Each month Mary Robinette teaches new material for her Patreon members at the Livestreaming Class level (and above). This is the lesson plan for 2024. When you join, you unlock recordings of every class she has taught for the past five years, which is 70+ hours of content.
Typically, classes are help on the last Monday of the month at 8 PM Eastern, but this can be subject to change due to travel and other obligations. For the latest dates and any changes, head over to the Event Calendar.
January – Auditioning Characters: How do you find the right character for a story? You can audition characters through exploratory writing. In the class we’ll look at swapping character class and intrinsic motivation. Where the character comes from makes a difference in how they respond to problems. So what happens when you flip an axis of power like gender or education?There will be some in-class writing assignments.
February – Creativity and Care Giving with Sandra Tayler: You understand how creativity impacts your writing, but may be unaware how many other places you use your creative skills. Join Sandra Tayler as she shows us how we use creativity and problem solving in care work, in grief, in community building and the creation of a life that allows your creative processes to cross connect and provide support for each other as you move forward toward your goals.
March – Unlocking Session: In this session, we’ll pick four volunteers at random to help unlock a thing that the writer is stuck on. It might be plot, character, voice… The idea is to give you a chance to talk it out in a safe setting with guidance from MRK to help you get past the barrier and back to writing.
April – What Drives a Genre: Most genres break down into two types, structure genres (mystery, romance) vs Aesthetic genres (science-fiction, fantasy). We’re going to look at what the major drivers are and how you can mix them to make your fiction feel fresh.
May – Manipulating Tone and Mood: Writing workshops tend to focus on structure or pacing, but tone and mood play as big a part in the experience of the reader. We’ll look at how to manipulate tone and mood through our imagery, word choices and sentence structures.
June – Timeshifted Unlocking session: Our usual unlocking session, but six hours earlier to make it easier for people in Europe and Africa to join in.
July – Mining your own history: One of the ways to bring out your voice into a story is to make it more personal. This doesn’t mean copying an event exactly from your life, but extrapolating from related emotions or sensory details.
August – Grounding the Reader: Through out the story, the reader wants to be grounded. We’ll look at how to use description, setting, and sensory details to create a vivid sense of place and person.
September – Unlocking session: In this session, we’ll pick four volunteers at random to help unlock a thing that the writer is stuck on. It might be plot, character, voice… The idea is to give you a chance to talk it out in a safe setting with guidance from MRK to help you get past the barrier and back to writing.
October – Erin Roberts on finding funding for writers: Navigating the writing life demands financial creativity. Explore income diversification beyond traditional publishing. Embrace opportunities like school appearances, copywriting, fellowships, consulting, and teaching. Learn about leveraging newsletters, Patreon, and self-monetization. Discover how an agent can combat imposter syndrome. Tips, tricks, and tools for sustaining your writing career.
November – Wildcard – Based on what your needs are during the year, we’ll set this class together in September.
December – Unlocking session: In this session, we’ll pick four volunteers at random to help unlock a thing that the writer is stuck on. It might be plot, character, voice… The idea is to give you a chance to talk it out in a safe setting with guidance from MRK to help you get past the barrier and back to writing.
Other benefits included in this
Patreon Tier:
- Monthly live Q&A session via Zoom where you can ask Mary Robinette anything!
- Access to the Lady Astronaut Discord and a channel just for your Patreon level
- Discount on any public live classes
- After three months subscribing, you get an exclusive Lady Astronaut Club Mug
Subscribe to Mary Robinette’s Patreon this month to join in for all the 2024 classes!
