Online Writing Workshops: Details
All workshops are listed alphabetically. Scroll down to the one in question. To
check the presentation schedule, return to OnlineWorkshops in the Menu.
All workshops are of 4-week duration unless noted as 3-week or 1-week long
All workshops are listed alphabetically. Scroll down to the one in question. To
check the presentation schedule, return to OnlineWorkshops in the Menu.
All workshops are of 4-week duration unless noted as 3-week or 1-week long
ACTION-ADVENTURE AND THE NYT LIST: WHAT MAKES A STEVE BERRY BEST SELLER TICK
It isn’t often that a new author’s name appears on the New York Times best seller list, particularly in the top ten. And far
more male writers land a position there than females do. What do these guys write? More often than not, it’s action-
adventure.
But that’s too simple a classification because these tales tend to also have a historical mystery or treasure to be
uncovered or found and then protected. They have some romance, though never a love scene. They have puzzles to
solve, trails to follow, mysteries to be uncovered, exposed, and villains to be bested, brought to justice, or inadvertently
killed.
There are continuing themes that the men on the NYT list work into their tales. Some specialty their hero has, perhaps.
With Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series, it was an underwater element. With Dan Brown’s past three titles it was symbolism
and secret societies.
With Steve Berry it’s military/political as well as involving something historical – and the clock is always ticking. In fact, in
one of Berry’s books, you get to hit a number of tourist sites and usually have a gun battle erupt at them. Berry also has
what many of the other male writers don’t seem able to pull off – an equally qualified and believable female lead who
carries the secondary storyline that always blends into the main storyline at the conclusion.
So a look at what makes a Steve Berry tale tick is well worth the effort, whether your goal is to land a spot on the NYT list
or merely improve the sales potential of your novel. To make it easy to find a title to use as our textbook (via library or
bookstore), we’ll be working with THE ALEXANDRIA LINK, copyright 2007. It’s 499 pages long, which means we’re taking
4-weeks to read, study, evaluate, and do a bit of plot-wise emulating along the way.
AND WITH A COMPOSITIONAL FLOURISH...: Using Rhetorical Devises to Improve Your Prose
To paraphrase Cole Porter, advanced speech geeks do it, presidents and lawyer type creeps do it, Aristole and the
Greeks do’d it, let’s do it, let’s…well, Cole says “let’s fall in love” but we’ll change that to “let’s write with flare.”
In other words, let’s use the same compositional and speech tactics that have been getting results for well over a
thousand years. The things I term compositional flourishes.
Some of them we’re all probably familiar with…onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, metaphor, simile, and of course the
romance writer’s constant companion, euphemism. But how can we direct these specifically toward writing scenes fraught
with sexual tension, love scenes, and erotica?
That’s what this workshop is all about. Not only will workshop attendees rub shoulders with terms the Greeks flung about
with careless abandon, they’ll see how each of the various tactics can work for them and improve their writing skills by
reworking things, making lists of great word parings, and various other assignments.
Using them also makes for more fascinating reading material, although readers may not recognize the subtle touch of our
pens.
This is a four week course. Lessons are posted on Mondays and Wednesdays and any feedback from the instructor on
questions, etc., is given before the next Monday lesson is posted, if not sooner. On Fridays things are restricted to
comments, suggestions, and feedback.
There are around 45 different rhetorical devices, but the workshop would focus on the 16 that would work best for fiction
writers.
BACK IN PRINT! KEEPING YOUR BACK LIST AVAILABLE
It’s sad how short a time our sweat and toil stays on a bookseller’s shelves, isn’t it? And with new titles released every
month, unless you’ve managed to make it repeatedly to the NYT or USA Today bestseller lists, it’s pulled—stripped—and
returned for credit within far too short a time.
Contracts tie our hands for years, but once the legal limit has been reached authors can and should request the rights
back on previously published titles. Why? So they can turn things around and make those books available once more,
whether through a reprint publisher, through electronic publishing or even by becoming their own publisher.
While the major writers associations have denounced self-publishing, there isn’t a single published author alive who
wouldn’t like to have their back list – their FULL back list – available to readers who missed titles the first time around.
And that is what this workshop is about – getting previously published books back in circulation once more, and not
through recycling of used copies. We’ll also talk about creating spin-off items or collections to build yourself – things that
your publisher isn’t interested in, like a build-your-own-anthology of your shorter work – things written for all those
contests you entered, perhaps?
Debate is fierce over whether becoming your own publisher is a smart option or a disastrous decision, but we’ll also look
at the smaller publishing houses that are interested in contracting for reprints, and every choice there can be made to
get back list in readers hands once more.
This class is not just for authors with previously published titles but for anyone who is interested in, is toying with the idea
of, or is gung-ho to take the leap into what might well define publishing in the 21st century: small niche publishing houses
and independently published print and electronic books.
Things to be discussed are editing, interior layout, cover design, distribution choices, pricing, and promotion for
independently published and/or electronic books.
Searches will be made for publishers who do reprints or e-books or audio books of previously published material as well
as various was to investigate independent publishing through contracts with local publishing firms, micro-publishers, or
publish-on-demand houses. While Lulu.com is the instructor’s POD choice for minimum financial outlay for small print
runs, other POD publishers will be discussed as well. We'll also talk formatting for Kindle and PubIt!, the Nook alternative.
Participants can have a manuscript ready to load, or be interested in learning what they need to do to independently
publish through a small publishing house specializing in e-books, through use of a POD, Kindle or PubIt!, or simply have
information to consider in regards to the many options they could pursue to get backlist available once more.
BREAKING THINGS DOWN INTO THREES: Plot Organization for Pantsers as well as Plotters
A 3-Week Workshop
Plots require organization – even those written by Pantsers. Why? Because all storytelling requires a flow, a smooth
transition from one scene to the next. Getting it doesn’t require an outline though. All it requires is a system. A system of
breaking everything down into thirds.
Three is a magic number. It’s used in art, music, interior design, and in literature. After all, doesn’t every story have a
Beginning, a Middle, and an End? Three things.
But we need to go further. Need to section the various elements of our storylines into smaller and smaller divisions of
three.
Many have already have done this in writing essays at school, or in a public speaking class. Opening either a essay or a
speech by telling the audience what is going to be discussing or telling them about, then breaking the body of the
essay/speech into sections, and finally recapping everything at the end.
Look at it this way. What was said is: 1) here’s what has occurred before and what we need to change, 2) here is how we
can change it or why we should change it, and 3) the problem is this because of this and that and we need to do this to
correct it.
Storylines in fiction do exactly the same thing, they simply use characterization, action and reaction to move along.
Scenes can be broken down into threes; chapters can; POVs can. And in thinking by threes to create each tale, each
element of a tale, story flow results.
Participants should have a work in progress, but it can be in any state of development – thinking about, early chapters,
middle, or heading toward the conclusion. Thinking by threes works at any level, including editing. It can also help identify
things that aren’t really needed in the book, the sort of things editors delete.
Lectures are posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with responses from the instructor posted for questions or
assignments before the next Monday’s lecture. It is, oddly enough, a 3-week class.
This class is for writers at any point in their writing career from unpublished to midlist.
BUILD AN E-BOOK COVER FOR KINDLE OR NOOK 1-week workshop
It isn’t enough to have a great story to rerelease or a mini-niche non-fiction tale to produce, if you want your book up and
available as an e-book for either Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook, you are going to need a cover.
