Lit Fest - Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2026

In this seminar designed for screenwriters and prose writers of all levels, we’ll use dramatic structure to help us get unstuck. Bring along a draft that’s failing or an idea that’s not finding a form, and we’ll explore the intricacies and opportunities of narrative structure. Over the course of this week, we’ll utilize a four-part system Bakopoulos developed while writing television pilot scripts (but that YOU can apply to any form of narrative writing—short stories, memoirs, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, plays etc.) to move past any literary obstructions you’re battling.


While no system is a magic potion that can take away the agonies of creation, this character-based approach to structure allows you to rethink the possibilities of your project. We'll discuss characters and their journeys towards liberation, as well as the notion of dramatic escalation, the tension between exposition and plot, the construction of compelling scenes, and the importance of unexpected dialogue and minor characters. We’ll watch scenes from great television pilot episodes and feature films as examples to illustrate these principles;we’ll also read a few passages of prose.


We’ll take part in at least one generative exercise per session; by the fifth day of the course, you will have a shiny new four-part outline that will help you successfully revise, or finally draft, a stuck project.


*Dean's weeklong seminar is two hours each day and does not include one-on-one meetings. The tuition is also adjusted (down) from the typical weeklong workshop.

This session will focus on the way popular TV series hook viewers, construct scenes, build characters, and structure episodes. We’ll examine how this can easily be adapted to add energy to short stories, memoirs, novels, and maybe even poems! We will likely use the pilot (first) episodes of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Atlanta, and Insecure as examples, so you may want to watch those in advance. I'll show a few clips in class as time and technology allows.

Register using this link: 
https://lighthousewriters.org/workshop/creatures-impulse-what-fictions-writers-can-learn-tv?session=8993

In this seminar designed for screenwriters and prose writers of all levels, we’ll use dramatic structure to help us get unstuck. Bring along a draft that’s failing or an idea that’s not finding a form, and we’ll explore the intricacies and opportunities of narrative structure. Over the course of this week, we’ll utilize a four-part system Bakopoulos developed while writing television pilot scripts (but that YOU can apply to any form of narrative writing—short stories, memoirs, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, plays etc.) to move past any literary obstructions you’re battling.


While no system is a magic potion that can take away the agonies of creation, this character-based approach to structure allows you to rethink the possibilities of your project. We'll discuss characters and their journeys towards liberation, as well as the notion of dramatic escalation, the tension between exposition and plot, the construction of compelling scenes, and the importance of unexpected dialogue and minor characters. We’ll watch scenes from great television pilot episodes and feature films as examples to illustrate these principles;we’ll also read a few passages of prose.


We’ll take part in at least one generative exercise per session; by the fifth day of the course, you will have a shiny new four-part outline that will help you successfully revise, or finally draft, a stuck project.


*Dean's weeklong seminar is two hours each day and does not include one-on-one meetings. The tuition is also adjusted (down) from the typical weeklong workshop.

I recommend that every participant in this workshop watch Ruben Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness (available on Hulu and elsewhere) before coming to class, and then we will discuss his unique triangular form. We’ll imitate the form in a writing exercise, coming up with a simple premise involving two characters, expanding the premise, and then flipping the premise entirely on its head. Come ready to write!

In this seminar designed for screenwriters and prose writers of all levels, we’ll use dramatic structure to help us get unstuck. Bring along a draft that’s failing or an idea that’s not finding a form, and we’ll explore the intricacies and opportunities of narrative structure. Over the course of this week, we’ll utilize a four-part system Bakopoulos developed while writing television pilot scripts (but that YOU can apply to any form of narrative writing—short stories, memoirs, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, plays etc.) to move past any literary obstructions you’re battling.


While no system is a magic potion that can take away the agonies of creation, this character-based approach to structure allows you to rethink the possibilities of your project. We'll discuss characters and their journeys towards liberation, as well as the notion of dramatic escalation, the tension between exposition and plot, the construction of compelling scenes, and the importance of unexpected dialogue and minor characters. We’ll watch scenes from great television pilot episodes and feature films as examples to illustrate these principles;we’ll also read a few passages of prose.


We’ll take part in at least one generative exercise per session; by the fifth day of the course, you will have a shiny new four-part outline that will help you successfully revise, or finally draft, a stuck project.


*Dean's weeklong seminar is two hours each day and does not include one-on-one meetings. The tuition is also adjusted (down) from the typical weeklong workshop.

In this beginner-intermediate course, we will look to film and television to help us outline and visualize our novels. My debut, Wanting, was published this summer by Tin House, and I wrote it utilizing techniques I use every day as a screenwriter. I come from the world of half-hour comedy, which means tight three-act structure, snappy act blows, and characters that change from start to finish. How can this be useful when structuring a novel? How can visualizing a scene cinematically help to bring our story to life? We will look at screenwriting forms, such as Dan Harmon’s Story Circles, while also discussing ways to subvert those forms.

In this seminar designed for screenwriters and prose writers of all levels, we’ll use dramatic structure to help us get unstuck. Bring along a draft that’s failing or an idea that’s not finding a form, and we’ll explore the intricacies and opportunities of narrative structure. Over the course of this week, we’ll utilize a four-part system Bakopoulos developed while writing television pilot scripts (but that YOU can apply to any form of narrative writing—short stories, memoirs, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, plays etc.) to move past any literary obstructions you’re battling.


While no system is a magic potion that can take away the agonies of creation, this character-based approach to structure allows you to rethink the possibilities of your project. We'll discuss characters and their journeys towards liberation, as well as the notion of dramatic escalation, the tension between exposition and plot, the construction of compelling scenes, and the importance of unexpected dialogue and minor characters. We’ll watch scenes from great television pilot episodes and feature films as examples to illustrate these principles;we’ll also read a few passages of prose.


We’ll take part in at least one generative exercise per session; by the fifth day of the course, you will have a shiny new four-part outline that will help you successfully revise, or finally draft, a stuck project.


*Dean's weeklong seminar is two hours each day and does not include one-on-one meetings. The tuition is also adjusted (down) from the typical weeklong workshop.

In this seminar designed for screenwriters and prose writers of all levels, we’ll use dramatic structure to help us get unstuck. Bring along a draft that’s failing or an idea that’s not finding a form, and we’ll explore the intricacies and opportunities of narrative structure. Over the course of this week, we’ll utilize a four-part system Bakopoulos developed while writing television pilot scripts (but that YOU can apply to any form of narrative writing—short stories, memoirs, novels, screenplays, TV scripts, plays etc.) to move past any literary obstructions you’re battling.


While no system is a magic potion that can take away the agonies of creation, this character-based approach to structure allows you to rethink the possibilities of your project. We'll discuss characters and their journeys towards liberation, as well as the notion of dramatic escalation, the tension between exposition and plot, the construction of compelling scenes, and the importance of unexpected dialogue and minor characters. We’ll watch scenes from great television pilot episodes and feature films as examples to illustrate these principles;we’ll also read a few passages of prose.


We’ll take part in at least one generative exercise per session; by the fifth day of the course, you will have a shiny new four-part outline that will help you successfully revise, or finally draft, a stuck project.


*Dean's weeklong seminar is two hours each day and does not include one-on-one meetings. The tuition is also adjusted (down) from the typical weeklong workshop.