Folks, there are several spaces available for Fiction Masters workshop in lovely Manzanita. Great way to spend a Saturday at the coast with like-minded writers.

Here are the details:

Fiction Mastery

Crafting a novel is a long, difficult slog even for the most experienced writers. So many decisions and choices, so much fine tuning and revising. Here’s some help: A three-part workshop of specialized techniques for creating a deep, vibrant, and unified story that immerses readers into a vivid world with believable and fascinating characters. The session includes hands-on exercises to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Part 1: Deep viewpoint

What is the key to creating emotional connections between your readers and your characters? It’s deep viewpoint, the sense that readers are immersed in a character’s life and dilemmas. In fact, the reader becomes the character.  We’ll discuss and practice how to eliminate distance, how to dramatize true-to-life emotions, and how to develop an authentic voice.

Part 2: Subtext: The river of emotion beneath the story

Life is often lived between the lines, and scenes often simmer with unspoken emotions beneath dialogue and action. In this session subtext will be explained with examples from various genres. We’ll  discuss nonverbal communication and how to render it onto the page and how to hint at lies and secrets in scenes. We’ll investigate various methods to insert subtext—innuendo, gestures, pauses, misdirection, colors, clothing, setting details—in other words, the nuanced moments that are not directly represented.

Part 3: Tension on every page

Fiction isn’t written to make readers happy. Its purpose is to jangle their nerves, make their hearts race, give them goose bumps, and disturb their sleep. We’ll explore the recipe for tension that jabs at the reader’s senses creating a force field and underlying every scene.  We’ll discuss how to worry readers by using language, peril, discomfort, prolonging dread, cliffhangers, fish-out-of-water scenarios, time running out, and other elements.

December 1, 2018

Hoffman Center, Manzanita, OR

9:30-4:30

$99 Contact Hoffman Center for payment