Building one isn’t that difficult, even if you don’t have any graphics layout experience in your background. It’s simple a
step-by-step process, which we’ll cover in this 1-week mini-workshop.
THINGS YOU’LL NEED
1) title of the book and the author name. Hey, you know those already, right?
2) a publisher’s name – not the original publisher, if this is a reprint, but the name you want to use as an independent
publisher of your own e-books
3) desk top publishing software – I’ll tell you where to find a free one and guide you through using it
4) some ideas of what colors you want to use
5) a decision on whether you want an illustration and what sort of illustration (and I’ll tell you how to find royalty free
ones, though you will probably have to pay a token one time fee to use the one – or ones – you choose)
6) a color printer, possibly with a scanner
7) the ability to create .jpg files (which frequently are tied to the scanner) and know the pixel count
8) a laptop or PC, which you already have if you are reading this!
9) approximately two or more hours at least two or three nights during the workshop week to work on your cover
10) to ask questions if having any problems.
Our expenses will be modest and the results can be amazing, spectacular, and quite simple.
BIO: Beth Daniels does have a background in graphics advertising layouts but she had to teach herself how to use the
programs that create covers because she left the advertising field before personal computers began being used to do
layouts. After a sufficient amount of mental and muttered swearing, she worked out the kinks and is willing to share. You
can find samples of the covers she created by looking up Kindle or Nook e-books by Beth Henderson, her pseudonym.
CHANGING GENRES: How to Decide What to Keep and What to Dump, What to Change, What to
Enhance When Following Trends, Jumping into Different “Lines” or Going Down A New Road
The publishing world is in constant transition with different aspects in novels changing, sometimes over a decade,
sometimes – it seems – nearly overnight. Will you be ready? Or are you already thinking of jumping from your current
“ship”, swinging with the finesse of Captain Jack Sparrow onto the publishing vessel riding the waves to starboard or port?
There are a number of reasons why writers decide to try something different. Some do it because the bottom has fallen
out of what they were writing, some because they are excited about a rising trend. Whatever your reason for considering
making the leap there are decisions to be made. And that is what this workshop is all about.
Just because editors are no longer buying what you have been writing doesn’t mean you need to junk your style entirely.
There are elements that travel well between genres, even if the genres stay within the romance marketplace or leap into
an entirely different marketplace. Determining what can or should be kept and what needs to be altered, enhanced,
dumped, or learned goes beyond simply deciding to take the leap.
This workshop runs four weeks and sets challenges twice a week. These challenges (or homework, if you will) address
things like the marketplace, evaluating the elements required, making note of how many of them are already part of the
writer’s style, deciding what needs to be learned/adapted/changed, and even confessing – or realizing – the reason a
writer is considering leaping into a new field. In other words, “what’s it going to take and can I follow though?”
All that is required of attendees is a vague idea of where they’d like to go, where they’d like to be as their writing career
evolves. Both unpublished and published authors welcomed.
CHOOSING YOUR NICHE IN THE MYSTERY FIELD
You love mystery. I mean, really love mystery. You buy mystery, read mystery, watch mystery series on TV, head to the
theatre to be immersed in mystery, your favorite board game is Clue, and you've even had dinner or board a train where
the audience becomes part of the evening’s entertainment in a mystery.
But there are so many different types of mystery tales! How is a mystery buff to decide which style they should choose
when it comes to writing a mystery?
We’re here to help you sort out the possibilities. During the four weeks of this workshop, participants will evaluate what
they like best in a mystery, take a “dip” into various niches within the mystery by reading either novels or short stories
(depending on their time allowances) in different…well, we’ll call them mystery disciplines, and sort through what their
strengths and weaknesses are in relation to research interests, plotting, sleuth building, red herrings, and all the rest that
goes along with writing a mystery.
Among the niches investigated will be: romantic suspense, comedic cozy, police procedural, historical mystery, caper
tales, spy/action adventure stories, the children’s market for mystery, the paranormal in mystery, plus series and stand-
alone titles.
Participants given weekly Challenges (aka homework or assignments) to help them sort out what will work best for their
interests, strengths, and writing style in creating a mystery or mystery series by the close of the workshop.
Lectures posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with questions and answers taken and answered throughout the week.
Participants are urged to post their Challenges answers for discussion and comment by ALL participants.
CORSETS, GOGGLES, AIRSHIPS, OH MY! Researching and Writing Steampunk
The skies are filled with airships, the ground crowded with ladies in corsets with parasols and men in top hats or derbies
leaning on walking sticks. Everyone owns a pair of brass goggles and is up on all the latest in steam powered clockwork
technology, the discovery of new lands, and possibly conversant with the paranormal as well. Or considering ways they
can take over the world, or at least get it eating complacently out of their hand.
Is this the Age of Victoria?
Not exactly. It’s definitely the World of Steampunk. And if you are interested in writing for this subgenre, born of the
Romeo and Juliet like liaison of the Historical and the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genres, then researching and writing your story will
be a melding of the ways as well.
For research you do need – not just into the Industrial Age, but also into the Current Era and the About-To-Be wonders
of technology. Steampunk throws them all in the pot and turns them into quite uncommon porridge.
The key is knowing what you can use that actually was and what you can warp, morph, twist, tweak, alter, reconfigure,
and dream up in connection with it.
Steampunk is more than merely a pseudo-Victorian world, for it can play out in the future or in an alternate universe just
as easily as it can be performed on the 19th and early 20th century stage. But until you know what sort of homework you
need to do in preparing to write your story, how can you cook up a lovely steamed meal of fact and fantastic fiction?
This 4-Week workshop tells how by guiding participants through the doors of history and on an excursion into the world of
clockwork mechanics as well as highlighting the various elements that make up Steampunk.
For beginning novelists and for those interested in switching to or expanding into a new genre.
COVERING YOUR BASES: PROMOTIONAL AND PERSONAL USES FOR POD TRADE PAPERBACKS
and KINDLE and NOOK E-BOOKS
POD – the ubiquitous Print On Demand self-publishing option – is not all bad. Particularly if you are using it to:
1. provide adjunct material, such as short stories or novellas set in the same world as a longer manuscript to build
readership, provide conference “goodie bag” handouts, treat fans between new releases
2. provide materials when presenting workshops
3. turn workshops into mini-books
4. convert previously published articles or short stories, or unpublished articles or short stories into mini-book sized
collections
5. have a convenient carry-around “book” for editing purposes if laptops aren’t an option (books don’t depend on
batteries or electronics, after all, and certainly aren’t as heavy or bulky)
6. create special projects for friends and family…for fans!...at the holidays or to celebrate new releases from your major
publisher
7. continue a series that a publisher pulled the plug on – or closed their doors leaving it homeless – when other
publishers balk at picking up a series that was original released through another publisher
8. get a manuscript you love but can’t find a home for off your desk so you can move on!
9. put back-list titles back in print and available once more
These are some of the ways a writer can use self publishing and Kindle to advantage without resorting to self-publishing
for the wrong reasons, such as wanting complete control over your project – never a good idea as it’s akin to
representing yourself in court rather than hire a lawyer. Finding a reliable and recognized royalty paying, advance
supplying publisher with marvelous distribution services should always be the main goal. But augmenting your product
with POD and Kindle (and its cousins) can boost your presence in the marketplace and/or provide professionally
produced material for promotion that is worth keeping.
