REGISTRATION OPENS on Sunday, April 27th at noon Central.
Think you never have time to write? Think again. I wrote my first Hugo-nominated short story “Evil Robot Monkey” in ninety minutes. If you have ninety minutes, you can have a story — all it takes is understanding how to make every word work double-time. In this workshop, learn the same techniques I use to create new fiction. Through exercises focusing on viewpoint, dialogue, and plot, you’ll learn how to let nothing go to waste. By the end of this three day workshop, participants will be given a writing prompt and complete their own short story.
Classes will be taught via G+ from August 29-31
Each session, you will be given an exercise that builds on the previous session. Classwork will be uploaded to a shared Google Drive folder visible only to you and your classmates. The class will be divided between lecture and group critique. The class is capped at eight students, to create a class size that allows the most interaction, feedback and personal attention for each of you.
Class requirements: You need an interest in writing short stories, but you do not need to have written or published anything yet. You also must be able to use G+ Hangouts (Note: You don’t need a web camera, although they’re useful, but you do need a working microphone, a G+ account, the internet and some headphones so you can hear us).
This is an intensive workshop, so do not plan anything else that weekend.
Schedule (all times are Central time)
Friday
7pm-9pm
Introduction, discussion of POV using specificity, and focus. Exercise 1: Context
Saturday
8am
Post assignment.
11am-12pm
Critique of homework. Second POV assignment
1:30pm
Post assignment/meal break
3pm-5pm
Discuss nature of dialog, use of rhythms to distinguish character. In class exercise, followed by homework.
6:30pm
Post assignment/meal break
8pm-10pm
Plot structure. Plot homework
Sunday
7am
Post assignment
9am-11pm
Discuss plot exercise, unpacking, and outlining for short fiction. Outline homework
Noon
Post homework/meal break
2pm-4pm
Discuss outlines. Recap of plot structure. Final exercise.
4pm-5:30pm
Write a story in ninety minutes.
5:30pm
Post story/meal break
7pm-10pm
Critique of stories. Discussion of revision process. The giant Q&A in which Mary answers questions about anything.
If you can’t afford this workshop, I’m also offering a sliding scale one.
Yeah, I saw that . . . kind of tempted, but I’m guessing I’d have to be poised at the ordering site, and I’d only have a few seconds to try and get a spot.
Plus, I think I’m pretty good . . . not sure I want to find out I’m not.
I’ll revisit if there’s a few openings left after a few days ( although still don’t know if I want to find out how much I suck).
I took this course when Mary offered it in March. Using the tools I learned in the course, I have finished two short stories since then, both written in less than a day. Before this, I have rarely finished a story and certainly not in as short a time of actual writing.
My stories aren’t good, mind you, but with a cohesive framework for completing stories, I’m certain they’ll improve.
I used to be good at writing short stories (even a couple published) but now that I’m busier doing adult things like paying a mortgage and fixing up the house, I find it difficult to find the time. I do think that part of the issue is discipline and really believing I can get somewhere significant quickly and efficiently.
I’m not good at remembering “tickets go on sale” things (and therefore do not attend many concerts or highly sought after theatrical events) but I have put it on my calendar as a reminder.
Sounds like fun! (And thank you, Peter, for the endorsement.)
Not even open for sale and down to 5 slots left! 😉
Very interested in this, as I decided this would be the year I tried to dedicate some actual time and energy (and resources, as needed) to bettering my writing. (Or you know, actually *writing*, which is a start)
Debating whether I’d get more out of an intensive ground-up course, or some paid critique of my work. Tried local “adult school” critique workshops and got what I paid for in terms of the value of the feedback…
You’ll get critiques in the workshop. Lots and lots of them.
When people are waitlisted for previous sessions, I give them first crack at registering for future workshops.
Mary, are the critiques group-wide or 1:1?
Does content type (F/SF) matter?
Shall I assume than anyone taking this class *from you* will automagically have an F/SF bent?
Mary, are the critiques group-wide or 1:1?
Everybody gets critiqued by two classmates, plus me. You rotate through the classmates during the class, so although you won’t critique everyone, you’ll still get a range of responses.
Does content type (F/SF) matter?
The content type does not matter.
Shall I assume than anyone taking this class *from you* will automagically have an F/SF bent?
That’s a safe assumption, although I’ve had students before who were doing straight contemporary or historical fiction with no SFnal bent.
Mary, completely off-topic:
Over in the sidebar, under MRK’s Events, I get nothing.
Actually, I get:
Fatal error: GCE_Feed::init(): The script tried to execute a method or access a property of an incomplete object. Please ensure that the class definition "GCE_Event" of the object you are trying to operate on was loaded _before_ unserialize() gets called or provide a __autoload() function to load the class definition in /home/content/p3pewpnas04pod08_data04/02/2079502/html/wp-content/plugins/google-calendar-events/inc/gce-feed.php on line 121
I’m on the latest flavor of Chrome, and I’m not sure but what it isn’t just me.
Oh, and there they are now, just fine.
Huh.
I get this error message about half the time. Might be the unholy intersection of my machine and WordPress.
Never mind.
Last Question: Are you doing anything like this at Westercon in July? I will be there, and would love to do it live, if such a thing was being offered.
Assuming “no”, I am *so in.* My virtual elbows will be poised and at the ready in the morning.
I’m going to pretend that I didn’t notice that this intensive will be starting at 5AM in CA, so that I can claim I didn’t know when I ask myself “WTF were you thinking!?!?” in 4 months. Self preservation.
Hm… am I doing the math wrong? I thought it would have opened for registration at 10am my time…
It was supposed to open automatically, and I’m not sure why it didn’t. So sorry about that.