Inventing Original Stories from First Principles.

What is a Story? Know your story will work, and create unlimited story ideas.

3.90 (39 reviews)

Udemy

platform

English

language

Creativity

What you will learn

Identify the essential features of ANY story

Recognize a complete story idea

Identify what's missing from, and complete, a story idea

Incorporate your theme or message effectively and subtly in a story

Invent unlimited original story ideas

Why take this course?

This is a course about stories, and about storytelling, over 6 lectures - an intro, four lessons, and a conclusion, by the end of which you will be able to take the analogy I have chosen - more - you'll be able to picture it well enough that you'll be able to carry it with you wherever you go, and use it at any time.

Through this course, you will discover the truth that underlies all stories - and that will enable you to trigger the reader's imagination, provoke the reader's desire to read your story.

But also, you'll be able to invent new stories whenever you need them. No more searching the web or mining your mind for story prompts. You'll always be only a few simple questions and a comparison with a child's toy away from a great story idea.

Is it "child's play?"

No. You're going to have to engage yourself both imaginatively and intellectually - but that's a core skill for an author.

This course will help you to see what you're already doing right - understand why your best stories work so well.

This course will help you see what you're doing wrong - understand why some stories just don't seem to want to get written.

Screenshots

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Reviews

Helene

July 28, 2022

Made me think in a new way. As usual. HD has a way of describing things that make me think. Often in a completely new way. One that helps.

Thirunavukarasu

June 21, 2020

This is my first Udemy course. I think it lacked a lot of specifics for a good story writing exercise. Although the cup and ball and string analogy will remain with me, I will wonder how do I translate that into a real story. I would say this is intended for advance storytellers maybe.

Paul

January 23, 2020

The course is well organized, and the teacher, Harry, is engaging. His analogy is really quite clever; however, I found, even with the handout, it remains a little abstract. Of course, it may simply be that I am a somewhat obtuse and will need to chew on it more before it registers clearly.

Lesley

December 31, 2019

The lecturer is interesting and intriguing. This Makes my learning feel comfortable to me. Optimistic.

Kanchi

August 4, 2019

hes a genius! An artist. He simplifies the course by giving you a framework and still leaves you creative.

Clyde

July 23, 2019

I have gone through the countless number of courses on how to come up with ideas. I also use story prompts from various place online and off, but none have helped me to see when I have a viable story idea and this course has done that for me.

Matt

March 24, 2018

Like a good story, this course does not feed you information. It leads you down a path of discovery, seduces you with a simple analogy then makes you think about it in depth. At the end of the course you will have a clearer idea of how to get from what you want to write about to a good story that will compel the reader to follow it to a satisfying conclusion.

January 12, 2018

there were some good insights that I appreciated but the analogy of the ball and cup got rather tedious and I found my attention wandering at times. Nevertheless I think these lessons are worth a listen.

Gabriel

July 28, 2017

Harry does have a unique approach to explain what a story is but it's clear and easily understandable.

Peter

March 13, 2017

Harry does an excellent job of providing authors with insightful questions for story development. He develops a simple and clear metaphor for understanding story components and then shows how to effectively apply that metaphor to understand your own story. Good material in short digestible bits.

Peter

October 15, 2016

Harry presents a very interesting, unforseeable and revealing conceptual idea for understanding stories. This course will reward a second viewing, and will benefit my storytelling. I also enjoy his unique quirky communication style. He is deeply intelligent and has a talent for reframing authorial/writing issues into illuminating analogies.

Donah

September 27, 2016

The cup & ball metaphor worked for me because you mentioned the "reader experience." My internal editor watched me as Reader watch you as Author leading me along with the action and description of the cup and ball. You are absolutely right when you say that the Reader can't look away once shown the cup and ball. Thank you for this story well told, and the handout of further story examples.

Ben

September 20, 2016

This course is very helpful for getting your head around a difficult concept: what exactly is a story? It's not about frameworks, or outlines, or plots, it's about poking around the edges of this unit of meaning we call a story in such a way that you get a clearer picture of the thing than you had before.

Sherrie

September 15, 2016

If you are a visual learner you must take this course. If you are not you still should take this course! I loved how he broke down why many stories do (or don't!) work and provided a very visual and therefore simple way of knowing why, as well as then being able to keep that in mind as you do write to keep your stories a story rather than a jumble of beautiful words at best and just a jumble at worse!

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