Not only will this 4-week workshop discuss these nine possibilities, it will also guide participants through creating a cover,
and formatting the manuscript for either POD or Kindle or PubIt!. Challenges (aka assignments) will be issued each week.
Questions answered, comments replied to, and feedback given are all daily benefits, although more formal lectures will
be posted twice a week.
CREATING COMMUNITIES FOR YOUR CONTEMPORARY OR HISTORICAL NOVELS
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
There are two ways to go when it comes to the setting for your novel: 1) use a real place, or 2) make one up.
On one hand this is difficult if you want to set your story in New York City but you live in Cody, Wyoming and have never
visited the Big Apple, or did so briefly on a vacation. On the other hand this is difficult if you’re using an historical period
and what the city looked like when your characters will be roaming it and what it looks like now are two different things –
and sources are hard to find.
Therefore, to move ahead in your storytelling, why not combine elements and build your own backdrop, your own city,
your own town, your own community? That’s where flexibility is achieved.
During this 5-day workshop we’ll begin building such settings – ones that you can use over and over and add to as
necessary.
Turn NYC or Chicago into Gotham City under a different name. Kim Harrison morphed Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington,
Kentucky (just across the Ohio River from each other) into her urban fantasy world so that Covington becomes The
Hallows where all the non-humans tend to live, though they visit or work in an almost normal Cincinnati. The emphasis is
on ALMOST NORMAL.
Build a little house on the prairie near a town that never existed, but could have and probably did under a different name.
Take what you can find out in regards to daily life in what is now a ghost town or abandoned castle ruin or a cave and
extrapolate the community you need to live there for your story.
Use the familiar to fill in the gaps and create the place where your characters live. Or at least draw up sketchy plans for
the construction crew to muse over.
This is a part of world building, a niche of world building that doesn't necessarily need to involve a sci-fi or fantasy world,
just the world your characters walk around in. It’s where they shop, work and live. If you don’t give them a street to tread,
who will?
CURING THE "WHAT COMES AFTER THE FIRST 3 CHAPTERS" BLUES: Dealing with the Middle of
Your Story
The idea for your story has been brewing for quite awhile now. You knew how it opened, and we all know how they close
– everyone lives happily ever after (except any villain that needs to be caught), girl gets boy, and wedding bells will or do
or might ring.
But now you’ve got those first three chapters…or first 50 pages…done and you’ve slammed into a very large, very firm,
very unyielding brick wall. The dreaded writer’s block virus is far more deadly than any new strain of flu because there is
no vaccine to prevent it. All you can do is work through it.
How the heck do you do that when your mind has frozen or your story seems to be circling and circling without moving
ahead?
That’s what Curing the “What Comes After the First Three Chapters” Blues is all about. It’s dealing with the Middle of
Your Story. FINDING a middle to your story. And not just one that suffices, but one that will have readers (which are what
editors are, too) wanting to keep turning the pages. It’s going beyond the vague to the specific, moving from one scene to
the next, making each one count whether the object is to build suspense or simply build a better love story.
There is only one requirement: students must have at least three chapters (or 45 to 50 pages) of a story written or have
a detailed, written plan/plot of how the story opens on through approximately the first 50 pages. We’ll be working on what
comes after this part.
Sharing will be urged, but won’t be required.
The class runs for four weeks. During that time lectures/suggestions will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Comments from the instructor will be made on anything a student submits (be it for the entire class to view or just the
instructor) before the next Monday’s posting.
DR. FRANKENSTEIN’S SYSTEM: BUILD A SUBGENRE TALE BY STITCHING
MISMATCHED STORY ELEMENTS TOGETHER
Victor Frankenstein was into recycling before the word was even invented. He took a little of this, a little of that, and
created a totally new and unique creature.
Okay, so it was a monster. No one else had one quite like it, did they? No way.
New is good but UNIQUE…ahh, that’s what really gets one noticed, isn’t it?
And that’s what this 4-week workshop is concerned with – building something from various genre elements to build a story
style that sets you apart from the crowd – and in a good way!
We’ll investigate the blending worlds of urban fantasy, Steampunk, magical realism, and then launch into picking and
choosing what would work best for us from the worlds of mystery and suspense, sci fi and fantasy, the classics, history,
science, psychology and anything else that strikes the fancy or is a hot topic. We’ll also look at some of the flights of
fancy that have made a mark on the big screen from THE MATRIX to INCEPTION to…well, whatever seems to fit the
Frankensteinian model of stitching different parts together to create a new storyline.
Mary Shelley was inspired by the explosion of ideas and changing world of the early Industrial Age as well as really dismal
weather (thanks to a volcano eruption) while on holiday in Switzerland with her creative – and possibly stoned or overly
intoxicated – friends (George, Lord Bryon and Percy Bysshe Shelley) when she wrote FRANKENSTEIN in 1816.
We have it easier with a world of possible ideas just a Web surf away. And surf we will! All the way to a passel of new
ideas, to be sewn together from bits and pieces of other genres, the news, and truly soaring flights of fancy.
For the Beginning or Intermediate writer or those in search of a new lease on their writing life.
EDITING THE HECK OUT OF THINGS: INTENSIVE 4-WEEK POLISHING, REWRITING, DELETING,
AND GENERALLY IMPROVING THE DRAFT FOR SUBMISSION
Many have proven that they can write the first draft of a book in a month, or a bit over if the word count is 90,000 words
or better. But the thing that can really drag on for months and months and months, even a year, is the editing. So often
we never reach the stage where the manuscript can be submitted to an editor, and continue to spin our wheels reworking
it.
The reasons are many, of course, but the most common are 1) because we’re continually tinkering with it, we tend to ruin
it more than improve it, and 2) we’re never sure when it IS finished and ready to leave the nest.
Of course there’s another reason, too: we haven’t set a deadline by which to finish the editing process.
This 4-week workshop does that.
It’s intensive. You’ve got an entire draft of a completed manuscript to buff up, trim down, rewrite, and improve the heck
out of in just four weeks – 28 days.
We’ll break things down, crack whips, even bring in a virtual Jillian Michaels, if that helps, to snarl at you when you feel at
your wit’s end.
So clear the calendar. Load up on vitamins, TV dinners, and coupons to the local restaurants. Cancel all appointments,
arrange for others to take the kids to practice or cheer them on the playing field. Allow no one to have birthday parties,
weddings, or cosmetic demonstrations. Volunteer for nothing – not nowhere, no how. This time belongs to you and your
manuscript.
We’re going to whip this puppy into shape and make it ready to fly out of your hands and onto an unsuspecting editor’s
desk, be it through electronic submission or good old snail mail.
The benefit at the close of these 4-weeks? While you wait for word from a publisher, you’ll be able to play with an entirely
new batch of characters and situations – also known as finally getting around to writing the NEXT manuscript.
EXCHANGING ELEMENTS: TURN YOUR FAN FIC INTO A SELLABLE STORY
So you’re really into Fan Fic, huh? You churn out thousands of words about the adventures of people others created and
have the adulation of your fellow fan-fic-ers for the creativity of your story…and yet you can’t sell it.
Hmm. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?
Oddly enough, there are quite a lot of people who write fan fiction who claim they want to be professional writers. Are they
typing up manuscripts to be submitted to publishers? Usually not as quickly as they create a new episode from an already
established fictional world.
