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Taught by Lisa Ko, Author of The Leavers, a 2017 National Book Award for Fiction finalist and 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction winner
How do you turn your ideas into a story that will keep your readers breathlessly turning the page? In this course, novelist, short story writer, and essayist Lisa Ko will demystify plot and other elements of storytelling craft—including dialogue, character, stakes, structure, and perspective—and share secrets on how writers of any narrative genre can easily apply these strategies to make their own writing more effective. Through prompts and exercises, you’ll learn how to harness internal and external action to create and sustain narrative tension, as well as proven tricks and tools to create an effective scene, whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, and how to incorporate these scenes into a book-length manuscript. You’ll leave this class with an arsenal of storytelling tools that you can immediately apply to your own writing. -
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Taught by Kirstin Chen, Author of Soy Sauce for Beginners, a Kindle First selection, an O. Magazine “book to pick up now,” and a Glamour book club pick. Her new novel Bury What We Cannot Take has been named a Most Anticipated Book of 2018 by Electric Literature, The Millions, Book Bub, and The Rumpus.
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Beginning—and even more experienced—writers sometimes feel the need to hide that parts of their fiction are rooted in reality. Incorporating details from one's own life can be viewed as something to be ashamed of, or even as a form of cheating. But the use of autobiography is a fictional strategy like any other, such as choosing a particular point-of-view or a particular structure. No matter what strategies one employs, the goal is always the same: to tell a good story. This webinar explores how writers can strategically use details from their lives to craft vivid fictional characters and to tell resonant stories. -
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Taught by Christina Baker Kline, Author of seven novels, two of which (A Piece of the World and Orphan Train) were New York Times bestsellers
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Ever wonder what established working writers talk about among themselves but rarely share with others? Christina, bestselling author of five novels and author/editor of five nonfiction books, shares her tips, tricks, and hard-earned trade secrets about breaking into the big bad world of book publishing—and staying there. Despite industry crashes and other bumps along the way, Christina has adapted and thrived. How did she do it? How is she adjusting her career to keep up with a rapidly changing publishing climate? What do you need to do to sell your first book ... and to pull off a long-term career as a writer? Christina will first briefly each share the top 12 things she has learned about surviving and thriving in today's publishing climate, including:- the crucial things to know about getting your manuscript ready to submit in this unforgiving market …
- the economic realities of being a working writer, which rarely means earning a living solely from the words you write ….
- the best way to find the agent -- and publisher that’s right (hint: it may not always be the match of your dreams) …
- the real skinny on the role of social media: how much -- or how little -- do you really need to do, and how do you ensure that you still have time to, you know, write?
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Taught by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Author of A Kind of Freedom, her debut novel, which was long-listed for the National Book Award
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Often great stories are not immediately gripping because the writer has not opened at the story’s natural beginning. In this course, we will review successful opening chapters to learn what the role of the first pages should be, how to balance orienting readers and captivating them, and how to introduce tension that leaves the reader needing more. -
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Taught by Abigail Thomas, Author of six books, including her memoir A Three Dog Life, named a best book of 2006 by the LA Times and Washington Post
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Memoir is about what we remember. It is not a just very long CV. It is not a record of every bite of every sandwich chewed and swallowed. Memoir is also what we leave out, and this is also gives each story its shape. There are no rules, which makes this genre both easier and harder to approach. Some of us suffer from having a poor memory and some of us suffer from having total recall, but we all have untapped memories. In this course Abigail Thomas will talk about memory as a creative entity, inspired by events rather than faithful to them, and what we can learn about ourselves when confronted. This course will include exercises designed to wake up memories, stir you, and also give you permission to write more freely. You will leave inspired to write—whether you’re working on a memoir, or a personal essay, or even personal poems. This class in an exploration of memory for any writer who’s ever grappled with its shifting complexities or felt bound by the constraints of not remembering with the hopes that you will leave feeling more freedom to explore and to create. -
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Taught by Caroline Leavitt, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, and seven other books
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Moral choices are not just a matter of characters doing the right thing. The right thing isn't even just the only dilemma a character might face. Instead moral choices pin a character between two very different courses of action (like being between a rock and a hard place), and each of those choices has a cost. What the character chooses shows you the kind of person they were, they are, and that they will be in the future. In this class, we'll learn how to form a moral choice, how to figure a cost for every choice and when and where to place them. I'll also show you how digging deeply into your own moral choices can help you give your characters courses of actions that will not only change them to their very core, but will change you, as well. -
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Taught by Jesmyn Ward, MacArthur Genius and two-time National Book Award winner, hailed as the standout writer of her generation
All writers hear about the importance of voice, but how do you capture it on the page? How do you know when you’ve landed in your voice? And how do you sustain voice if you’re writing a novel from more than one character’s point of view? In this class, best-selling author Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award winner and author of Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing, takes on a journey into voice—your own and your characters. She’ll give insight into her own process, and tips for how to mine the depths of your characters, and how to be courageous and authentic with your own voice, no matter what genre you’re writing. There are few elements of craft more fundamental to ensuring your reader connects with your story than voice and point of view, and this class will expand your horizons while offering valuable takeaways to implement with your work-in-progress or next project.
