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Steampunk, cyberpunk, solarpunk, what's with all these punk genres? Learn what makes a genre "punk" and some key ingredients for navigating and writing various punk subgenres. Writing exercises will help develop your worldbuilding in these alternate histories and fantastic futures, and the...

Are you seeking a coach and mentor who listens? Doesn't squash your writing style? And who provides positive, constructive feedback to meet your goals? As a certified coach with a background in education and over a decade of working with writers, my goal is to offer you an individualized...

You’ve just typed The End. Sigh! You’re done… Not so fast. You can be absolutely sure that somewhere in that stack of pages are: embarrassing plot holes; limp love scenes; sentences that clank instead of ring; conflicts that go nowhere; colorless cardboard characters; and fight scenes with...

Your opening chapters are a book’s first date with a reader! They’re going to make decisions on if this is the right match for them based on their first impressions. So how do we write engaging, enticing, informative first chapters that set up your story, your characters and keep readers...

You can get up close and personal with your characters by using deep third person POV. Deep POV can be used to create your character's voice and creates a connection with the reader. How to determine your character's "voice" What Deep POV is compared to other third person POVs Tips and...

Writing a good first draft in less time is not so much a matter of typing faster but rather of using your time more efficiently. If you know where you’re going before you start your journey, you’ll get there faster. This means two things. First, plan the story in advance. This doesn’t...

The aim of 'How Not To Lose The Plot' is to help demystify plotting and lay out the process in a straightforward, step-by-step way. This course is for writers who hate outlining or find structure/plotting difficult in general, or perhaps are attempting a novel for the first time. Some more...

Do you work full-time and are having trouble finding time, energy and motivation to write? Do you wish you could be a successful writer AND work full-time? Are you frustrated because you are not getting the results that you so richly deserve? If you answered the above questions in the...

This course introduces writers to a number of master plots from The Hero’s Journey, to The Save the Cat Method, the Romance Beats, and many more. The aim of this course is for writers to “date” plotting methods until they find the one that works best for them. Writers will even be encouraged to...

Want to learn how to craft a bestseller from an award-winning editor? A great idea will only get you so far. Learn the tricks of the trade from an industry professional who has seen--and fixed-- it all. While writers tend to focus on trends and tropes, they often forget about story, about...

Award winning and bestselling author, L. C. Hayden will discuss the various writing pitfalls that stand in the way of becoming a successful writer. Not only will she point them out, she will show you ways to avoid them. Some of the pitfalls she will discuss center around character development...

There’s an old Zen proverb that reads, “After Enlightenment comes the Laundry.” Perhaps you feel like that after NanoWrimo. After the rush of writing a novel in a month the adrenaline is still pumping and then you read what you wrote. You’ve been to the mountain top, you looked out over the...

Readers love to be immersed in stories. They want the artifices to fall away and to feel as if they truly are the character as they go through a whirlwind romance, fight aliens in space, or attend a magical academy…etc. One of the key steps to creating immersive writing is to master deep point...

An emotional arc is the journey that a character’s emotional state of mind undertakes during a scene. A typical emotional arc has a beginning in which the character is feeling a certain way, an end in which their emotional state of mind has undergone a change, and a turning point that triggers...

Did you ever want to write a short story but never knew where to start? Do you love stories and tell yourself stories from time to time? Do you think in terms of stories? Do you love reading short stories in the Chicken Soup Series? If you answered any of these questions in the affirmative...

Fairy tale retellings are very popular for a reason. They use tropes and characters that we're familiar with. For instance, the Cinderella story is a common one across cultures and centuries. Learn how to use these familiar and beloved characters in stories and give them a different twist. 1...

The book world offers its readers a variety of mysteries. Some are good, some not so good, and some are excellent. What makes the difference? It all begins with its foundation: learning how to craft a successful mystery. An award winning mystery/thriller author will show you how a successful...

Have you ever finished the first draft of a book and thought it was missing something, but you weren't sure what? That "what" is probably layering - the process of adding details to your story, from character traits to body language to descriptions of the environment surrounding your story. Each...

Body language is a key ingredient in correctly conveying the emotion you need to add power to your story. This class will teach writers how to use body language to make their characters stronger and more real so they become more than talking heads.

Writers love backstory! We need backstory. It’s pain and motivation and the unique angles that make our characters sing and howl at the moon. It’s the whys and hows. It explains everything. Unfortunately, it can also kill story. Backstory can be deployed. Done right, it’s a weapon in our...