Characterization—creating believable and interesting people on the page—is an essential part of successful fiction writing, and it is equally important in narrative nonfiction forms such as memoir and literary journalism. It is also one of the most complex elements of craft, with many different means of achieving it and quite a few ways in which it can fall short. In this weeklong workshop we will examine a variety of successfully realized characters in published fiction and narrative nonfiction, exploring how the authors managed to bring them so richly and intensely and memorably to life. We will place particular emphasis on discovering the uniqueness of characters, whether imagined or drawn directly from life, the individual’s “strangeness,” the distinctiveness that makes a person real to us as well as surprising.

Through daily writing exercises, some in which you can address excerpts from pieces already drafted and some drawing freshly on memory, observation, and imagination, you will generate and share new and significantly revised scenes that put into practice a wide range of characterization techniques, strengthening your command of those with which you are already familiar and experimenting with those you haven’t used before. This workshop is designed to be useful to writers with all levels of experience who have at least some fiction or narrative nonfiction writing in progress.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through exercises and assignments, and provide feedback on writing you produce in our week.