Write Tight with Kathy Otten

Craft Write Tight with Kathy Otten

Level
Intermediate
Category
  1. Structure
  2. Grammar
  3. Voice
What does it mean to write tight? In the same way a driver monitors his gas mileage by combining trips and avoiding habits that waste gas, writers need to carefully choose the words they put on paper. By taking the time to go through your manuscript and eliminate unnecessary words and phrases you can put a shine on a finished story that signifies your work as professiona
Syllabus
  • Lesson I: Active Writing: We have all heard the writing mantra, “Show, don’t tell,” but what does that mean? In this lesson we’ll look at ways to eliminate passive words and sentence structure to create a story that immerses the reader in your story.
  • Lesson II: Unnecessary Words: In this lesson we’ll learn to recognize words which fill the page, yet contribute nothing to your story.
  • Lesson III: Is Said Dead?: In this lesson we’ll take a look at when and why speech tags can be replaced with action beats.
Author
Kathy Otten
Start date
Sep 14, 2018 at 10:47 PM
End date
Sep 16, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Registration end date
Sep 16, 2018 at 12:00 AM
Rating
4.63 star(s) 8 ratings

Latest reviews

I took this class during the mini intensive weekend and found it really helpful. This was one case where I was able to immediately put to use what I'd learned. I was shocked at how many times I had dialogue tags and action beats in the same sentence. And that was just the first step!

My one suggestion for Kathy, if she decides to teach the class in a longer form, would be to let students post an unedited section from their own writing (at some specified length) and let them use their own work to see what can be tightened. I realize that wasn't practical for a weekend class, but I think cutting our own work would take it to the next level.

Great class!