WHEN Wednesday, May 31, 7-10 p.m.   WHO This seminar works well for all levels of fiction writers, memoirists, playwrights, screenwriters, and writers of creative non-fiction. WHERE offices of mediabistro.com West Hollywood, Calif. PRICE $65 ($50 for ) more info

Course Details

Good plot comes from good characters. But creating compelling characters can be a challenge for many writers. Many writing seminars focus first on plot and language, neglecting the foremost need for audience-connecting characters. In this seminar we'll explore how to create characters that readers and viewers can root for, maybe revile, but, in any case, see as a part of themselves.

In this 3 hour seminar students will study:

• Movie clips and script excerpts, from such films as The Apartment, Atlantic City, Marty, Moonstruck, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and Three Days of the Condor
• Plays excerpts from such writers as Herb Gardner, Neil Simon, and Tennessee Williams 
• Short story and novel excerpts from such writers as Roddy Doyle, Dana Johnson, Bernard Malumud, Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger, Carson McCullers, and William Trevor

• How plot can be created from character
• Practical techniques for creating fully realized characters
• In-class writing exercises
• Excerpts brought to class from students' own work, as applicable 

Instructor Bio

Jeff Bens's Courses

Jeff Bens is the author Albert, Himself and has just finished a story collection, In a Dream, A Girl Meets a Boy. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The Oxford American, The Sun, New England Review, New York Stories, Arts and Letters, Tiferet, Kestrel, Inkwell, Vignette, and in anthologies from Milkweed Editions and Avisson Books.

Jeff directs the creative writing program at Manhattanville College and teaches fiction, narrative, and screenwriting. He is contributing editor for the national literary magazine Inkwell. He was also a founding faculty member of the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and his short documentary film, Fatman's, has been screened in festivals around the world and on NC-PBS.