writing

This class focuses specifically on the middle of your story, the bulk of the action that takes place after the set-up and builds up until you reach your “disembarking point” and the book’s ending. How do you crank up conflict and emotion without writing yourself into a corner? How do you...

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...

The Getting Your Manuscript Ready series is a comprehensive look at all the moving parts that make your manuscript the best it can be. We'll break down Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, discuss their unique challenges - and how to fix them! - as you create a book that flows from start to finish...

Suspension of disbelief is the name of the game in Fantasy. How do you make your readers ignore everything they know to be true and live in YOUR world? One way is to make elements of your story, like the fight scenes, very believable. Join Rebecca as she shows you how to weave fantastic elements...

Have you received feedback that all of your characters sound the same, or that your characters aren’t distinct? There’s hope! In this workshop, we split the rendering of character into two parts: Development of character and dialogue/description. First, to craft your characters, you must...

If you are starting out as a writer, trying to write a magazine article or story is the perfect place to start your writing career. This is because it will reveal many of the obstacles, dilemmas, and questions you’ll face when creating any kind of article or story. There are so many benefits to...

Welcome to "Making The Scene: The Art of Writing Scenes in Works of Fiction"! Scenes are the fundamental components of a story, and as a fiction writer, mastering the art of scene creation is crucial. In this course, you will learn about the different types of scenes, their functions, and how...

Award winning and bestselling author, L. C. Hayden, will guide you on how to turn your dialog into dynamic dialogue. Thus your dialogue will not only sound realistic and be perfectly punctuated, it will also reveal the character’s personality and help develop the plot. Once you've completed this...

Tropes and cliches are useful tools you can use to help craft your story. But you can also break them to create a fresh breath of air in an otherwise stale plot. The romance genre has one of the most extensive lists of tropes around, and a collective of readers ready to defend them with...

Hey, everybody! I'm Jo Morgan Sloan. I go my Jo in my day-to-day, and Morgan is my pen name. I'm querying three fiction novels at this time, rewriting a seven-book fanfiction series, and I also write nonfiction essays and poetry. I was fortunate enough to be published last year in Drunk Monkeys...

What is subtext and why is it important to fiction? How does something that lingers beneath the surface of a story have such a profound impact on the reader? Discover how you can deepen your fiction and add complexity to your story and characters. Subtext creates experiences that connect to your...

Don’t have time to write a novel? Well, fewer people have time to read one. That’s why flash fiction is hot, with over 300 paying markets looking for well-formed stories of 1000 words or less. Learn how to write, market and sell these tiny tales.

When you cruise the shelves at the bookstore, or the online listings, it’s easy to find stories of daring-do and hot clinches set in the Scottish Highlands, Regency or Victorian London or a country house within these periods, and occasionally take a trip back to the Medieval or Age of 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...

Writing is transferring emotion onto the page to make a story come alive. Color sets the mood instantly without lengthy, detailed descriptions. Characters and setting become vivid when color is used to evoke primal physiological and emotional responses in readers. Individual colors have inherent...

Show Don’t Tell: The Writer’s Golden Rule looks at different techniques of putting your readers into your story, and how to use them. We will cover: · Show vs. Tell?—Examines the difference between telling a story and showing it. · The Five Senses—How to use the senses effectively. ·...

Nobody's perfect, especially our characters! After all, they need room to change. In fact, the imperfect protagonist makes the three-dimensional story possible by making "character change" propel the events. The character moving through the external plot is a story of only two dimensions. The...

Capturing the voice of characters is difficult on its own, but it’s even harder when you’re writing for a different generation. Writing Young Adult works allows us to connect to our younger selves and relive the aches and pains of growing up. But what we said (and even did) as young adults isn’t...

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...

Scenes are considered the building block of a story. A piece that should connect to the whole. We’ve been told that each scene needs to carry its weight. But what does that mean? In this workshop we’ll review the basics of what a scene is and what the experts say. You’ll learn key elements of a...