Close your eyes and imagine the drawing room scene in which Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. Now imagine the Tea Party scene with the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. What about the scene in The Shining in which Wendy sees what her husband Jack has been typing all this time? Now think of a vivid scene from a novel or memoir from your reading. Can you picture everything clearly, as if you’re watching a movie? World building is not just for fantasy writers. All fiction writers and memoirists must build our worlds, whether the world is Edwardian England, an imaginary land through a rabbit hole, a haunted hotel in Colorado, the world of your 1970s childhood, or the world we’re all currently living in. When we do this, scenes come to life and readers truly enter the world of our stories—and don’t want to return to the “real world” again. In this weekend workshop, we will: Introduce the concept of world building. Study a few examples of well-built fictional and autobiographical worlds. Learn how to create a history and timeline (backstory) for our characters. Visualize our worlds, using various techniques. Learn techniques that will help us create vivid scenes—and then put them into practice through exercises. Discover the just-right balance between exposition and dialogue in scenes so that they come to life. Be a member of a supportive and stimulating community of writers. Write! The class will consist of a combination of lecture, discussion, writing, and sharing. We will do various exercises throughout the weekend to work on world building, and you’ll have the opportunity to receive verbal feedback on your work. Writers may bring work from home to work on or generate new material—or both. This class is appropriate for writers of all levels. We can’t wait to enter into your fictional or autobiographical worlds! In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our weekend; workshop writing you bring from home.

Congratulations! You’ve finished the first draft (or second, or third, or seventy-ninth) of your story, novel, or memoir! You know your manuscript still needs work, but you aren’t sure how to go about revising it. Should you change the plot? (How?) Do something with the character? (What?) Work on every sentence again and again until they’re perfect? (Maybe you’re making them worse?) Welcome to Revision Bootcamp! In this weeklong course, we’ll discuss how to revise your manuscript now and in the future, and we’ll workshop some important elements of your novel, memoir, or story, all with an eye toward publication (if that’s your goal). Three important levels of revision are the Developmental Edit (looking at the “Big Picture,” which includes structure, plot, character development, etc.), the Scene Edit (checking to make sure there is a good balance of description, exposition, and dialogue, so that the scene comes alive for the reader); and the Line Edit (polishing every sentence to make sure the language flows well). In this weeklong workshop, we’ll be looking at all three levels, and workshopping the Big Picture and the Scene Edit. The class will consist of a combination of discussion, lecture, exercises, and workshop. We will end the class with a “Revision Checklist,” going over everything writers might want to make sure they achieve in their projects after the class is over. Workshop mates will provide verbal comments on all work; Kelly will provide verbal comments on all work, and written comments on your one-page synopsis. Course Objectives: To learn about, study, and discuss important elements of revision for self-editing. To provide and receive valuable feedback, from fellow writers and the instructor, which we can use to help us improve our manuscripts. To leave the class with an understanding of what makes a cohesive work of fiction or memoir, what makes a scene clear to a reader, and how to make your own manuscript clearer and more cohesive. To be part of a supportive and stimulating writing community of authors who have written a draft of a manuscript. This class is best suited for advanced writers. Our primary focus will be on revising work you bring from home, although we might also generate some new material. This will be a fun and rewarding class in which you are sure to receive actionable feedback on your writing and feel like you are a valued part of a writing community. If you are taking this course, then you have already accomplished something incredible: you’ve written a draft of a novel, memoir, or story. Be proud of yourself, and then dig in, because now the real tortuous delight and fun begin—revision! In this workshop, the focus will be on revising writing you bring from home.