
Learn how to turn insights about common and specific character traits into a complete screenplay, taking the story from scratch to a fully realized screenplay.
Learn to turn a blank page into a functioning script by crafting a concise logline that captures the story’s nucleus, through line, and world, then expand to a synopsis.
Create a one-page synopsis that captures the story, its logline, and core transformations from beginning to end. Explore cause-and-effect, information discrepancy, and rising stakes to reach a climactic, karmic resolution.
Explore Joseph Campbell’s monomyth through Star Wars Episode IV as a map of back story, inciting incident, call to adventure, tests, the dragon’s castle, and the final fight.
Learn to write the story in prose to immerse readers in your characters, then translate to screenplay with clear visuals, strong verbs, and emotional impact.
Transform your prose into screenplay format by following industry guidelines and using Final Draft. Master slug lines, interior/exterior, concise scene descriptions, one-image-per-sentence writing, and capitalized character introductions to convey visuals.
Rewrite your script after finishing, start with a table read to cut what doesn't work, compress beats, and tune every setup to payoff through the protagonist.
Learn to organize screenwriting in a practical Excel workflow—from log and theme to characters, causal chain, and logline—emphasizing structure, transformation, and audience impact.
Welcome to the art of storytelling!
My name is Fredrik Hiller, and I have been a writer, director and actor for almost three decades. My ambition is to provide you with all the principles and techniques you need to create compelling stories. This class is primarily geared towards cinematic storytelling, but the principles and techniques presented here can just as easily be applied to writing plays or literature. My hope is that you, after completing this series, will see that creating compelling stories is not achieved by luck or magic — but, instead, by tangible and specific principles and methods, all of which you will learn in this class. The board game Othello boasts the slogan “one minute to learn, a lifetime to master”. I would never propose that the principles of storytelling only take a minute to learn — but you will find that the principles of storytelling are simple, clear and concise. Learning to employ them masterfully, however — that does take a lifetime.
I have divided the entire course into three parts: 1) the aspects common to all characters, 2) the aspects specific to each character, and 3) the modus operandi of creating a compelling story from scratch. In this first part of the series, we take a helicopter view on the art of storytelling — we are looking at the playing field, and its contestants, from above.
Welcome to the third part — the modus operandi of creating a compelling story from scratch!
All our classes include:
Lesson material
Questions and tip
Chapter exams
Helpful links
Rich video clips