Does this sound familiar? Are you spinning tales about members of the Skywalker-Solo family, or the crew as on the
Starship Enterprise, or something featuring a brilliant alien who travels the universe and time in a blue box? Are you
telling tales in a TV series’ world that went off the air decades ago? If so, these stories can be edited, recreated, and
turned into something that is clearly of your own creation, not spun off from another’s, and morphed into something that
can snag an editor’s interest.
4-weeks is enough to get you started on the road to recovering your prose, boiling it down, converting those fan fic
elements to something of your own creation, and yet still keep the basic story you’re already told.
It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Particularly if you want more from your writing than just accolades from folks who are fan fic-
oholics, too. Come on, give it a try. After all, you’ve already written the story, haven’t you? All that’s needed is some
worldbuilding of your own and a bit of character redesigning. It wouldn’t do to have Mark Cloudrunner take on the
Monarch of the Dynasty, would it? Too recognizable as a knight naked Skywalker and a certain Emperor. But Teoa Link
could infiltrate the Orion Corp to make them crumble, couldn’t she? It’s all in the element exchange.
You don’t even have to bring a receipt with you.
EXPANDING YOUR HORIZONS: JUGGLING MORE THAN ONE GENRE or SUBGENRE
Ever study art history and learn about the artists studios where apprentices and journeymen laid down the basic portrait
and then the master himself came through, added a few dabs of paint and signed the piece? It was the only way an artist
could blanket the market in the eras before easy duplication and photography made such studios obsolete. And the more
an artist’s name appeared before the public, the more popular – and famous – and successful – he became.
Today there are well known authors who farm out some of their ideas while keeping their name the most prominent one
on a cover. But there are others who can’t keep their pen – or keyboard – quiet and blanket the marketplace with their
name in turning out one title after another, or who don another name and slip into another market. Sometimes the fans
from one market travel along with them, but other times it’s the excitement of being discovered by readers who have no
interest in the previous genre that draws an author.
For me it has always been about adventure – doing something different, even if it isn’t all that different. I don’t read in just
a single genre so why would I want to write in just one?
And I’m not alone. Stephen King has used more than a single name. Nora Roberts is also J.D. Robb. Jean Plaidy used to
write as herself, as Phillippa Carr and Victoria Holt. Dr. Barbara Mertz writes non-fiction archaeology as herself, but had a
long running romantic-suspense career as both Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters, before converting the EP name
to historical mystery with her Amelia Peabody series. And Dean Koontz once wrote anything anyone would buy while
building his reputation – even Regency romance under a feminine pen name. Personally, I’ve written under five different
names, and all for different reasons.
You don’t have to have a separate pseudonym to write in another genre though. Often times what you write is in the
same family, for instance, historical romance and historical mystery, or contemporary romantic comedy and cozy comedic
mystery.
If you are looking to expand your horizons, to break out of a rut, to don another hat, or simply keep your name among
those on a bookseller’s shelves, this workshop can help you find your way, your new niche, or simply offer suggestions
on how to juggle being two writers in one.
While there will be lectures to jumpstart discussions, two each week, during the four weeks of the workshop, questions,
suggestions, and feedback, and an ongoing dialogue between participants and participants and instructor are equally
important elements. Among the topics for discussion are: the reason for using or not using a pseudonym, will readers
follow to a new genre or subgenre, what sideways move is the best “fit”, the changing marketplace, the niche comfort
zone, and others.
Participants can be published or unpublished with diversified interests and a desire to branch out into a new sector of
their writing career.
FINDING YOUR STYLE NICHE: WHICH ARE YOU, REALLY? PLOTTER OR PANTSER?
How often have you attended a conference and heard an author in a workshop claim the way they write their books is
basically the professional way to go about it, then move to the next workshop and hear another author tell how everything
the last speaker you heard said was all wrong and that their way is the tried and true way to do things?
This workshop isn’t going to claim anything of the sort. It is based on the premise that there is no one way to do anything.
That the only 100% guaranteed way to write your manuscript is the way that works best for you.
This could be the Plotter style, where preplanning is king, outlines are common, scenes are choreographed, and the
author knows exactly (or close to exactly) where each character is going to plant their foot. Or it could be the Pantser
style, where stories grow organically and the writer never knows what’s going to happen next until it pours onto the PC
screen.
But what happens if you haven't managed to work your way through writing an entire book yet? Or did, but weren't happy
with what you went through in giving birth to it? Sometimes the only way to know what way will work best for you is to give
more than one "system" a trial run. And that's what this workshop does. It guides you through Plotting a story for two
week and then switching to another story idea and rewheeling it as a Pantser.
While those who are primarily beginners, or unpublished writers might be the most interested in this class, it could also
appeal to those who have had a book or two published but seem to have hit a wall, or are having difficulty moving ahead
in a current project. Students are asked to have two different story ideas to flesh out, one for each style sampled.
The posting schedule, for both lessons and turn in of assignments, would be twice a week with feedback from the
instructor on each assignment, or questions asked prior to the next Monday’s posting.
The class runs for four weeks.
FINDING WORDS/KILLING WORDS: BRINGING YOUR MANUSCRIPT IN AT THE RIGHT WORD
COUNT
You’ve done it! You’ve finished writing your manuscript at long last. But just before you move on to sending it out, you hit
word count one last time.
And HORRORS!!! It either says you still need a couple thousand words or you’ve gone over the publisher’s posted
maximum word count by a couple thousand.
What’s a writer to do?
That’s what this workshop will do. In (fill in the number of weeks) we’ll give you hints on how to add up to 5,000 words to
your manuscript or delete up to 5,000 words from it.
We’ll work on adding words at first then switch over to killing a bunch of them, picking them off a couple at a time or in
massacred clumps.
There’s a system to doing both things. Editors do it all the time, so you can learn to recognize opportunities to add a bit
or to kill it, too.
Regretfully, your modest presenter has had to do both a lot of times. But it makes her an expert on it, doesn’t it? Now, let’
s have YOU master the tricks as well.
FLIGHTS OF THE TARDIS: WHAT THE WORLD OF DR. WHO CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT PLOTTING
…EVEN IF YOU’RE A PANTSER! A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Whether you discovered BBC’s DR WHO as a child in the 20th century or have become an addict of the 21st rebirth of
the series (one with a much larger production budget), chances are you equate the good Doctor’s name with the fantastic.
What else could it be for a Time Lord who is the last of his kind traveling in a craft (the Tardis) that is the last of its kind,
who appears to have a fascination for Earthlings to the point of always having one of the female persuasion as a
traveling companion as well as rushing to the planet’s aid time after time after time. Did I mention he’s over 900 years old
and thanks to the regeneration process when he’s been killed, looks like a different man…at least 11 different one’s to
date as the actors who play him turn the role over to the next enthusiastic fellow.
It’s a kid’s show, you say? Well, yeah, but in the long run children probably make up the smallest demographic of the
audience and fans worldwide. Even if you aren’t a Whoian, there are things to be learned from the series – like how to
blend the laugh with the fantastic, the monsters with the clueless, how to hide in plain sight, survive with little more than a
sonic screwdriver and an unlimited imagination.
And how to twist, spin and corrupt every familiar plot trope available. And they’re all available. To you, too.
