After a two day semi-private session with Jeff Kitchen, I sincerely believe that I learned more about structuring a story than I had learned during the two years of my MFA playwriting program at a top-level prestigious film school. Mr. Kitchen provides his students with invaluable tools that, once understood, enable a writer to easily solve major story points that can so often lead to the dreaded "writer's block." After five minutes of Mr. Kitchen's explanation of his theory on dilemma and crisis I couldn't imagine how I was ever able to write a script in the past. In fact, within two days of intense study with Jeff, I had solved a first act problem in one of my scripts that had puzzled me for over a year.

Throughout my four years of undergraduate work as a theater major and my two year MFA playwriting program, I have never encountered an instructor so thorough, so knowledgeable about the practicalities of writing drama, or so earnest in his desire to pass along wisdom as Jeff Kitchen. What's more, Mr. Kitchen provided such invaluable help on a difficult script that I was commissioned to write by a major studio, that I felt guilty not including his name in the writing credit. So rarely an opportunity presents itself in which one is able to gain so much knowledge in so little time… the best money I've ever spent. A deal at ten times the price.

Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge of story structure with us last month. I found your class to be user-friendly and very informative. I especially enjoyed your technique of working backwards from the climax-it really helps to streamline a screenplay and strengthen the throughline.

I highly recommend this class to screenwriters of all levels of proficiency.

I am the Director of Development at Flower Films, the production company run by Nancy Juvonen and Drew Barrymore. We have a first look deal with FOX 2000 and are wrapping up production of our first feature, Never Been Kissed. In November 1997, I was a participant in Jeff Kitchen's Seminar for Development Execs in Los Angeles.

Jeff's seminar was extremely interesting because it worked from the assumption that we already knew how to do our jobs. His goal was to give us an additional way to think about the connections and conflicts that give rise to a clever narrative-a unique "map" to story structure. Jeff's seminar gave us tools that we could immediately integrate, and which were flexible and adaptable to our own processes.

The general dramaturgical approach that Jeff takes avoids the pitfalls of formulae. It's a broad-based theory with a distinguished history, not a crutch or half-baked "shortcut." And it works. Smart and effective, it's a great tool for anyone developing story material.

Your screenwriting seminar was enormously helpful. In one weekend, you managed to impart all the tools necessary to take a vague idea and turn it into a well developed, tightly structured dramatic map for the screen. Through your painstaking examples and diagrams, Polti's Thirty-six Dramatic Situations leap from the annals of antiquity to become viable creative tools for your students. Moreover, after the creative ideas begin to flow, your methods help the writer harness, examine, and capture those ideas magically on paper.

I highly recommend your seminar for beginning and advanced screenwriters, as well as anyone who wishes to "get inside" a script, either to revise or to appreciate the craft of the writer.

I wanted to take the time to tell you what an extraordinary experience your weekend intensive workshop was for me. My entire approach to writing changed in the most beneficial ways imaginable. As a result of the four tools you teach, I can never imagine myself going hungry for an idea or the technique to put it together. At the most fundamental level, you have proved to me that it is always possible to work as a writer. No more waiting around for the "moment" to hit me-with your techniques, I can and will work any time I please. These four tools allow me to access my imagination, develop strong, solid stories, and outline a screenplay or stage play quickly and efficiently. If Hollywood is ever to experience a Second Golden Age of Film, if the Art of Great Story Telling returns to cinema and theater, I guarantee Jeff Kitchen will have a lot to do with it.

Having experienced the seminar and utilizing the techniques daily, I still cannot fathom the magnanimous effects they are having on my work and my output. I have never worked so fast and so well. The tools have allowed me to focus my talents in ways I had not previously imagined. I am certain that should more professional screenwriters discover Jeff's techniques, Hollywood will see another Golden Era.

I recently attended Jeffrey Kitchen's screenwriting seminar and cannot praise it too highly. He is one of the best teachers I've ever had. His attributes are that rare to find. First, he is clear and concise and is a master of the techniques he teaches. Secondly, he has infinite patience and instinctive generosity so that everyone feels that their project is worthwhile, even as he uncovers its flaws.

The technique he teaches is truly extraordinary and Jeffrey, it turns out, may be the only person in the world using it in this particular way. I have taken other screenwriting courses and his is head and shoulders above them all. As a result of Jeffrey's course I feel much more secure in my writing. I finally feel that my script will have the best possible structure.

I like to distinguish between two types of screenwriting teachers: those with a limited background JUST in film and television, and those with a mastery of dramatic techniques that have not only worked for centuries on stage; but also film and television. Jeffrey fits the latter characterization.

Years ago, I was fortunate to begin my ongoing training with the generation of masters that first wrote for stage, then live television, and then film. Jeffrey is one of the few contemporary writer-teachers with a grounding in those ageless techniques of good drama, a tradition rarely passed to current generations.

I've taken all the big name workshops, but none of them have helped me as much as Jeff's because his is hands-on and interactive. Rather than simply listening to a lecture or analyzing successful films, Jeff's workshop made me use what he teaches on my own script, and I got immediate feedback, ensuring that I was applying the tools correctly. This is the only screenwriting workshop that I know of that provides one-on-one attention.

Most screenwriting workshops and books offer only knowledge or understanding; Jeff takes the next step and teaches application as well. Jeff's workshop gave me a working model to develop a script from, sharpening and focusing the original idea into a taut dramatic dilemma, to structuring the cause and effect events in reverse (beginning with the end in mind), and resulting in a unified drama with clarity and power.

Jeff's approach to screenwriting is important because rather than offering gimmicks or quick-fix solutions, he teaches a challenging method requiring plenty of hard work up front, but also insuring a minimum of rewrites.

I had the good fortune to be able to council with Jeff Kitchen, whose expertise and insight into the structure, characterization and thematic development of the script were invaluable aids to my ability to clarify and articulate my intentions as an artist.

Though playwrights are often the happy recipients of advice from directors, actors, agents and others, the lucidity and objectivity of Jeff's analysis of the material were unquestionably helpful and added immensely to the rewriting process, as well as my ability to guide both director and cast. Should the occasion arise, I would not hesitate to call upon Jeff's guidance again, and can wholeheartedly recommend and commend his professionalism.

In April 1998 I took Jeff Kitchen's course. I felt like I had stood in front of a cannon that went off. Jeff not only presented me with the most extraordinary story creation and analysis tools that I've ever seen, he also taught me how to use them. The bulk of story structure tools out there are essentially story analysis tools. One learns to say smart things as to why stories don't work, but one still can't make his story work. Kitchen provides you with story creation tools. In most workshops that I've taken-and I took them all-the teachers presented the working of their tools by applying them to classics. I don't say that the analysis of classics is not an important part of teaching, but it is not enough. One also has to teach how a tool works when applied to an unfinished work (which is not yet a masterpiece). Jeff teaches you how to use the tools.

Only a teacher who is not afraid, who is unbecoming can free the creator in everyone. Jeff is capable is holding the tension between utter fearlessness and vulnerability. Since attending that workshop my writing is more daring, more outrageous. My argument is more complete. My story is better dramatized.