Often when we’re writing a story, we start at the beginning and try to get everything done at once: compelling plot, best point of view, engaging characters, beautiful images, and so on. Sometimes this works, but oftentimes it feels like so much to juggle that we get stuck, or don’t feel that the story we end up with is as rich as we’d like it to be.

This class invites you to try a different approach. We’ll begin by writing a short (500 word) sketch, then expand it day by day while adding a new element—and not necessarily the obvious ones mentioned above! We will look to published models for inspiration, and we will help each other see what’s working, and what could work better, as we progress through our drafts. By the end of the week, your sketch should be transformed into a shapely, sturdy, and affecting work of fiction. You’ll also take home a new method for approaching writing, and some new perspectives on what a story can do. This workshop welcomes writers at all stages.

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

Strong feeling is often what drives us to write. We want our reader to experience the sadness or outrage, the delight or sense of betrayal we feel when thinking about a fictional (or nonfictional) situation. But how do we do that, exactly? How do we tell a story that’s not cold, but that’s not melodramatic either?

This class will offer exercises and prompts to explore a variety of ways to get emotion on the page. We will experiment with description, dialogue, action, and gesture, and also how we use language itself. For each technique, we will look at examples from the pros, discussing how a range of writers have tackled these challenges. At the end of the weekend, you’ll have several new tools in your tool belt, and you will have written some pages that can serve as a springboard for more complete works. Together we will strive to make our classmates cry, laugh, gasp, and maybe even tremble with fear. Useful for both beginning and more experienced writers in any prose genre.

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