving them a lot of information
- Play into their expectations
- Trapping Your Characters
- The bigger trouble they get into, the better
- Make sure you get them out according to your own parameters/rules
- Crafting Villains
- Keep them smarter than your main character
- What is their weakness? Probably emotional
- Your villains are external parameters
- Don’t cheat to get around them
- Final Tips & Tricks
- 5 things to do to combat story fatigue
- Your #1 job- Ways to put Entertaining first
- Q&A With John & Nina
Who Should Attend
All levels of filmmakers (advanced, intermediate and beginner) looking to developing their original stories and maintaining audience engagement can benefit from this class.
All levels of showrunners (advanced, intermediate and beginner) looking to learn how to sustain tension and stakes over multiple episodes and seasons.
All levels of screenwriters (advanced, intermediate and beginner) looking to enhance their storytelling skills and create compelling narratives with high stakes would benefit from attending the class.
Producers who want to learn from the Emmy-nominated writers' approach to storytelling and audience engagement.
Actors who want to study the success for the Emmy-nominated approach to storytelling.
Executive
Nina Fiore is an Emmy-nominated writer and producer on Hulu’s THE HANDMAID'S TALE where she collaborates with writing partner, John Herrera. After The Handmaid’s Tale, Nina and John wrote on BLOOM, a new show for Netflix that will be coming soon. She and John have also worked on USA’s THE PURGE, Syfy’s NIGHTFLYERS, BLOOD DRIVE, ALPHAS, and EUREKA. Additionally, Nina and John have sold their pilots PLAYERS and DANTE'S INFERNO (the latter co-written with Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris) to CW and Freeform, respectively, and an adaptation of Melissa Lenhardt’s genre-bending, feminist western novel, HERSEY, with MGM. Nina also co-wrote the movie NANCY DREW and THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE for Warner Brothers and is currently adapting a true-life feature story about the latter days of the Bosnian-Serb conflict of the 1990’s. Before becoming a TV writer, Nina was a script coordinator and writer’s assistant on EUREKA, SLEEPER CELL, THE L WORD. Born in the Bronx to a Puerto Rican mother and a Sicilian father, Nina spent most of her formative years surrounded by an excess of personality.
John Herrera is an Emmy-nominated writer and producer on Hulu’s THE HANDMAID'S TALE where he collaborates with writing partner, Nina Fiore. After The Handmaid’s Tale, John and Nina wrote on BLOOM, a new show for Netflix that will be coming soon, and they have also worked together on USA’s THE PURGE, Syfy’s NIGHTFLYERS, BLOOD DRIVE, ALPHAS, and EUREKA. Additionally, they have sold their pilots PLAYERS and DANTE'S INFERNO (the latter co-written with Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris) to CW and Freeform, respectively, and an adaptation of Melissa Lenhardt’s genre-bending, feminist western novel, HERESY, with MGM. John also co-wrote the movie NANCY DREW and THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE for Warner Brothers and is currently adapting a true-life feature story about the latter days of the Bosnian-Serb conflict of the 1990’s. Before becoming a TV writer, John was a script coordinator on EUREKA, CALIFORNICATION, and SLEEPER CELL.
Credits
