Making Genre Work For You

Making Genre Work For You

Genre is the best-kept secret of professional writing. If you are having problems writing or selling your scripts, whatever their subject matter, genre is probably the problem.

This popular series of six evenings will help you clarify your genre and deliver your story in surprising and satisfying ways. You can book selected evenings or the whole course, for a thorough fine-tuning of your skills.

A must-do workshop.

The course

From Truffaut to Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman to Charlie Kaufman, Dennis Potter to Pedro Almodovar, the best writers and directors in film and TV have all been expert in genre. In their hands, genre becomes a subtle and flexible creative tool - it is one which all need to master.

In each evening session we will focus on one genre or a related group of genres, to help you clarify your understanding of genres and how they can be used to act on the viewer. We will also help you tease out which genre or genres are at work in your own projects, and give advice and feedback on how to strengthen their effect and make them work to the advantage of the script.

The sessions

The first session introduces the key concepts of genre, including form, type and style, and looks at different fiction forms that are becoming increasingly popular in 21st Century cinema and TV. We then focus on the Thriller genre and see what elements it demands and how it combines to make successful cross-genre film and TV thrillers of a wide variety of kinds.

Session Two
RomCom

RomCom gives us a chance to survey the comedy field and look at the three key types of comedy - what they require and how writers need to approach each of the three in a very different way. We discuss how RomCom can be mangled in the wrong hands, and how a writer who understands the genre can create great, satisfying enjoyable cinema.

Session Three
Horror and Noir

Writing a high intensity serious story can be difficult for a writer who is not clear precisely which genre is being used. Approached in the right way, each genre can yield rich and exciting stories. We will discuss the similarities and differences between Horror and Noir and how the writer must satisfy very different audience expectations.

Session Four
Social Drama and Coming Of Age

With Social Drama we move to a genre that has remained popular for decades, both in commercial and artistic terms, while offering the widest variety, from Personal Drama to Medical Drama to Road Movie and Passage Rite/Coming of Age. If you are writing for Multiplex, Indie cinema or modern TV series or one-off, or indeed have a Romantic (or other Drama) subplot to another kind of story, you need to know about this very character-based genre.

Session Five
Gangster and Detective

Some of the greatest and most loved movies and TV series have come from this two-headed genre. We will interrogate the many important features that must be included and investigate the hidden pitfalls that await the unwary.

Session Six
True Story/Historical and Biopic

We finish the series with the exciting challenges of dealing with real life in dramatic form. True and historical stories bring their own advantages, but their special features serve as a useful reflection on the central issues of Genre as a whole and so make a very appropriate subject for summing up the series.