
Remote writing workshops--live on Zoom!
Your Book Starts Here: Learn to Storyboard Your Book!
Get to know your book—what it is about, how to structure it, how to finish it! Develop a step-by-step plan (with timelines, storyboards, and more) and learn ways to flow chapters, find holes that need filling, organize research, construct plots. Up-to-date information on agents and publishers, tips on editing your book.
On Zoom! Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, One-Day Remote Workshop, Saturday, April 23, 11:00.-5:00 p.m., $122.50
Past Classes—may be offered again!
Strange Alchemy: How Place, People, and Conflict Intertwine in Fiction and Memoir
Good story engages readers because place, people, and conflict are not haphazard. They are aligned to create a certain alchemy. In this class you’ll learn how the three elements of place, people, and conflict must work together to make memoir and fiction writing come alive. Enough dilemma—or too much? Power positions of players working—or not? Does setting lend emotion—or is it flat? 24/7 access to classroom, weekly lessons and exercises, lots of feedback.
Self-Editing Techniques for Fiction and Memoir Writers
Go behind the scenes to see how editors might approach your writing then, using specific tools for each level, apply them to your work-in-progress.
Afternoon Character Intensive: Bring Your Characters to Life on the Page
Characters are the heartbeat of story—whether imagined or real, they must come alive on the page. Author Marilynne Robinson says that great characters create an almost "emotional entanglement" with a reader. But how do you, as a writer, work with characters? What if they are too mysterious or bore you? What if you can't imagine how to bring them to life? This afternoon class will let you audition the most compelling cast for your fiction or memoir, then free them from any conscious or unconscious paralysis (safe, stuck places), via in-class exercises, craft lessons, and sample reading. We'll explore key character-building skills such as longing and desire, external and internal motivation, physical appearance, community, values, secrets, backstory, gestures, and more. You'll begin to write characters who will last in your reader's memory and attract publishers. For memoir or fiction writers at any stage. Held remotely on Zoom.
The Art of Voice and Theme in Fiction and Memoir
Every writer craves an authentic voice and strong themes—two key elements that make writing stand out. Both voice and theme reveal emotional truth, linking writer and reader in a personal way. But how does a writer identify her or his unique voice, develop it, and use it to craft themes that matter? Through weekly readings, writing exercises, and feedback, we'll learn the difference between narrative voice and character voice, how themes emerge in a piece of fiction or memoir, ways to thread these themes for greatest impact, and how voice and theme weave together.
Writing Authentic, Amazing Dialogue for Your Fiction and Memoir
Dialogue makes or breaks your fiction and memoir. Although some writers have a natural ear for writing authentic-sounding dialogue, most have to learn the technique: how to translate spoken dialogue (real life) to the page, bring in enough subtext to create tension, find voice and rhythm, and carefully employ tags and interruptions and stage directions. Each week, we'll analyze amazing dialogue by famous writers, then craft or refine our own using modeling techniques, weekly assignments, lively discussion, and constructive feedback from others in the class and Mary. Dialogue isn't easy, but once you learn the rules, develop your ear, and attune to dialogue's rhythms, you can write amazing, authentic dialogue for your fiction or memoir.
Writing Your Life: How to Plan, Write, and Develop Your Memoir
Whether you are trying to write the story of your life for publication or as a family legacy, this class by the author of two memoirs will show you how to organize your stories into a readable, interesting work. You will be introduced to a simple formula that successful authors use to find the central conflict in their story, then plan, organize, and write scenes and chapters around it.
We'll explore essential book-writing techniques such as the value of themes, how action and reflection balance one another in memoir and creative nonfiction, and the author's voice versus the narrative voice. Have on hand a few rough-draft pages from your memoir to work on during the exercises, if you wish, or any notes you have so far.
Story in Progress: A Workshopping Class for Fiction or Memoir Writers
Intermediate and advanced fiction and memoir writers will gather to serve up their first pages, opening chapter, and random selections of their project, short or long, exposing not-quite-working-yet characters, dialogue, setting, for workshopping and fixing. The goal is to leave you with ah-ha! moments about what to do next and renewed excitement in your writing.
Rule of Three: Character, Conflict, and Your Story's Container
A fast-paced, hands-on workshop to explore how to refine the three main elements of your fiction or creative nonfiction writing: the people that populate it, the dilemma they create that drives the story forward, and the container, or setting that encloses it all. Get new perspectives on your work and a toolbox full of techniques for preparing your manuscript for publication.
Writer's Wheel of Ten: Upgrade Your Craft Skills in Fiction and Memoir
Spend a lively day exploring the ins and outs of ten essential writing tools professional writers never leave home without. Bring new vibrancy to a not-quite-there-yet memoir, short story, or novel. Fun exercises, short readings, discussion will help us see new levels of these basic tools--and how they improve your writing.