Write a Story with Joshua Mohr

A thought provoking conversation and a great dive into the path of the writer´s journey. Cheers.

A lot of gems in this. The exercises are helpful and Mohr's advice is relatable and actionable. Definitely recommending for new writers.

I first was introduced to Joshua Mohr through his memoir Sirens, which is now one of my favorite books. Naturally, when I saw he did a class with Creative Live, I had to take it. This class was incredible, inspiring to the millionth degree. I've been stuck on my own memoir and this class has made me resume writing a new draft. Thank you, Joshua.

I am a filmmaker and as such I have read and gone through so many methodologies in my own chosen art form as well as in a lot of others. There is a huge common ground when it comes to communicating or telling stories. Writing in its broad sense, that is an essay, a novel, or even a screenplay is at its core essence, the same. Sure, you have techniques and tools specific to all of those different "containers", but generating ideas, connecting with audiences, telling truths and playing with one's own imagination is a common ground to every written art form. I must admit I haven't read any of Josh's books, but I can definitely tell that he is an incredible communicator and a well experienced writer, because Josh puts difficult and unclear concepts into simple definitions, and gives techniques in order to get your own cooking progressing. I am really happy I took this online class. I will definitely use a lot of Josh's teachings in my future screenplay writings. Thanks to Josh for sharing, thanks to Creative Live for making it available. Erik (Spain)

You are an exceptional teacher, Mr. Mohr. I truly enjoyed your teaching style and learned so much from you. THANK YOU.

I really enjoyed this class. It was inspiring and packed with very wise advise for upcoming writers. Josh was great in teaching us "how to fish", instead of just feeding it to us. Thank you for this amazing class, Josh!

I had a great time learning from Joshua Mohr's "Write a Story." No one can tell you a right or wrong way to write a story, but his tips can get you excited about your original ideas, and can help make you productive in the intimidating creative process!

Josh is my spirit animal! I took several of his online courses several years ago. Each and every one was an inspiration. I took a long break from writing due to family reasons. Finding him on Creative Live has renewed my energy. His instruction is invaluable. So glad to be back in the Josh fold!

This is a great writing class that is different from the previous writing classes that I've attended before. I liked how Josh urges us to integrate the plot into the character's life, making characters that are both rich and realistic.

I needed to hear what Josh had to say. He advised to write to explore and discover what my characters have to say. He told me to listen to my characters. He gave me the lifeline that not every thing I write will make the final cut, but that ALL of it is important to learn. It was like being let out of confinement. The way in which the class unfolded helped me realize I had been in confinement of my own doing. Each exercise built upon, not only the lecture part of Josh's presentation, but also of exercises that came before. His examples to help prime the pump for these exercises really helped illustrate the technique he was describing (my favorite being the jujitsu hero and the decision to stake out all the 7-11s). His move to the more practical organization of things such as plot pushes and editing made a lot of sense after talking about how to get the content. I felt so much less burdened, as a writer, when I learned that the editing process is a constant expanding and contracting exercise and that even 11 or 15 drafts cannot be too many. I thought 8 hours of work-shopping from one author would be onerous, not only on my part, but on Josh's part, as well. However, each of the segments flew by because I was intently listening to what Josh had to say. Each writing exercise opened a dam of words that had been just waiting for this permission. Josh made me think about my characters differently. He made me ask questions I needed to ask to get myself unstuck. What would my characters do in these types of situations? How would they make decisions? Why would they do one thing over another? Can they be relate-able if not even redeemable by these choices? I'm excited again about writing. I had forgotten that it IS actually fun. And even when my fraud police are saying, "why are you writing this? It doesn't fit. It's so bad. It's terrible," I can set that aside because this is all about discovery. When you don't know, you get to play the "I'm new" card, and I like to think about what Josh said in this way. I'm new and asking "dumb" questions. Often the dumb questions make the best discoveries. I'm grateful for Josh Mohr and the class and I hope Creative Live hosts more classes such as these.

this was a great class and I learned what I had never heard before from others teaching about writing. His approach fits my way of thinking and I felt totally comfortable in class and with sharing what I had written. Josh was great, encouraging, informative and a great wordsmith!

As a new writer, this course was really awesome for getting started on character development. For me that was the biggest takeaway. Josh is really great at really getting to know a character so he can write about them and he teaches how to do that in this course.

Josh is an engaging and insightful teacher of writing (not to mention I am quite fond of his novels). The exercises are terrific to get going and to play with the specific perspectives on writing (or tools) that he offers. I will come back to many of these concepts repeatedly in my work.