This 1-week mini-workshop uses the 21st century reincarnation of the DR WHO series as a springboard for the
imagination of writers of all genres, not merely those that would mesh with the DR WHO world. Familiarity with the new
series is not required – watching it is not a prerequisite. The workshop will lay it all out in black and white, focusing on a
handful of the programs featuring David Tennant as The Doctor. We only have a week, after all, and no Tardis of our
own.
The workshop is for anyone interested in taking a leap into the unknown when it comes to tweaking often played
elements when building a plot.
FLIPPING THE DUST BUNNIES!: REWRITING AND RECYCLING THE ABANDONED MANUSCRIPTS
HIDING UNDER YOUR BED AND ON THE FLOOR OF THE CLOSET
Everyone has them…or will have them. Story ideas that were started, made it through a few chapters before being
abandoned, or completed manuscripts that were turned down so often all hope was lost.
All this happened before your prose improved to its present level, right? These were written before you knew what you
know now about the publishing world.
I don’t think there is any such thing as a bad story idea. There are simply poor presentations, manuscripts that don’t
match current market interests, and giant writers’ block walls that appeared insurmountable. All of these can be overcome
with some serious rethinking.
FLIPPING THE DUST BUNNIES is about finding the redeeming elements and jettisoning those that bog things down. It’s
about rethinking, rewriting, reconstructing, reworking, and flipping those once discarded ideas into publishable
manuscripts.
“Flipping” works for do-it-yourselfers when it comes to taking a house in need of tender care and turning it into a
desirable property once more through simple remodeling tasks. When it has achieved all of this attention it turns into a
home for someone else, and at a profit for the “flipper.” So why can’t the concept work on any and all manuscripts
gathering dust in closets, file boxes in attics or garages, or communing with the dust bunnies under the bed?
It can. And this is the place to begin reevaluating, tearing apart, and rebuilding a more desirable manuscript from the
shell of that uncompleted or tired out manuscript.
This is a 4-week workshop that consists of two lectures each week, challenges (aka assignments) to spur participants in
deconstructing and rebuilding, and daily responses to questions, comments, and any other postings. The workshop can
be for students at beginning or intermediate levels, but basically for anyone who has a manuscript they haven’t
completed or have given up hope on.
FORMAT YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR KINDLE and NOOK 1-week workshop
You’ve heard the siren call, haven’t you? The one that your book murmurs, “make me available on Kindle; make me
available on Nook.”
Perhaps you looked into having someone format your manuscript for the conversion and found that prices begin at $200
and work their way up depending on the number of pages and whether a book cover needs to be built as well. That’s if
you have someone else do it for you.
In this 1-week workshop we won’t build a cover – that’s another 1-week workshop. We’ll simply be concentrating on
turning the well edited and polished manuscript into a format that looks good and looks professional for the “inner” pages
of the title.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1) either an edited and polished new manuscript or a rekeyed backlist book that follows word-for-word what appeared in
the original
2) some ideas of what you’d like it to look like – think modest appearance as this will be your first endeavor
3) an account at Amazon.com and/or one at Barnes and Noble’s PubIt.com
4) the ability to create a WORD doc and/or an .html one
5) an Internet access
6) at least two or three evenings during the workshop week to format and load your manuscript to the Amazon and/or
Barnes and Noble PubIt! system
7) a ton of questions if need be
And that’s all it will take. Oh, you won’t be able to make it active without a cover, but there is a mini-workshop for that, too.
Taken in tandem, they’ll soon have your work available via Kindle and/or Nook. A 1-Week Workshop.
BIO: Beth Daniels took the Kindle and PubIt! plunge in the closing months of 2010. It took a couple of weeks of swearing,
backing off and redoing, contacting Help desks, and down-and-dirty stick-to-it-ativeness, but she finally got to the point
where her backlist can poof into the e-book lineup with little trouble now. She’s worked out the kinks and is willing to share
the secret to formatting your manuscript for Kindle and Nook.
FROM FARTHINGALES TO FLAPPERS: WHAT’S IN YOUR HISTORICAL HEROINE’S WARDROBE?
A 7-Day Mini Workshop in Historical Research
With the focus on the correct apparel for a historical heroine of any period from the 16th century to the early 20th
century, this week long mini-workshop goes on a shopping trip, decking characters out in era specific clothing.
During the week there will be four lectures focusing on where to find information on hats, day dresses, ball gowns,
undergarments, shoes, boots, outerwear, plus perfumes, cosmetics, hairstyles (and wigs)…everything a heroine might
don during her adventures whether she be a Cinderella yet by the hearth or a Modern dancing the night away in a
Twenties Speakeasy.
There will also be lists of sources supplied and searches urged in three Challenges (Assignments). Participants would be
new writers or writers in need of detail for time traveling characters or those considering a genre jump into the historical
field.
GALLOPING OFF TO SEE THE ELEPHANT: Spinning an Historical Set in the American West
Revenge. Rivalry. Colts and cattle. Winchesters and winning hands. Gold and guts. The American frontier west of the Big
Muddy has been the stuff of which legends are made since Beadle and Adams and Smith and Street, the two major dime
novel publishers of the 19th century, snapped up stories and distributed them to eager readers. And even once the
western frontier was declared closed – extinct -- in 1890, the American West was still a place to fascinate Easterners and
Europeans. Buffalo Bill Cody made a fine living with his Wild West Show for many years after that auspicious 1890s date.
The Old West still fascinates many around the world. The most American image recognized around the world is that of
the cowboy. And although he passed on quite a while back, Louis L’Amour’s name alone conjures up the image of this
particularly American Western Hero – a man with a strict code by which he lives and rights wrongs as he does so.
There are a number of ways to write an historical of the American West today, L’Amour’s brand being only one, and even
that has altered through the years. There’s the standard Western (usually a series), the stand-alone literary western, the
historical Western romance (whether with R or G rated love scenes), the mystery series frequently with a Pinkerton or
historical figure solving crimes and tracking villains, and the alternative history Western in the fantasy arena.
Within four weeks we’ll look at what’s out there, where the markets are, and then spend the majority of time talking about
the things participants are most interested in writing about in regards to the Old West. In other words, this workshop may
never run the same way twice. The focus is on what participants need it to be.
However, some things don’t change and plot and research vehicles will be discussed, the legends of the west, the
society, the cities and towns, the miners, the outlaws, the gamblers, the railroaders, the immigrants, the cattlemen, the
tribes, the entertainers, the con artists, the weapons, fashions, food…well, everything that’s needed to build a correctly
reflective story of the American West. And how best to pick and choose from among all the choices, too! It’s a wide, wide
country we’ll be traveling through though the number of years are a spare sixty or so, pardner.
Lectures will appear on Mondays and Wednesdays with participants reporting in Friday through Sunday on the results of
their own research and plots and plans. One Challenge/Assignment will be given every week. Q&A and comments on
things posted are a continuing feature throughout the workshop.
GROWING MORE WORDS: ADDING UP TO 5,000 WORDS TO YOUR MANUSCRIPT TO MEET
PUBLISHER GUIDELINES A 7-Week Mini Workshop
You know your market, you’ve written your story, avoided the worst case scenarios of writer’s block or smite them with
your pen (far mightier than the sword) but now you have yet another problem.
Your tale falls short of the required minimum word count the publisher wishes. And this can really happen if your first
choice publisher’s guideline was met but they passed on the project. The next publisher – or even the one after that –
has an entirely different word count minimum and it’s higher than what you’ve currently got.
