Happy Friday! Tonight is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. New beginnings are always fun, whatever your religious persuasion. As a writer, I always appreciate the symbolism that accompanies religious events. The holiday celebrates the birth of the world, not just a new year. My grandparents, Bertie and Charlie Schwartz were both religious Jews, and together wrote a book, Faith Through Reason, that delves into the principles of religion through the prism of reason.
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Create a Hierarchy of Villains–FREE Webinar
Join my free class!
Wednesday, September 16, 2020 
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EST
via ZOOM
We’ve used storytelling to understand our experiences since the first cavemen sat around a campfire. Making meaning of our lives through storytelling is our first need once our basic survival is secured. We tell stories through our conversations. In dramatic writing and fiction. These conversations become scenes, which are the basic units of storytelling. whether for a film, TV pilot or book. A scene is made of dialogue and action. Each scene must be complete in itself, like a short story, and a good scene will have a beginning, middle and end.
In this webinar you’ll learn:
1. How to structure a good scene.
2. How to use dialogue to reveal character and drive the action of the scene.
3. How to make your dialogue sound like an overheard conversation.
Please email me at marilyn@marilynhorowitz.com
Hope, Optimism, and a Day of Remembrance/New Webinar!
Happy Friday! I have returned to New York after three months in Fire Island, which not to put too fine a point on it, is paradise. My block has four restaurants and an open-air market full of plants and shrubs. There is a good feeling of optimism and hope. Hair salons are open, health clubs are open, and clothing stores are open. There’s an air of optimism, and yet the city seems more calm than usual. I took the subway and found it clean, and pretty empty. I think New York will
Webinar Re-Cap-Good Characters Can Be Villains and Obstacles/Joke On a Stick
Happy Friday! I’m so excited about my new episode, number 35 of Jokeonastick.com. We all need to laugh! Please enjoy, and subscribe for free to get four new animated jokes every Friday delivered to your inbox! This week, I held a seminar, Create a Hierarchy of Villains. I had so much fun, and want to thank everyone who joined. During the seminar, we began by reviewing The 4 Magic Questions of Screenwriting. The key is not to judge your villain or obstacle, and to treat them with
Create a Compelling Villain Webinar Review/ New webinar: Hierarchy of Villains This Wednesday
Happy Friday! This week’s webinar was so much fun. Great class members, and insightful and provocative questions that have inspired me to hold another free webinar this coming Wednesday: Building on last week’s webinar: Create a Compelling Villain (contact me if you’d like a copy of the zoom recording), we’ll review the 4MQS, the exercises, and move on. Stories need more than one villain or obstacle, and using additional characters to create obstacles is as important as adding great
