No Zombies, No Dragons, No Serial Killers: The Teleplay as Literature and Pedagogies of Contemporary Screenwriting

The workshop explores pedagogies of screenwriting and techniques for developing original scripts with students. Focusing on unique and personal storytelling, the workshop discusses how to eschew television tropes and knockoffs that students too often fall back on—zombies, dungeons and dragons, serial killers, multiple personality disorder, and sudden last-page death by car crash or cancer (to name a few of the most popular ones!) The workshop pins these techniques to contemporary television scripts that both work with personal and contemplative narrative and adhere to classic dramatic form.
Underlying the workshop are broader, theoretical questions on teaching television writing and developing scripted content within academic study: What makes a good television script and what makes one literary? In the third Golden Age of television, what is literary visual language and how does it both work with and redefine classical dramatic modes? What is the role of new media and the scripts of new storytelling formats (including web series and video games) in this literary landscape?