Does that mean you need to junk the idea of ever finding a home for this story? NO! It means you simply have to grow a
few words…well, maybe more than just a few, but in the grand scheme of things, it really is just a few.
So how do you do it? Funny you should ask.
In a mini-workshop lasting a spare week, you can find ways to beef up your word count without bogging down your
manuscript. Trust me on this. I’ve had to do it myself a couple times. Particularly when a publisher changed their
guidelines while I was diligently writing to the old ones.
HISTORICAL ANGLES: WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION
History, they say, is written by the winners. So how do YOU become a winner when it comes to writing historical fiction?
In many ways, actually. There are subdivisions in the field that run the gambit from true-to-life depictions to twisted,
altered versions of events and outcomes.
This workshop looks at every angle from which a historical novel can be written and branches into the research
necessary, the creation of believable characters, settings, details, and looks at some of the practitioners – the successful
ones – in this very diversified genre. We’ll look at some movies and TV series, too, for visuals (though these will not be
viewed within the workshop).
Some of the diversifications include: a historical personage as the main character; fictional characters working with
historical personages; and fictional characters within a real historical event or merely within a historical period/society.
There are also the distinctions between brutal depictions of war (as in Bernard Cornwall’s Agincourt), a view from the
other side (as in C.C. Humphreys’ Jack Absolute series), the many faces of historical romance, the historical setting in
mystery, and alternative history in fantasy and science fiction.
While this workshop deals with romance it is far from limited to just the romance end of the scale. The scope is the entire
historical marketplace. A list of publishers of historical novels will be included in the workshop materials. Among things
covered are: medieval and renaissance settings, the royals of Europe, European wars, the Colonies (U.S. and Australia),
the American West and the Western, Victoriana, Holmes and his brothers-in-deduction, and the 20th century historical.
This is set up as a four-week long workshop with reading and searching assignments given once a week. The only
prerequisite is an interest in writing historical fiction. The workshop is open to writers at all levels of their career, although
beginners and intermediate level writers are the main focus.
HISTORICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES: A BRIEF LOOK
We’ve all heard the names – Scotland Yard, Interpol, the Surete, FBI, CIA, MI5, Pinkertons, Wells Fargo, Texas Rangers,
U.S. Marshalls, U.S. Treasury Service/Secret Service – but do you know when they began operation and how they have
changed over the years?
Particularly if you are interested in writing historical mysteries set in the 19th century or early 20th century, it’s handy to
know what you can use, what your characters can do if they belong to any of these agencies, and at what time period
particular elements will work or won’t work for your story.
This 4-week workshop grounds perspective historical mystery writers – or those mystery writers looking to branch out of
the era in which they have been writing – with dates, names, places, changes to the systems, major cases, jurisdictions,
weapons and uniforms worn. Course materials will include a list of sources for those interested in digging even deeper in
regards to their agency of choice.
HISTORICAL PATHS: RECREATING A HISTORICAL SETTING VIA WORLDBUILDING 1-week Mini
Workshop
We do the research. We dream up the story. We figure out what the characters will wear, eat, and how best they can
wave the correct sword, musket, or revolver around, how to do the correct steps in the dance, even who they listen to
when invited for an evening of musical entertainment at a wealthy home or hie off to the local dance hall.
But do we know who they pass in the streets every day, where they should go to purchase fish that isn’t a day old, the
names of the emporiums, ale houses, costermongers? Do we know the street layout, the nearest church and which
denomination it is? And where does one go to buy a meat pie – or jerky – to eat on the way?
Yes, some of this you discovered in research. But some of it was impossible to find, and if you have invented your own
town, keep, parish, etc., then you need to build the community around it and be as familiar with it as your characters will
need to be.
That’s what we’ll do in one short week: work out a layout of our lands, our towns, our travels if need be. Figure out
distances, which way to turn to get where we’re going, and which shop or home or tavern we’ll visit or past. In fact, we’ll
sort out a heck of a lot of things and even draw some maps or room layouts. Doing so in crayon is fine if you can sneak
them away from the crayon owners. We won’t tell.
And neither will our characters.
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING FOR BEGINNERS: Creating and Formatting Manuscripts for Lulu.com’
s Print On Demand, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook E-books
With the belt drawn tight at numerous publishing houses, many writers are turning to the relatively inexpensive and fast
Print On Demand (POD) publishers and to the e-book marketplace. Debate is fierce over whether becoming your own
publisher is a smart option or a disastrous decision.
Independent Publishing for the Frustrated is for published authors with backlists, for those interested in putting together
personal or promotional extras for distribution, and for unpublished authors interested in testing the waters with storylines
that don’t meet the major publishing houses’ needs or in publishing limited or local market only non-fiction books.
This class if for anyone who is interested in, is toying with the idea of, or is gung-ho to take the leap into what might well
define publishing in the 21st century: self-published and electronic books.
Things to be discussed are editing, interior layout, cover design, distribution choices, pricing, and promotion for self-
published and/or electronic books.
While Lulu.com is the instructor’s POD choice, other POD publishers will be discussed as well.
Students can have a manuscript ready to load, or simply be interested in learning what they need to do to independently
publish through a POD or Kindle or PubIt!, or simply be considering one or both of these options for their work.
IS THERE A SET DESIGNER IN THE HOUSE? Using Description to Enhance Your Storyline
In the movie world there are folks whose whole job revolves around finding locations in which to film. They look for
elements that will add to the script, and so do the wardrobe people, the professionals who choose the actors, the
composer who writes the theme song and/or scores the soundtrack, the stunt coordinator who teaches the star to fake
the slug in the jaw…. Well, it goes on and on.
But when we write a book it’s all up to us. And we’ve got only one thing to use to bring it all together – words.
This is a four week workshop for writers still working on their first manuscript and for those who want to improve their work
through the use of description.
Assignments have participants making lists of words they have used, and ones they could use to improve the clarity of
what they see in their heads when it needs to land on the written page.
The emphasis is on character tells, action sequences, verbal nuances, visuals with background, wardrobe and character
description, plus sound, touch, scent, and taste.
Lectures posted twice a week (on Monday and Wednesday) with assignments posted for comment from instructor and
other students Friday through Sunday.
JUGGLING GENRES: EXPAND YOUR WRITING REPERTOIRE
Some writers settle into one niche and stay there, comfy, and content to write only one type of story. Others do the
opposite and write in more than one genre, or niche within a genre. They tend to be more prolific. And prolific equals one
very golden result: success.
If you have been tempted to write in a different category or genre or niche lately, this is your chance to see which one –
or more – is a good fit for you.
There are the sort of moves one can make sideways…writing much the same thing for a different audience, such as
writing romantic comedy for adults and also for the YA audience. Perhaps the move should be one that incorporates
another element or subtracts one, such as romantic-suspense-adventure leading to the non-romantic mystery field or
even urban fantasy. Or the leap should be daring and unlike anything you ever thought you’d write before.
This workshop looks at all the possible junctions you can find as you stroll along your familiar lane. It also points out how
many other authors have diversified, have expanded their writing repertoire, and in what ways.
During the 4-weeks of the workshop twice weekly plans or details will be presented and one Challenge (so much nicer
sounding that Assignment) given each week. Participants are urged to post their musings, plans, and offer each other
suggestions. Q&A and feedback is a seven-day-a-week promise.
