Screenwriting Workshop a Success!

March 29, 2008 – WriteGirl’s March 2008 workshop on Character Development and Monologue took place at the American Film Institute in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz. Working actors and screenwriters, including Academy-award winning screenwriter Diablo Cody attended.

The WriteGirl blog asked Tanja Laden (TL) and her mentee Karen T. (KT) to give their impressions of the day. Tanja is a freelance writer and full-time video editor, who graduated from Occidental College. Karen attends Eagle Rock High. Using what they learned, the duo crafted the following “dialogue” at one of their regular meetings.

Women from all fields of Writing

KT: The location gave the inspiration to write anything. That is what we as writers want. So kudos to WriteGirl for that. The exercise that used characters from Spoon River Anthology (by Edgar Lee Masters) at the beginning of the workshop was a clever method to inspire us to begin writing.

TL: I was inspired by that writing exercise as well. I managed to eek out a few creative screenplay ideas of my own, which was surprising considering my utter lack of interest in screenwriting in general! It was especially amazing to see the girls’ works acted out onstage. Karen, how did it feel to know that your work might be performed at the end of the day?

KT: We mentees were shuffling into the theater and murmuring in excitement, hoping our pieces would be performed. WriteGirl founder Keren Taylor and the workshop leaders sat in a row, waiting to give feedback. The actors came up and performed their hysterical, tragic, love-struck, or damn plain original scenes. Bringing actors we recognized to perform our scenarios was brilliant. It is a big difference to see your own creation acted out onstage.

TL: Your piece was the only tragedy that was performed. Were you impressed with the actors’ performance of it?

KT: It was very good. The actress who played my insane character acted great. I was trembling in my own seat the whole time! It was cool.

From the Daily News article on March 30, 2008 by Connie Llanos: “[Diablo Cody] said that Saturday’s experience was probably just as enriching for her as it was for the girls. ‘It would have been awesome to have something like this as a kid,’ Cody said.”

 

WriteGirls make news, and blog too.

April 19, 2008 – WriteGirl returned to the Expo Center for a Journalism workshop. Presenters included Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison, blogger Colleen Wainwright, KNBC-TV Executive Producer Rebecca Nieto, and Adrianna Dunn of HuffingtonPost.com.

Part of the day focused on writing blogs. Here are excerpts from blogs about a wide variety of subjects that girls starting writing at the workshop.

Janelle F., 11th grade, wrote:

“Artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet often painted landscapes with vivid colors of fields and haystacks. I’m a writer and artist, and if I looked out my window, the scenery would be far from Van Gogh’s brightly colored corn fields. I would find a field of packed, paint peeled houses. Instead of green shady trees, I would run into industrial buildings and cars.

If I were to paint what I thought Los Angeles should be, instead of deep green hues, I would pour on globs of gray, black, and brown paint. The only color comes from the dotted roofs of cars. Endless streams of cars have now become the modern river.”

Toree B., 10th grade, wrote:

“Many children are abused by a relative or someone close to them. It can be physically, emotionally, or verbally. It hurts a child dramatically and usually affects them in a negative way.

I was a victim of verbal abuse and I can tell you, it hurts when someone is beating down on you for the simplest reasons. So, don’t let anyone abuse you and never abuse anyone else.”

Mariah D., 12th grade, wrote:

“At my high school, we have a unity club. The basis of the club is to accept and promote respect for all forms of sexual orientation. The club is one of the constantly popular booths at our annual Club Faire every year. How wonderful, right? Well it’s my senior year and our prom is only a month and a half away.

I am set on who I wish to share this experience with – my hilarious friend, Marcus. But a guy named Robert who wants to bring his partner Greg, or a girl named Jennifer wants to bring her partner Tasha, are stuck. They are stuck in an agonizing situation, for they cannot bring a same sex partner to the prom.

Our school has the nerve to celebrate its diversity, but not when prom night creeps around the corner. So much for the “Home of Scholars and Champions.”

– Anthea Raymond, WriteGirl Volunteer

 

Professional fiction writers’ lessons from WriteGirl’s Fiction Workshop – January 12th, 2008

At the January 12th, 2008 Fiction Workshop in the EPICC at USC, WriteGirl mentees, mentors, and volunteers were lucky enough to be graced by the wisdom and experience of fiction writers Gina Nahai and Janet Fitch.

The WriteGirl Workshop Team separated everyone into two groups. Each located in a separate room, Ms. Nahai took one room’s group and Ms. Fitch, the other.

Ms. Fitch began her lesson with an exercise: take ten minutes to write one sentence without stopping.For this exercise there are two rules:

1. Your pen must not stop for ten whole minutes

2. You must not use periods

Reactions to this exercise at first appeared to be utter frustration! Alas, isn’t that the idea? Once we passed the 5 minute mark, all pens in the room seemed to be moving fluidly, without faltering.

Next, Ms. Fitch moved on to her top five lessons for fiction writers:

1. Write for the 5 smartest people you know. Assume that the writer will understand you.

2.Write in scenes. A scene is when someone or something enters and changes the course of the story.

3. Vary the construction of your sentences. Make some long with dependent clauses to deepen the meaning. Make some short for punctuation.

4. Do not use cliches.

5.Don’t buy things on credit cards. Live within your means so that you don’t have to take a job that will distract from writing.

Gina Nahai’s number one tip:”Have faith! Writing takes a lot of faith!”

Gina Nahai is the author of Moonlight on the Avenues of Faith, Cry of the Peacock, and Sunday’s Silence.

Janet Fitch is the author of the acclaimed book White Oleander which was adapted for the screen in 2002. She has also written Paint it Black and Kicks.

 

A recap through the eyes of WriteGirl’s writers – January 12th, 2008 Fiction Workshop

What a fantastic workshop that was on Saturday. We counted a total of 130 women and girls in that sun-drenched room! Janet Fitch and Gina Nahai were truly very special guests, offering great writing tips and inspiring experiments. And we have a new tradition at the workshops – the WriteGirl Book Exchange. Mentors and mentees brought fiction books that they wanted to give away, and then our mentees had a chance to pick out a book or two to take home! It was a huge hit with the girls, so we are going to continue this at our monthly workshops.We got to hear from 3 different WriteGirl alumnis about their college experiences, since they were still on break here in LA. It is very exciting to see WriteGirl grow and blossom.

And now, for your listening pleasure, you MUST hear some of these threads from the end of the day:

“I loved the whole Zen writing experiment. I finally found the atmosphere I need to write freely.”

“Although this was moments ago, I really liked hearing about life after WriteGirl from the inspirational alumni girls.”

“It is important to have your own voice – there is no one else like you!”

“Don’t buy things on credit cards!”

“I love the dependent clause fun we had.”

“Today I felt like it was okay to write about things that would’ve been ‘forbidden’ anywhere else. That was nice.”

“I LOVED writing the ten minute sentence because it was a real aerobic exercise for my brain.”

“I enjoyed the tranquil relaxing atmosphere of the last writing exercise…it gave me ideas on how to make time for writing!”

“I am excited to let the characters I met today roam around with me for a while.”

“I learned that although I have been writing only poetry for a while because I thought I was not good at anything else, that is not true. I am good at fiction.”