CLASS 58: Organic Writing: How to Abandon Your Outline and Elevate Your Story

Staying responsive to your story’s development as you uncover it is vital. In this seminar, you’ll learn how to write a scene even when you don’t know how it will end, how the three-act paradigm can undermine your story and shackle your characters, and what to focus on instead to shape a powerful, poignant and resonant story. We’ll also cover the four questions you can ask of any scene to solve any plot problem you might ever have.

Steven James is a critically acclaimed author of nineteen novels and numerous nonfiction books that have sold more than 1 million copies. His books have won or been shortlisted for dozens of national and international awards. In addition, his stories and articles have appeared in more than eighty different publications, including The New York Times. He is also a popular keynote speaker and professional storyteller with a master's degree in storytelling. Since 1996 he has appeared more than two thousand times at events spanning the globe, presenting his stories and teaching the principles of storytelling to writers, speakers, teachers, and leaders. When he's not writing or speaking, he hosts the weekly podcast The Story Blender, on which he interviews some of the world's leading writers and storytellers. In 2020 he was inducted into the Christy Hall of Fame for excellence in fiction writing. Publishers Weekly has called him "[a] master storyteller at the peak of his game.” 

www.stevenjames.net