KNOWING WHICH WAY TO TURN: WORLD BUILDING FOR THE MYSTERY OR SUSPENSE TALE
1-week Mini Workshop
Does your story take place in a cozy little town that exists only in your mind’s eye or is it laid out in the mega city, one that
actually exists?
It doesn’t matter which sort of setting you have in mind when it comes to creating the world in which your sleuth or agent
moves. You still need to know some basic things like, where’s the station house? Is there a forensic unit at hand or is
there one shared out by a county or collection of counties? And where does your sleuth head at the end of the day to
relax? If you give them a chance to relax, that is.
It’s just as important to do worldbuilding for the mystery or suspense novel as it is for a fantasy or paranormal one. The
things you need to know are simply more down to earth. Perhaps you thought you knew enough to work them into the
story as you went? Could be that if you are actually a cop on the same beat in real life that would work, but if you
aren’t…best to plan ahead.
If you are creating your own community, your own town, well, there are a lot of elements to put in place…and I’m not
talking about the line up of possible perps or the cup full of clues you need to spill. I’m talking about what the streets are
named, which way you turn when leaving some place, what the name of the donut shop is or the yogurt bar, the martial
arts place, the gunshop, the pharmacy/chemists, the funeral parlor, and how big the cemetery is in the event you want a
scene there – and you might not even realize that there will be one there – yet.
In one week we’ll concentrate on building whatever community you need, be it a neighborhood or precinct in a metropolis
or a cozy, comfy small town in the middle of next-to-no-where. There will be one CHALLENGE – and that’s to create the
place where your characters live, work, love…and, oh yeah, solve crimes in.
LIFE GOES ON: THE SUBPLOT OF CHARACTERS’ REGULAR LIVES
No matter what a character in a novel has to deal with when it comes to the major plot of a storyline, they still have a
“normal” life to deal with on the side. In some manuscripts it’s an ongoing complication, in others it takes a back seat.
But no matter what level in your story the day-to-day business of a character’s life falls, it’s gotta be part of your game
plan.
Most often it’s the subplot…even in a romance. Some times it needs to evolve and other times it barely gets tweaked. Yet
it’s always there – or should be.
This 4-week workshop looks just at the subplot in terms of grounding the people in your story, in making them appear
more normal, in giving them chores, responsibilities, and all the other little things that might enhance or complicate things
for them when matched with the demands of the overlaying major plot.
We’ll look at what best suits your character, how these elements might feed from backstory and paint the way each of
your people look at life…and thus react to things.
No, this isn’t backstory…it’s continuing story. The normality of the familiar and its interaction with the fantastic – be it
stalkers, murderers, thieves, spies, terrorists, alien invaders, the paranormal or magic worlds, a ticked-off Mother Nature,
or a lover. Even during the excitement there are still friends, relatives, jobs, and grocery shopping to see to, aren’t there?
And mundane as it all sounds, even this daily drag needs to be refreshed to match the thrills and chills, just at a different
level. The subplot level.
For Beginners and Intermediate writers interested in building better and more convincing storylines.
NANO PLOT BYTES: CLICHÉS AS PLANNING CRUTCHES
Clichés are the Grim Reapers of any creative endeavor. Or are they? What is a cliché after all? It’s something that has
been used so often that an audience knows what to expect, isn’t it?
No, I’m not suggesting you pepper your current plot with clichés – I’m suggesting that they aren’t all bad if you use them
properly. Like crutches when your plot is limping along and you aren’t quite sure what should come next.
A cliché gives temporary substance, fills the hole until you can come back and deal with it when you have a better idea.
It can also be warped, mutated, twisted, spun around, altered, morphed, to make your storyline take the leap into Plot
Land like it’s never quite done before.
This 4-week workshop lays it all out, suggesting ways to spin clichés in a centrifuge and turn them into…well nano plot
bytes.
For beginners and intermediate writers looking for a different way to lever themselves out of the ordinary (or free of
writer’s block) and into the extraordinary by using what other creative writing disciplines have used quite frequently: that
which is familiar along with a strong dose of imagination.
NOT SO WEST BUT STILL WEIRD: STEAMPUNK SETTINGS IN OLD NEW YORK, BOSTON,
CHICAGO AND ELSEWHERE IN THE INDUSTRIAL EAST
Steampunk says Victorian Britain to many readers, but the Industrial Revolution was making steam in the 19th century in
America, too. Frequently this is referred to as Weird West Steampunk and tends to have settings west of the Mississippi,
following the axiom that Horace Greeley never said “to go west, young man.”
However, it takes a city to really get the boiler steamed up, and we have some excellent Industrial cities to use as settings
for the type of Steampunk tale as those Victorian ones plunked down in foggy London.
In the four weeks of this workshop we’ll investigate what 19th century New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and
sample bits of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburg history can offer in the way of inspiration as well as setting for a “Weird
East” Steampunk tail. Might even toss in a bit on New Orleans and St. Louis. They might not be totally East of the
Mississippi, but they’re purdy darn close.
Things to be lined up on the tea table and long mahogany bar are American inventions, industries associated with the
cities, the transportation hubs, the slums, red-light and gambling districts, the coppers and private detective firms,
science, slang, and entertainments that could be found in these American cities from the 1850s to the close of World
War I.
So come with the glimmer of an idea or none at all. A lot of story dreaming and a bit of research will be required along the
way.
ORGANIC WRITER'S GUIDE TO PLOTTING AS YOU GO
How often have you attended a conference and heard an author in a workshop claim the way they write their books is
basically the professional way to go about it, then move to the next workshop and hear another author tell how everything
the last speaker you heard said was all wrong that that their way is the tried and true way to do things?
This workshop isn’t going to claim anything of the sort. It is based on the premise that there is no one way to do anything.
That the only 100% guaranteed way to write your manuscript is the way that works best for you.
Still, most of the workshops out there are run by dyed-in-the-wool Plotters who don’t understand the way an Organic
Writer’s mind works…that is, sort of freeform and falling into and out of road blocks or having inspiration dry up when
they most need it, yet savoring the excitement of never REALLY knowing what is going to happen next. You know, the
same thrill we get when reading a book!
What’s needed is a few guidelines and wild ideas on how an Organic Writer (or a Pantser as we’re sometimes called) can
work through just about anything that holds us up in a storyline. And there’s not just one way to look at these things. One
way simply lacks the variety needed.
During the 4-weeks of this workshop we’ll play with at least 20, maybe more, ways to rethink or think ahead to and
through the scenes yet to be written. Yes, there will be assignments, but I prefer to call them Challenges…much more
Organic and open to interpretation…but it will be writer’s choice on how you might use one of the ideas presented in
working with your storyline.
While those who are primarily beginners, or unpublished writers might be the most interested in this class, it could also
appeal to those who have had a book or two published but seem to have hit a wall, or are having difficulty moving ahead
in a current project. Students are asked to have at least one story in progress to use for the Challenges.
The posting schedule, for both lessons and turn in of assignments, is twice a week with feedback on each assignment, or
questions asked prior to the next Monday’s posting.
"NEXT" BOOK
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a series with continuing characters or stand alone titles, the one thing that a
professional writer must always keep in mind is: What’s the NEXT book going to be about?
Why? Well, it’s certainly going to be one of the things an editor will ask. In fact, the first thing my first editor asked me
once I’d cried “YES!!!” upon being offered a contract was, “do you have anything else finished or in progress?”
