Mastering Structure through Character Arcs with Anthony Mullins

Designed for writers of all levels, genres and narrative art forms, BAFTA award-winning screenwriter and author, Anthony Mullins, will show you how to craft an authentic and powerful narrative structure using the most important part of your story – its characters.

Dates: 6pm – 8pm (AEST), Thursdays 16 April – 30 July 2026. This is a 16-week program. See Program Outline below for the dates of all sessions in this program.
Delivery: Online.
Fees: $2600 or $2500 for Varuna Alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront.
Applications close: 5pm AEST, Tuesday 17 March 2026.
Places: 8 participants will be selected (small group).

BAFTA and AWGIE award-winning screenwriter, author and playwright, Anthony Mullins shows you how to master story structure using the concept of “character arcs”. Drawing on his celebrated book Beyond the Hero’s Journey, Anthony will demonstrate how to avoid the cliches and limitations of storytelling formulas like “The Hero’s Journey” and the “Three-Act Structure” by focussing on character arcs to build an authentic, emotional and powerful structure for your story.

Taking a deep dive into a wide range of cinematic case studies, from commercial hits to innovative arthouse masterpieces, Anthony will lead participants across a wide storytelling landscape, gathering lessons and insights along the way to help you craft the unique structure your story needs to realise its potential.    

But this is not a screenwriting workshop. It’s a storytelling workshop. Its lessons are relevant across a wide range of narrative genres and art forms, including literary fiction, playwriting, graphic novels, interactive and, of course, film and television.

Using a mix of film-based case studies, group discussions, class exercises and one-on-one sessions with Anthony, you will learn new techniques that you can immediately test and apply to your own writing in a safe and supportive creative environment.  

This is a small group program for 8 participants over 16 weeks. 

Each writer will also have a 40-minute one-on-one session with Anthony to discuss their work in progress.