Arts & Entertainment, Writing
Introduction
Lesson time 06:57 min
David outlines what he'll cover in this class, and the best mindset you can have to learn how to write great drama.
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Topics include: Covered Topics • The Writing Mindset
Teaches Dramatic Writing
The Pulitzer Prize winner teaches you everything he's learned across 26 video lessons on dramatic writing.
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A, B, C. A always B. B be C closing. Always be closing. I don't understand what anything means. You want to learn the first rule? You'd know if you ever spent a day in your life. What do you want me to do? Teach me. I want you to teach me. What do you mean? I talk to him about this? Yeah. Are you just talking about this, or are we just talking about it? We were just speaking about it. Speaking about it as an idea. What I hope I'm doing, and here's where your English paper has got a point is, I'm responding to the will of the people. You laughing now? No, there are people out there. People who came here to know something they didn't know. Who came here to be helped. I've been in this business 15 years. What's your name? Fuck you. That's my name. I think you're angry. Oh. Have I got your attention now? Good. They say when the student is prepared, that the teacher appears. So the same is true of most of the lessons you're going to learn in any-- I don't know if any art, but certainly in any craft. When you're ready to learn it, you will. If you want to and if you need to, and if you don't want to and you don't need to, you ain't ready yet. Or maybe you don't want to. I always say the arts, in my experience, is like running away to the circus. If you've got something to fall back on, the circus doesn't need you. The circus doesn't want you. You've got to run away, say OK. I'll leave, but you're going to have to kill me. And that's one of the great things I found in this wonderful show business. And also in the movies is the kid who shows up and says, what can I do? And you say, nothing. Get out of here. The kid keeps coming back. A week later you say, for Christ's sake, give me a cup of coffee and get out of here. By the end of the third week, you're saying where's that kid? Right? And at the end of the movie you're saying, kid, what do you want to do next? It's magnificent. But I always thought that being a writer is a lot like being a beaver. That beavers-- their teeth itch. And so that's why they cut down trees. Because that's the only thing that stops their teeth from driving them crazy. And so I think that I'm kind of leaning with it's not the teeth, it's my consciousness. It's is the same thing. How can I get it to shut up for a while? Give it a different-- give it a problem that it likes. And so once in a while the problem that likes-- is unpleasant. But what else am I going to do. I'm not going to play golf. I think I'm going to talk about a unified field theory of aesthetics. And if anyone is still listening after that, you're probably even more caffeinated than I am. So I've always been fascinated by the idea that exists a unified field theory where we can regularize the way we perceive with the way that ...
About the Instructor
David Mamet sat in on a poker game full of thieves and left with the inspiration for American Buffalo. Now, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of Glengarry Glen Ross takes you through his process for turning life’s strangest moments into dramatic art. In his writing class, he’ll teach you the rules of drama, the nuances of dialogue, and the skills to develop your own voice and create your masterpiece.
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David Mamet
The Pulitzer Prize winner teaches you everything he's learned across 26 video lessons on dramatic writing.
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