Writing the Crime-Drama

Event Date: Saturday, May 20, 2017 || Speaker: Jennifer Dornbush || Check-in: 12:30 pm ||

How do you craft a crowd-pleasing TV crime drama or box office thriller? In this workshop you’ll learn foundational principles of crime and mystery writing that will help you ramp up the intrigue, suspense, and thrill of your next project. See more details below:

IMPORTANT:

**The deadline has passed and REGISTRATION is now CLOSED for this event. Please view our calendar for upcoming events.

More details:

This seminar focuses primarily structure, creating better tension, deeper character development, and building successful and suspenseful evidence trails. Prerequisite viewing: Prisoners & Stranger Things

What you’ll learn?

• How to break down a crime story for plot, trails of evidence, and character development
• The 15 story points that give you a killer tight plot
• How to use 6 types of evidence to create solid clue trails
• How to build your story through motive, opportunity and means
• How to use one of the 3 forms of love to raise the stakes
• How to use 10 story tropes to elevate tension and suspense
• How to discover amazing story ideas for your next great crime fiction

Who should attend?

• Writers who want to be more authentic in their voice and story telling
• Writers working on their 1st or 50th crime story
• Writers who want to jump start a new crime story
• Writers who are having trouble making their script stand out
• Writers who want to gain a competitive edge
• Writers who want to elevate their crime writing

Jennifer Dornbush

Jennifer Dornbush is a screenwriter, author, speaker and forensic specialist creating diverse range of stories that shed light on the dark places of the human experience.

Her story creation is bred from a very unsheltered childhood as the daughter of a medical examiner whose office was in her home. She investigated her first fatality, an airplane crash, when she was 10 years old and from there gathered a decade of on-sight experience in death investigation and 360 hours of forensic training through the Forensic Science Academy.

Wanting to share her love of forensics with other storytellers, she scribed non-fiction work, Forensic Speak: How To Write Realistic Crime Dramas, published by Michael Wiese Productions, hailed as a north star to creating authentic crime dramas.

As a forensic specialist she has consulted with writers on: Beauty & The Beast, Deception, Hawaii Five-O, Leverage, Prison Break, Rectify, Revolution, Suits, White Collar and Conviction.

She regularly leads seminars on forensics and crime fiction for The Writers Store, Great American Pitchfest, Crime Writers Weekend, Sisters in Crime, Act One, Scriptwriters Network, Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Story Expo, American Christian Fiction Writers, and Universita Cattolica Milano, Italy; Highbridge Film Festival, Seymour Agency, and Write Canada. Jennifer also teaches screenwriting to students in high school and college. She mentors new writers through the Act One Program and Regent University.

Jennifer is currently writing a action, crime thriller with Hoplite Entertainment and developing three crime novels. Her feature film, God Bless the Broken Road is slated for release in 2017 in conjunction with the novel release on June 6th by the same title published by Simon & Schuster. She has a bi-lingual kid’s show, Team Abuelita, in production with Baby First TV.

Check out her weekly vlogs, Screenlife Mondays and Forensic Fridays at www.jenniferdornbush.com

Join us on the Third Saturday every month at:

CBS Studio Center
4024 Radford Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604

Free Parking — Enter the CBS* lot at the main gate & inform security you are there for the Scriptwriters Network event.

*You must RSVP by the deadline mentioned above in order to be on our RSVP list for Security clearance onto CBS’ lot. If you do not RSVP by the date above, you may not be allowed onto CBS’ lot.

You’ll be asked for your government issued photo ID, and then given directions to the meeting location. You may park in any available space on the lot, unless CBS’ Security directs you to a park at a different area.

As this is a professional event, we ask that you please arrive prior to the event start time.

Meeting Timeframe: 1:00 pm to approximately 3:00 pm

Please remember to bring a picture ID and your SWN Membership Card!

Any questions, email us at [email protected].