Intentional Rewrites with Elena Hartwell- Writing a first draft is a wonderful accomplishment, but for most writers, it’s
just the beginning of the journey. This workshop provides writers with multiple lenses through which to analyze their work and illustrates various methods with which to attack a rewrite, maximizing improvements on any manuscript. This session will cover rewriting for character development, story structure, exposition and description that matters.
Your Setting is Your Hook with Glen Erik Hamilton - Attendees will learn the critical steps of making settings in their works integral, essential, and vibrant to readers, prospective agents and editors. The session emphasis is on mysteries and thrillers, but the lessons are applicable to all fiction genres. Key points include learning how to identify what about their settings is unique, intriguing, evocative, and new; how to make the most out of the writers’ knowledge and experience, whether it's the first draft or the final rewrite; and tips, tricks, and concrete examples of describing setting concisely and effectively.
Tell, Don't Show (Sometimes) with Peter Mountford - In preparing to teach a class, I read 25 submitted essays and was surprised to discover that not one of the essays opened in “scene.” No dialogue in the opening sentence, ever. Take a look at your favorite novels, short stories—it’s actually very uncommon for a piece to open in a scene. Yes, it’s vital to be specific and vivid, to “show,” but scenes have limited uses, and in this session, we’ll examine exactly what a scene can do well, and what “summary”, or telling, can do well. Attendees will learn when to tell and when to show.
Failure to Launch with William Kenower - Have you finished the final draft your novel, had it fully edited, hired a book designer, but then chose to never actually self-publish it? Have you ever had an agent or two request some pages, but then never sent them? If so, you’re not alone. Many writers love to write but struggle to finish, submit, or publish their work. In this workshop, William Kenower, author of Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt, and Fearless Writing, offers advice and exercises to help writers of all genres and experience levels get out of their own way and share their work.