March 10th, 2 PM – 4 PM Eastern Time

Verbal & Non-Verbal Dialogue: When people converse, they do so with more than just words. Body language, tone of voice, and societal context all play a role in understanding what a person means. In this workshop, we’ll use in-class exercises to explore how to get the most out of dialog.

May 5th, 2 PM – 4 PM Eastern Time

Structuring a Heist: In a heist, you have elements of thrillers, ensemble casts, and deliver satisfying twists. How do you balance all of those things and keep the story moving forward?

June 30th, 2 PM – 4 PM Eastern Time

Writing Through Fatigue: One of the things about being a writer is that there are points in your career where you have to write, even when your surroundings aren’t conducive to it. In this workshop, we learn to write in between the moments of stress and when you find yourself too tired to write. Together we tackle the external and internal reasons that prevent us from writing.

October 13th, 2 PM – 4 PM Eastern Time

The Progression of a Character Arc: In this deep dive on character arcs, we’ll take a look at how you can have your character change in a believable way. Many writers think that a character needs to be deeply flawed at the beginning in order to have an arc. We’ll look at how to pry into the cracks in their personality to create conflict and tension within the character.

“This class covers the basics of how to convey verbal and non-verbal interactions to better individualize characters in a story and make dialogue more dynamic. Also the puppetry added context was really fun and helped highlight how to use certain emotions and gestures to establish a character! There was also a class exercise that I enjoyed quite a bit.” – V.M. Ayala

“Mary Robinette is a phenomenal teacher and breaks down things that as a reader, I had missed, but as a writer I would need to demonstrate. I level up each time I have a lesson with her.” – Wen Wen Yang

“I love Mary Robinette Kowal’s classes because of the tools she’s created to help understand nuts-and-bolts of craft, and her warm and inclusive approach cuts through the frustrations I run into working on my writing. In her approach generally, and this class specifically, she’s taken the time to figure out how to pinpoint what’s going when something’s not working. What helps me is to learn: the issue is diagnosable, and it’s fixable. If a reader (or you) are bored by a section, this doesn’t mean (as my anxiety brain so helpfully tells me), ‘you suck at this and you should stop.’ It simply means there’s a technical reason for the issue, and you can fix that issue. In addition to the practical information in the course, I’ve gotten hope when I needed it. Invaluable.” – Marianne Lambelet

“MRK has a way of teaching that not only provides you with that AHA moment of how to improve your writing, but she does so in way that is implementable and with genuine care for her students. MRK is a master of writing who is both approachable and open to questions. If your debating taking one of her courses don’t, just register. Trust me you’ll be glad you did.” – Jackie Adam

“”Diagnosing Story Problems” feels like MRK curated a course just for me and came at the exact time I was dealing with these problems. It helped me to look at my writing process differently and to untangle sticking points or explain certain behaviours (such as procrastination). I appreciated the self-pacing and the quizzes after each short segment helped to reinforce the lessons and force me to think about key ideas/tips from each video. MRK is also an excellent and experienced teacher. Her points are clear and the material is helpful. This course would benefit writers of all levels.” – Samara Lo

March 29th 5 PM – March 31st 7 PM

Join Mary Robinette Kowal in a 3 day intensive workshop, during which you’ll be given a set of tools, write a story and critique it in class.