REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work

Screenplay plot construction and story development tool that turns your meandering story into riveting dramatic action.

4.60 (25 reviews)
Udemy
platform
English
language
Creativity
category
instructor
REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work
1,115
students
1 hour
content
Feb 2021
last update
FREE
regular price

What you will learn

How to use Reverse Cause and Effect to construct and develop a script. Once you've sketched out your story's basics, you start at the ending and work backward, chaining back from each effect to its cause, creating a tight forward progression such that A causes B which causes C. It enables you to stitch together the spine of your story with just its major building blocks. Working from the general to the particular, you gradually develop more detail as it becomes necessary. The ability to separate the Necessary from the Unnecessary is a crucial skill for the dramatist, freeing your from the profusion of unnecessary detail. This is a complex, specialized skill that requires training and this class will give you that know-how. The ability to strip your plot down to its core is like radically pruning a tree, exposing its trunk and main branches, allowing you to get at the script's essentials and make them work. Aristotle said that in constructing a plot, a writer "should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail."

Why take this course?

This is one of the top-rated scriptwriting tools in Hollywood. By constructing your story backwards, you stitch together a tight sequence of cause and effect which gives you the spine of your story. It separates the Necessary from the Unnecessary which is a crucial skill for a scriptwriter because the Unnecessary bogs down scripts and kills them. It gives you an objective look at what you’ve created so far, not easy when you’re immersed in a story. It helps you fill logic holes in your story as you chain backwards through its cause and effect. And it allows you to gradually develop the story's detail as it become necessary, freeing you from the profusion of unnecessary detail that’s always threatening to flood in. Reverse Cause and Effect is a daily workhorse of plot construction and story development that enables you to help dramatize your story as you build an increasingly-detailed outline, starting with the overall story, then down to the act level, the sequence level, and the scene level which enables you to write each scene. By constantly separating the Necessary from the Unnecessary, you assemble your story from only that which is Necessary, while constantly excluding that which is Unnecessary. In this way you get a tight forward flow to your story which is central to making a script work. To deepen your training you can get my free 23 page eBook on Reverse Cause and Effect at my website script.kitchen


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REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work - Screenshot_01REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work - Screenshot_02REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work - Screenshot_03REVERSE CAUSE & EFFECT: The Secret to Making Scripts Work - Screenshot_04

Reviews

Leslie
July 14, 2023
Jeff teaches highly practical and advanced story techniques that lead to concrete advanced-level work. Super useful and inspiring!
Martin
April 17, 2022
Given that this is the FREE course I must say TOP of the LINE !!! Only ca. 20 minutes in the course exceeds my wildest expectations. I wish I had known that a lot earlier. Would have saved me a lot of time and grief. Sure it is an advertisement for the payed course, but it is well worth the time and I seriously consider purchasing the paid course.

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Related Topics

3773884
udemy ID
1/14/2021
course created date
6/15/2021
course indexed date
Angelcrc Seven
course submited by