Misguided Desires and Misbegotten Yearnings

How often are we told that the first and most important thing to identify for any character is what she wants? And yet, how often in the stories we read, are characters unaware of, confused about, resistant to or even terrified by what they want? How do we structure and stage the conflict in such stories? In this workshop, award-winning author David Corbett (The Art of Character, The Compass of Character) will guide participants in an exploration of the great variety of stories in which characters pursue the wrong things for misguided reasons, the wrong thing for the right reasons, the right thing for questionable reasons, etc., with an emphasis on recognizing such stories as a journey of discovery (whether fully embraced or not), and the key role “success through failure” plays in structuring such stories.

Difficulty level: all_levels

Speaker(s)

• David Corbett

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