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July 15, 2023 — TPS workshop — Outlines, Treatments, & Synopses (Oh, My!) A Workshop on Structure for the Brave, the Frightened, and the Doomed, by Dr. Dennis Bounds
July 15, 2023 @ 9:30 am - 12:00 pm EDT
Often writers hear the terms “outline,” “treatment,” and “synopsis” used interchangeably. This is far from the truth. This workshop will present tools for creating an outline to guide your writing of a story – whether it will be a short story, novel, or screenplay. Further, we will present the purpose and elements of the standard treatment. We will conclude with a guide to writing a synopsis of your work for selling it. After taking part in this workshop, you will know the difference between these terms and how you can fashion each into useful tools in starting, writing, finishing, and shopping your story. There will be handouts and times given to designing and writing during the workshop.
Presenter Bio
Dr. J. Dennis Bounds has taught in the areas of cinema and TV history, aesthetics, and writing at universities both nationally and internationally for over 30 years. At Regent University, Bounds developed and was the first director of the Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting. Bounds is currently an adjunct professor in film at Regent University when he is not working with his wife as a media specialist and freelance writer.
Bounds’s book Perry Mason: The Authorship and Reproduction of a Popular Hero (Greenwood Press, 1996) serves as a key text on the character “Perry Mason” in literature, broadcasting, and film. His recent publications include an essay in the anthology The Silence of the Lambs: Critical Essays on a Cannibal, Clarice, and a Nice Chianti (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and a book he co-wrote titled Divine Film Comedies: Biblical Narratives, Film Sub-Genres, and the Comic Spirit (Routledge, 2016). He is currently writing a novel titled The House of Trent Adderley – a Horror/SciFi novel – and a second edition of his book on “Perry Mason”.
Bounds lives in Suffolk, VA, with his wife, Margaret, and attack poodle, Della.