STORY – Expectations and Objectives

I leave tomorrow morning at 8:00 local time for Vancouver, and the STORY seminar. I’m really looking forward to it.

Something I like to do with seminars of this nature is to set out what I want out of the event; that way, I know if I’m getting what I want, and I can determine if it was worth the time, effort, and expense.

So, what do I want out of this trip?

• A better understanding of the underlying structures of story as put forth in the book. I primarily write short stories, with a single completed novel and half of another novel, and I find that thinking about things as Acts and Scenes and Beats doesn’t come naturally to me.
• A better example of the way the elements discussed in the book work together to form the whole. There are tons of examples of each individual idea in the book, but they’re drawn from a number of different sources to illustrate individual points. The seminar features a stop-and-start viewing of Casablanca to analyze the movie scene-by-scene in light of the principles presented in class.
• Discussion about the various points. Books are great, but a live tutorial session illuminates so many more elements of the material.
• A renewed passion for writing. I’ve been a little bogged down, mentally, and really want this to recharge my batteries and get me excited about writing again.
• Inspiration about the central conflict in a novel I’m working on. I’ve got a good idea for setting, some good characters, some interesting scenes, but no actual PLOT yet.
• See a little of Vancouver. I’ve got most of a day to walk around, and the hotel is near the waterfront, and Chinatown, and Gastown. I’ve never been to Vancouver, so I’ll be a bit of a tourist.
• Have dinner with my cousin. He lives there, and we’re going to a place called Sanafir. Once you get past the annoying (but pretty) intro, it looks like interesting food.

And for those who care about these things, I settled on two spiral-bound notebooks and a set of gel pens.