Subject-Specific Writing Workshops: Special Skills
These workshops give students the opportunity to fine-tune specific writing skills under the tutelage of a published author. Students may use works in progress as the basis for the writing assignments, but the focus will be on understanding, practicing and applying the specific techniques targeted in each workshop. Writing assignments will be evaluated privately by the instructor and posted for group critique by the class. Students are encouraged to participate in ongoing critique and discussion sessions.
Creating Dynamic Characters
Every fiction writer will tell you—and every fiction reader instinctively knows—that compelling characters are at the heart of all good fiction. Creating believable characters and bringing them to life on the page requires observation, understanding, imagination and skill in the techniques of character development and characterization.
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Essentials Of Mystery Writing
Do you read mysteries and think “I wish I could write that?” well, you can. Work with a published mystery writer to learn about the subtleties of the mystery genre, and begin working on your own page-turning mystery. By the conclusion of the workshop, you will have written 2500 and critiqued up to 2500 words of your mystery novel or short story.
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Essentials Of Romance Writing
Does a deep love story live in your soul? Could you join the ranks of the Bronte sisters, Nora Roberts, Judith McNaught, Danielle Steele, or Nicholas Sparks? Discover your romantic writing roots while you familiarize yourself with the specific factors that create a successful romance story.
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Essentials Of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing
Live long and write prosperous! When you write science fiction, fantasy or horror, you dive into your imagination to create worlds that never were. Your words can deliver a reader from their mundane existence into realms yet unknown. By the end of this course, you will have completed a short SF/Fantasy story (up to 2500 words) under the guidance of an experienced, published author.
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Essentials Of Travel Writing
Travel writing is about more than just destinations. Now you can write travel articles without setting foot on a plane or gas pedal. Through this workshop, you will write one 1,500-3,000 word article and a query letter that are ready to submit for potential publication.
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Essentials Of Writing Personal Essays
When you dive into writing personal essays, you can write about any experience in your life. Learn to translate your mundane or outrageous experiences into essays that will be engaging for a general audience. Your personal experiences can help educate, entertain or encourage readers. Through this workshop, you’ll develop the skills to write personal essays and try your hand at creating four to six essays of 500-1000 words each.
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Essentials of Writing Personal Essays II: Advanced
Tackle the questions of writing the personal essay, from the practical (how writers balance craft and confession, creation as well as recreation) to the philosophical (examining subjective “truth” in creative nonfiction; considering the ethics of turning life into art). Work with a published essayist to write up to 8 essays and polish them for potential publication.
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Hooked: Strong Beginnings that Sell Fiction
Does your beginning grab a reader and never let them go? Based on the popular book Hooked, this workshop will teach you to create an opening sentence, an opening paragraph and an opening scene that will immediately hook an agent or editor as well as your eventual readers.
You will work with a published fiction author to write and revise a complete short story or the first chapter of your novel (up to 2500 words).
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Voice And Viewpoint
Your characters are often little more than a roving crowd of strangers until you discover your story’s voice and choose your point of view. Voice and viewpoint determine the tone of characters’ movements and thoughts, the tenor of their dialogue. They ultimately drive the storyteller’s every word choice, including the details of setting, the descriptions of characters, the conversations heard, and—sometimes more important—what is left unsaid.
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Write Great Fiction: Dialogue
Dialogue may be the most important characterization – but most difficult to master – tool at a fiction writer’s disposal. Stiff, unnatural or overdone dialogue will doom the liveliest characters or stall an exciting plot. Effective dialogue propels your characters and story off the page, deep into the imagination of your reader.
In this workshop, you will gain a thorough understanding of effective dialogue in fiction, including the functions of dialogue to develop characters, expose motives, reveal setting, create tension and suspense, speed up scene and more.
Abolish your fear of dialogue and access your story’s unique voice!
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Write Great Fiction: Plot and Structure
Discover how to set up your novel the right way: by looking at plot and structure as extensions of character, motivation, and conflict. By beginning with character – using the LOCK system from James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure – you’ll learn how to formulate plots which keep both the physical and emotional stakes high… and which keep your reader glued to the page.
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Writing the Young Adult Novel
Audience becomes a more than usually important consideration when drafting a young adult (YA) novel. In this course, we’ll familiarize ourselves with the genre and audience of the YA novel, learn specific strategies for improving the core components of your YA book—such as character, plot, and setting—and, finally, unearth the mysteries of querying agents and editors. By focusing on specific writing techniques—and using K.L. Going’s Writing & Selling the YA Novel—you’ll learn how to turn your idea for a YA novel into a finished, and saleable, novel.
