Hooking the Thumb
Writing Vertical Stories Viewers Can’t Swipe Away
With Rosa Salazar Arenas
Thursdays, October 15, 22. November 5, 12, and 19, 2026
8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern (5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific)
When the thumb is hooked, the viewer is hooked.
In vertical storytelling, capturing attention is only the beginning. Hooking the Thumb is a five-session intensive in the fast-growing art of the microdrama, known internationally as the vertical series. Led by celebrated television writer and teacher Rosa Salazar Arenas, the class explores how to create characters, conflicts, and cliffhangers compelling enough to turn a moment of curiosity into sustained emotional investment, keep audiences watching story after story—and make the thumb say, Just one more.
Microdrama is not simply traditional television written in shorter scenes. It has its own rhythm, architecture, and relationship with the audience. Episodes may last only a minute or two, but each must create meaningful movement. Every revelation must alter the story. Every ending must open a new question. And every episode must give the viewer an emotional reason to continue.
Over five sessions, participants will develop a market-ready microdrama concept, write the opening ten episodes, and map the larger journey of a 40- to 50-episode series.
Writers will leave with a polished ten-episode sample and a complete series roadmap designed to demonstrate both the storytelling craft and professional discipline the form demands.
Esteemed Faculty
A renowned teacher of microdrama and a key mentor and coach for Televisa, Rosa Salazar Arenas is one of Mexico’s most accomplished and influential television writers. Celebrated as the “Queen of the Telenovela,” she currently has the number one hit on the air in Mexico, Tan Cerca de Ti, Nace el Amor.
Across an extraordinary career, Rosa has written more than 7,000 hours of produced television, mastering the art of creating emotionally immediate stories that capture an audience and keep viewers returning.
For eleven years, Rosa served as head writer of the iconic anthology series Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real. The program became a cultural phenomenon, telling powerful stories drawn from the lives of women and families, and continues to reach audiences around the world.
As a writer-producer, Rosa went on to shape some of Televisa’s most successful prime-time programming. Her acclaimed telenovela Lo Que la Vida Me Robó became a global favorite and the most-watched telenovela on digital platforms. Her work on the series earned her the 2014 award for Best Adaptation. Her credits also include the critically acclaimed hit Abismo de Pasión. Rosa is also the author of the bestselling nonfiction book Rituales para el Amor, la Belleza y la Prosperidad.
Few writers understand more deeply how to create powerful desire, emotional escalation, irresistible reversals, and the kind of cliffhangers that make viewers need to know what happens next. Rosa now brings that lifetime of storytelling experience to microdrama, teaching writers how those enduring principles can be reshaped for a form that demands speed, discipline, and an instinctive understanding of human emotion.
Along the way, Rosa raised two sons as a single mother: Martín, now a renowned chef, and Christian, a highly regarded video producer. She is also the proud grandmother of Isabella, who has brought a new dimension of love and inspiration to her life.
Here’s What You Can Expect from the Workshop
Participants should be prepared to write between sessions, meet weekly deadlines, and develop their work independently within a collaborative group environment. Selected work will receive live feedback throughout the course, allowing the entire class to learn from the strengths and challenges of individual projects.
How It Will Unfold
Thursday, October 15: The Hook
The class begins with the central promise of your series: the combination of character, conflict, and emotional urgency that make someone choose your story. Rosa will help writers identify the desire driving the protagonist, the dramatic engine capable of generating dozens of episodes, and the central question that will keep viewers watching. Participants will develop a clear logline and series synopsis for a story designed to sustain a 40- to 50-episode journey. Selected concepts and loglines will receive live feedback. Between sessions, writers will draft Episode One.
Thursday, October 22: Episode One
The opening episode must accomplish an enormous amount in very little time. It must establish the world, introduce the central character, ignite the conflict, and end with a turn strong enough to carry the viewer forward. Rosa will examine how to begin inside the story rather than explaining it, reveal character through decisive action, and use the final moments of the episode to transform curiosity into commitment. Selected first episodes will receive live feedback. Writers will then begin building the opening run of the series.
Thursday, November 5: The First Ten Episodes
The first ten episodes form the audience’s initial emotional journey. They must escalate the conflict, complicate relationships, and continually alter what the viewer believes will happen next. Rosa will show writers how to vary cliffhangers, introduce reversals at the right moment, and create forward momentum without exhausting the story too soon. Selected episode sequences will be examined in class. Participants will then complete and refine their ten-episode sample.
Thursday, November 12: The Paywall
A paywall succeeds only when the viewer has become emotionally unwilling to leave. This session examines how to build toward that decisive moment through mounting pressure, unanswered questions, and an episode-ending turn that feels both surprising and inevitable. Rosa will explore the difference between withholding information and creating genuine anticipation, as well as the ways romance, danger, betrayal, revelation, and reversal can deepen audience investment. Writers will refine their paywall sequence and begin mapping the full series.
Thursday, November 19: The Complete Series
The final session moves beyond the opening episodes to the architecture of the complete microdrama. Rosa will demonstrate how to sustain conflict across 40 to 50 episodes, introduce fresh complications without losing the central story, and build toward emotional revelations and payoffs that justify the audience’s investment. Participants will shape a clean, producible series outline and examine how to present their concept, sample episodes, and supporting materials to producers and platforms. Selected series arcs and cliffhangers will receive final live feedback.
Please note: There will be no class on Thursday, October 29.
The Takeaways
By the end of Hooking the Thumb, participants will understand how microdrama captures attention, deepens emotional investment, and turns a sequence of brief episodes into a sustained dramatic experience.
Writers will leave with a market-ready concept, a clear logline and synopsis, ten scripted episodes, a strategically constructed paywall moment, and a roadmap for the complete 40- to 50-episode series.
More important, they will understand the deeper craft behind the form: how to make viewers care immediately, how to reward their attention, and how to end each episode with a reason to choose the next one.
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Today's Price Only $297 for 10 Hours of Instruction
Story Summit Members: This class is included at no additional cost
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Please note: Our classes are designed specifically for live participation, so your attendance is important. If you need to miss a class for any reason, you’ll receive a passcode-protected link to watch the recordings after the course is over.
