Session 7: Outline

At our meet-up on May 19th, we will:

• Hear from Thanh-Nu about submitting writing in a language that's not your mother tongue (and, if we get time, a few hot tips on submitting for journals and small presses!).

• Talk about POV (Point of View) and how choosing the point of view from which you tell your story matters (and in what ways).

• Tie POV to the units of story (global, scene, dialogue etc.).

Session 6: Outline

At our meet-up on April 21, we will:

• Share insights and questions regarding the Session 5 exercise
• Workshop TBD's piece (we are looking for a volunteer!)
• Hear from Jim, who is leading the discussion on beta readers

Session 5: Outline

Session 5: Manifestations of the villain, and his/her/its arc

• We will share insights from the writing prompt.
• We will discuss the antagonist in our work and what form he, she, or it takes.
• We will identify the villain/antagonist's appearance (inciting incident? before? after?).
• We will talk villainous motivations and how they intersect with those of the main character.

Session 4: Outline

Session 4: The setting of the inciting incident

• We will review the writing prompt, in which we examine the setting of the inciting incident and why that setting is (or is not!) significant
• We will workshop a piece of writing.

Session 3: Outline

Session 3: Elevator Pitches and Inciting Incidents

• We will look at our elevator pitches with our 'plot and theme' lens, as per the Session 2 worksheet;
• We will look at the inciting incident (hook) and how it relates to our story pitch;
• We'll distill what’s at stake for our protagonist and look at the Hero’s Journey; and

• We'll workshop the submitted piece.

Session 2: Outline

Session 2

Getting Started & Story Mechanics

In this session we're going to look at how we can get started and shift gears from freestyle to focus, and we'll take a first look at some story mechanics, or how stories work. This will be especially useful for editing your own and others' work.

We will also look at another piece of writing from the group, and give some awesome, helpful feedback. :)

Specifically, we'll look at:

1. Getting started

• Writing prompts feedback: how did it work for you? What did you discover/observe?
• How to segue from freestyle to focused writing: finding your way into the project; character; chronology.

2. Story Mechanics

• Theme vs. Plot, Idea vs. Action
• The Central Dramatic Question

Session 1: Outline

Session 1

Writing: What and How?

In this first session, we take a broad brush and look at the what and the how of our own writing, in order to build self-awareness.

Self-awareness is very useful because, when we have it, we are far more likely to be able to step back from our work, jam on the editor's hat, and look objectively at what we've been writing.

What do we like to write? What are our obsessions?

These questions will not only be clarifying for us personally, but they also give us clues about possible genres for our stories. As we always need to be thinking of the reader when we're putting our story into an earthly Story Container, knowing the genre is a useful first step that can help us with the form of the story later.

How do we write?

This question will lead us to look at: the words we choose, phrasing, rhythm, topic, theme. And this is a good way to start to look critically at the mechanics of what makes up a piece of writing. (More on this in Week 3.)

Specifically, this week, we also look at how to give the right kind of feedback.

*
We will look at:

• What are your obsessions? (Put this away as a metric check for later.)
• Why did you start writing? And/or why are you here to start or continue writing?
• Exercise: Writing and Self Awareness
• How to give feedback, with a live feedback session.