Sunday, October 07, 2007

WOTS Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

OK, in a rush to catch up, here's the skinny on Sunday morning. The two workshops were Who's Zooming Whom by Garth Stein, and Dr. Frankenstein's Character Lab by Craig English.

Garth is a fantastic speaker and was very engaging. His background is in documentary film making and screenwriting. I've found that anyone with a background in the visual arts is a great person to teach writing. They point out how your reader will be visualizing what you write and 'running the movie' through their head. Forget about that at your peril. He also led the class through dramatic structure which is very specific and defined in screenwriting. It is a tremendous help to fiction.

The character lab was primarily about personality types. Craig went through some of the differences between men and women; which we've always known were huge but now science is proving it through research in brain chemistry. Of course, when you put up a white board and encourage the audience to throw out male and female characteristics for a list, you are just asking for trouble. In a good natured way, he got it. His take on personalities was all about attachment theory which is good stuff but way too in depth for this post.

Lunch at Petosa's deli was so-so.

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