Learn to effectively describe characters and settings without bogging down the pace of your prose.
Description:
W. H. Horner, a faculty mentor with Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, will work through fundamental aspects of writing fiction. Attendance is limited. Handouts and worksheets will be provided. Attendees should bring a three-ring notebook and paper. One of the hardest and yet most rewarding tasks for a writer is bringing worlds to life. Readers need to experience the settings with as many senses as possible and be able to see and hear characters clearly in order to connect with them. However, the majority of readers don’t want pages upon pages of lifeless description, no matter how beautiful it might be. This workshop is designed to help writers bring their creations to life with vivid prose that doesn’t devolve into
travelogues or portraiture. Exercises will help attendees experiment with descriptive techniques.
Learn what makes dialogue effective and craft powerful examples of your own.
Description:
W. H. Horner, a faculty mentor with Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, will work through fundamental aspects of writing fiction. Attendance is limited. Handouts and worksheets will be provided. Attendees should bring a three-ring notebook and paper. Dialogue is one of the best ways to move the plot forward while bringing characters to life. If it crackles with energy and instantly commands attention, good dialogue will stick with readers after they have put down the book or short story. While it’s easy to recognize, it’s not easy to create. W. H. Horner walks attendees through issues and techniques related to dialogue by analyzing some of the best examples in prose, film, and stage writing. Attendees will have a chance to craft dialogue of their own, trying out techniques and sharing with the group.
Writer's Craft: Fiction Fundamentals Focus Session: Point of View
Summary:
Learn about POV options and pitfalls and how to deepen readers’ engagement with your characters.
Description:
W. H. Horner, a faculty mentor with Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, will work through fundamental aspects of writing fiction. Attendance is limited. Handouts and worksheets will be provided. Attendees should bring a three-ring notebook and paper. What is point of view? How can authors use POV choices to provide engaging reading experiences for their readers? All these questions and more will be answered in this focused workshop. W. H. Horner will walk attendees through a number of issues related to point of view, focusing on ways to deepen their engagement with their characters in order to give readers the intense experiences they crave. Writing exercises will include experimenting with various point of view techniques, making one’s writing reflect the point of view character’s attitudes and emotions, and recognizing problems in point of view execution.
Writer's Craft: Fiction Fundamentals Focus Session: Publication Pitfalls and Traps
Summary:
Learn about the submission process and what to avoid in your prose to increase your chances of publication.
Description:
W. H. Horner, a faculty mentor with Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, will work through fundamental aspects of writing fiction. Handouts and worksheets will be provided. Attendees should bring a three-ring notebook and paper.
We all make mistakes, but editors, agents, and publishers want manuscripts that are as close to perfect as possible and with authors who communicate clearly and professionally. W. H. Horner has amassed a collection of mistakes and literary blunders from both beginning and established writers. The workshop deals with topics such as grammar, formatting, and style in manuscripts. Query and cover letters will also be covered, with a focus on professional presentation and tone. After the session, attendees should be able to spot pitfalls in their own work before submitting it for publication or direct sale.
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole takes you through a series of exercises that will let you build a story from the barest spark through twists and turns.
Description:
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole takes you through a series of exercises that will let you build a story from the barest spark through twists and turns. He’ll give you several story recipes and show you how you can work from them to create delightfully complex and engrossing stories.
New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole gives you the “mission checklist” to make sure your novel is ready to publish.
Description:
New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole gives you the “mission checklist” to make sure your novel is ready to publish. He’ll cover the basics from how to know if you want to do one more draft, on through how to produce and package your book for sale. If you think you’re ready to pull the trigger on publishing, or if you want to make sure you’ve got all the pieces in place, this seminar will provide you with answers to all your questions, and some you didn’t even know you should ask.
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole unravels the mysteries of creating compelling plots.
Description:
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole unravels the mysteries of creating compelling plots. A novel is a huge undertaking, written over weeks or months, and the plot has to hold it all together. From creating an outline to maintaining flexibility, this seminar gives you the insider knowledge that will separate you from all of your peers.
Master plotting techniques, from basic structural concepts to plotting to breaking writer's block.
Description:
Plotting is one of the more difficult disciplines to master in writing. Some writers have an innate sense of what makes a story work, but most writers, particularly those early in their apprenticeships, will benefit from plotting. This seminar focuses on various plotting techniques, from basic structural concepts, initial plotting and eventual refinement, how to break the dreaded writer's block and how to avoid it in the first place.
Discuss types of tension, as well as ways to maximize them to keep your reader glued to the page
Description:
Tension is one of the basic building blocks of modern day fiction. If you know how to lay the seeds of tension, and how to coax them, you can transform your fiction from merely noteworthy to exceptional. In this seminar, the different types of tension are discussed, as well as ways to maximize them to keep your reader glued to the page.
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole presents the Rules of Writing. The insider tips and tricks that you'd pick up in the first five years of your career presented in an hour.
Description:
New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole presents the Rules of Writing. These are the insider tips and tricks that you'd pick up in the first five years of your writing career, all presented here in an hour. Gleaned from personal experience and the experience of writers dating back to the 1930s, these tricks will cut three years out of your development as a writer.