To ensure everyone's good health, students in NYC classes must provide proof of full Covid vaccinations (the initial series of Covid vaccines plus at least one booster). We will accept your Covid vaccine card (or a digital scan), a NY State Excelsior digital card, or another form of government-approved proof. We will contact you before class begins about showing us proof. Also, we will require masks in the classrooms and Gotham premises.
More Covid details
Plot 2: Machinations
Plot 2: Machinations is an Intensive, meaning it happens in a short time span (1 day in NYC, or 2 days on Zoom, or 3 weeks Online). The course includes a mixture of lectures and exercises. It’s open to writers of any level. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
If you feel you’re solid with the basics of plot, you may go straight to Plot 2. If you’re in doubt about this, start withPlot 1; it will be valuable even if some of it is review.
Plot is the art of drawing them in, then delivering a sequence of events that grows progressively more interesting and culminates with a killer ending. A good plot is what most readers and audiences crave…and what most writers fear.
Whether you’re working on something true or completely made-up, short or long, we’ll show you how to craft a plot that keeps them rapt from beginning to middle to end.
Plot 1 teaches the basic mechanics of plotting, the things you can’t get far without, such as: desire driving the story, the beginning/middle/end structure, cause and effect, how characters determine which way the plot goes.
Plot 2 teaches the crafty machinations required for expert plotting: the techniques for twisting and turning, intriguing and dazzling, and, most of all, keeping people hooked until the breathtaking finish.
The course sneakily gets you writing in ways you never thought you could write.
Kristi Walsh
biotech executive
Notes
This is a cross-genre course, applicable to any kind of writing that contains storytelling, including nonfiction.
Upcoming Classes
NYC COVID Info
Price
Registration fee $25, paid once per term
3-Week
Online
一个nytime, week-long sessions
Tuition: $165
One-on-One
Tuition: $495
Syllabus
This course gives an overview of the insider tricks of great plotting, in any genre. Course components:
Brief lectures
Writing exercises
Week 1
Time and Tricks:Time—compression and expansion. Flashbacks and framing devices. Suspense. Surprise.
Week 2
Deviations:When to deviate from the plot norms. Multiple protagonists—team, romance, opposing, witness, ensemble. Intriguing structures—organizing principle, unique shapes, unconventional subplots, nonlinear time. Anti-plot.
Week 3
一个Well-Made Thing:Process—brainstorming and outlining. Logic. Pacing. Climax.
Each week students are provided with case studies of great stories, as well as notes on the working out of a from-scratch plot.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
Teachers
Tommy Jenkins
Tommy Jenkins wrote the short film "Come Back to the Five and Dime Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton," which won Best Comedy at the Polo Ralph Lauren/New Line Columbia Film Festival, and his short film "Obit" has been screened at several film festivals. He authored a chapter on Plot in Gotham's bookWriting Movies(Bloomsbury USA), and he is the author ofMovie Trivia Quiz BookandThe TV Trivia Book(Barnes & Noble). He is also the author of the graphic novelDrawing the Vote(艾布拉姆斯ComicArts)。他在哥伦比亚大学教University and Louisburg College. He holds a BA from UNC at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Film from Columbia University.
Read more
Tommy Jenkins
Tommy Jenkins
wrote the short film "Come Back to the Five and Dime Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton," which won Best Comedy at the Polo Ralph Lauren/New Line Columbia Film Festival, and his short film "Obit" has been screened at several film festivals. He authored a chapter on Plot in Gotham's bookWriting Movies(Bloomsbury USA), and he is the author ofMovie Trivia Quiz BookandThe TV Trivia Book(Barnes & Noble). He is also the author of the graphic novelDrawing the Vote(艾布拉姆斯ComicArts)。他在哥伦比亚大学教University and Louisburg College. He holds a BA from UNC at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Film from Columbia University.
