Last Wednesday, I met the students with whom I’m going to share my writing experience. They are the newly selected group for « Master 2 écritures audiovisuelles » in Nanterre university.

First, I asked them to tell their biggest blunder. They are fun, witty, and daring. We had a good laugh and some starting points for short films.

For my first time as a scriptwriting teacher, I decided I would focus on practice, and help the students write a bunch of projects they can hand to readers as soon as they get their degree.

The very first thing I thought useful to share is the basic exercice of telling a story through one sentence : « A character wants to achieve something but he/she comes across obstacles. »

And the basic three-act-structure : beginning, middle, end.

As a practice, they had to imagine a story based on three pictures they could arrange in whatever order they wished. They would then read their work and we would discuss how to develop the emerging story.

Have a try!