This is a course designed for writers looking to create screenplays, stage plays and teleplays for one-hour television shows. Paramount in this effort, we will focus on an approach which is necessary in all dramatic writing -- the importance of conflict. How we define, pinpoint and create interesting, unusual characters. How structure is the backbone of a dramatic piece, and how narrative drive and the understanding of the elements of the construction of a story are critical to any piece of dramatic writing. The course will include insights and address the specific individual demands inherent in the writing of screenplays, stage plays and one-hour television shows. The individual requirements of each discipline will be addressed, as well as the specific look of each form of dramatic writing. The instructor will arrange for individual, one-on-one sessions with each student above and beyond classroom instruction.
We will delve into what makes for a compelling story; how precise, pointed characters will inform your story, and how the unexpected is expected in the drive of each and every story.
Beginners are welcome and have been an essential part of this workshop. I’ve seen people with little or no experience become really strong storytellers in a matter of weeks.
Workshop Facts & Stats
This workshop will be held on Fridays, from 2:00 pm, Eastern time, to 4:00 pm.
The class will meet for a total of six weeks, then we’ll take a week off to decompress, than another workshop will start.
The first class of the next block will begin on Friday, September 5, 2025.
The fee for a block of six classes is $225.
Occasional scholarships will be offered.
Testimonials
Bill’s recent students have won high accolades. One playwright was a semifinalist at the Ashland New Plays Festival, an offshoot of the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Another was a finals winner for a one-hour TV pilot through the well-known Blue Cat competition. A writing team became semi-finalists in the 2024 ScreenCraft Spring Pitch contest. And one was a semifinalist in the hugely renowned Academy Nicholl Fellowship, which is overseen by the people who run the Oscars – the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“William Bigelow has influenced my writing: three features and two shorts. Collectively, he read 100's of scenes at least twice while also providing thorough and insightfully generous comments (from structural considerations to dialogue suggestions to larger plot queries). His on-the-mark questions, sometimes difficult, indicated that my writing was closely considered which eventually helped shape what these screenplays needed to become. Isn’t this what it’s about?”
Kevin McLellan
Author of: Sky. Pond. Mouth. (winner of the 2024 Granite State Poetry Prize and finalist for the Thom Gunn Award for Poetry);in other words you/ (winner of the 2022 Hilary Tham Capital Collection); Ornithology; Hemispheres; and Round Trip
Videographer of: Dick (best short form at the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival); Exordium (with Laura Knott); It Fell; and others.