Fortunately, I could follow that “yes” up with a “yep” and get something else in the mail to her.
The Next Book workshop is geared to thinking ahead. If you’re writing stand alone titles, then one of the things to
consider is how you can write a similar book without repeating yourself. Readers like consistency and if you want them
lining up to purchase the next title, you can’t disappoint them. So, what elements do you need to keep and which ones
can be jettisoned, even temporarily? They could resurface in the next-next book after all.
Writing a group of linked books, that is, a series of three to four (or more) books that revolve around different members
of the same family or town or friends or is it a Spin-Off? Will you need more than just a mention of or a cameo
appearance by the characters who have yet to appear as the main characters, or who “starred” in a previous book. Will
the previous main characters be as involved in the new story in secondary character roles as the current main characters
were in the previous book? You’ll need to repeat the good parts – only with a twist this next time around. So what are
those similarities and how do you keep them yet make them different?
And what about those long running series? Did you have a preplan that would cover five, ten, twenty, titles with the same
characters holding down the hero and/or heroine positions? How can you make each of those titles a reflection of what
has come before and yet not bore your reader into turning elsewhere for their next purchase?
The Next Book is an important element in the planning and execution of your current work in progress. It should be
percolating in the back of your mind. And this class offers guidelines on what to clone, what to change, and finding the
correct direction a writer should go as they work ever closer to turning The Next Book into the Current Project.
This course is a 4-week workshop. Students should be currently working on a manuscript so that they have a launching
pad to begin sorting out what elements are needed in the Next Book. Lectures posted on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Students will be asked to share synopses with everyone through posts, then discuss what elements they plan to continue
as well as ask the classroom at large what elements they recommend be kept. Comments posted prior to the next
Monday’s lecture.
This class can be for the unpublished, for the newly published, or midlist authors.
PEELING YOURSELF OFF THE WALL: 20 WAYS TO DUCK THE WRITER’S BLOCK BULLET
It doesn’t matter whether you prefer plotting your book entirely before writing one word of prose or whether you prefer
“pantsing”, flying off onto page one with enthusiasm and only a vague idea of where you’re going. We all strike it at some
time – the dreaded, seemingly impenetrable stone wall of Writer’s Block. Can’t seem to get through it or over it, or go
around it or tunnel beneath it. We’re stymied and the project at hand is at a dead stop.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way…at least twenty ways, in fact, to get things rolling again. Writer’s Block can be
reduced to a level where it is simply one of the normal, if pesky, elements involved when writing a book. Knowing how to
demolish it, even if temporarily, can reduce your stress level when it does rear up to block progress though. And having
an idea of what actions to take the moment it strikes can get you writing again much more quickly.
This workshop is for anyone interested in ways to slough past the parts where our imagination fails to go, through the
times when our Muse heads for the Caribbean and leaves us to fend for ourselves. During four weeks, with two lectures
and one Challenge (or Assignment) weekly, we’ll cover twenty different ways to pole-vault, tunnel, trek around, or
bulldoze through writer’s block.
Some of the ways will be familiar: storyboarding, freewriting, world building, comparison. Others will be tweaks on
outlining, research, even daydreaming.
This workshop requires feedback – not just from the presenter, but from those in attendance – to gather suggestions, stir
ideas, kill, hack, or give birth to usable solutions. Thus it would be very handy to have a work in progress or one that
stalled out and needs a jolt to get it back on the move again. For any questions or comments made by attendees
throughout the week, answers will be supplied usually within 24 hours or less. Lectures will be posted on Mondays and
Wednesdays with Challenge results posted by students through the weekend.
PLOTTING FOR PANTSERS: KNOWING JUST ENOUGH TO KEEP THINGS ROLLING
Pantsers are free-wheeling types. They take the glimmer of an idea, sit down at the computer or pick up a pen and let the
idea blossom into a story.
And then the ideas dry up suddenly and a major case of writer's block arrives -- enough to build a house...sometimes a
whole subdivision.
This workshop can help. Will it force you to be a Plotter? No. Will it allow you to continue being just as surprised at what
happens in your story as your characters are? Mostly.
What Plotting for Pantsers does is give you a few ideas on how to know enough of what is going to happen -- or needs to
happen -- to keep the creative ball rolling while leaving more than enough wiggle room for your imagination to create as
you type or scribble.
Confusing? Perhaps, but that's only because the word "plotting" can send shivers down the spines of Pantsers. The
problem is, we do need SOME idea of where the story is going, and that’s what Plotting for Pantsers is all about.
It offers you 40 different (sometimes similar with a quirk) ideas on how to stumble ahead in writing your book, that is
plotting out what should come next, what will take the story into as yet undiscovered turns and twists, and also eliminate
some of the situations that build those writing block walls. And it does so by merely keeping you mentally working a few
pages ahead of your flying fingers.
In 4-weeks we’ll run though a lot of ideas. There will be Challenges along the way – a kinder word, a more accurate word,
for what others might call assignments. These are to let students “sample” some of the plotting idea elements for
themselves. And, yeah, the word Outline does raise it’s ugly head, but in a much more sleepy fashion. More often we'll
talk about things called Berserker Muse, Blind Librarian and Doctor’s Glove Balloons. I did promise 40 ways to look at
plotting from a Pantser’s view, and I’ll deliver with examples in some cases. Clarity is always a good idea.
Lectures on Mondays and Wednesday. Comments and questions answered throughout the week.
PUZZLING OUT THE "NECESSARY" BITS
Have you gotten rejection after rejection on manuscripts that your beta readers love but editors quibble over. You know
the kind of rejection: “Love your writing style but the story just isn’t right for us.”
As nice as the compliment was, what you really want is a contract, right? So what the heck was missing or wrong to make
the story not “right” for the publisher?
This is the workshop where we dig into what’s being published to find the elements that slipped from our grasp before
and make note of them for inclusion in current or future projects.
The one thing students will be required to have are one or two books in the same genre that they really love. Books
written by other authors, that is. These can be two by the same author or they can be by different authors. Why do we
need them? Because they are going to serve as the treasure map, the mine to be plundered. From the elements
gathered from these stories a personal format for use in our own books will be built.
Some of the things we’ll look at are: characters, settings, professions, technology, detail, backstory, tension level,
comedy level, rise and fall of action, heat level of love scenes, dialogue/language, and anything else that appears
pertinent based on what style and what genre each student is working within.
The class would run four weeks with lectures and/or assignments posted on Mondays and Wednesdays. Comments on
posted questions or completed assignments would be answered prior to the next Monday’s lecture.
This class is for unpublished and newly published writers and for those interested in switching genres or the style of story
within a genre.
REBOOT YOUR IMAGINATION A 1-Week Mini Workshop
Been staring at the blank page a lot lately, be it paper or computer screen? Stalled out on your current project or longing
for the next brilliant idea to strike, yet feeling that the lightning is passing you by?
Minds are like computers…or is that computers are like minds? Whichever, both need to be rebooted at times. Whether
you are picturing that as meaning a steel-toed size 13 being aimed at…well, the thing you sit upon – and we’re not talking
about the sofa or desk chair – or that bolt of lightning striking the old cerebellum, there is something less drastic you can
do to entice ideas from the nooks in which they hide.
You can join the five day workshop, REBOOT YOUR IMAGINATION.
What we’ll be doing is forcing you to write something unlike anything you’d write otherwise. We’re going to go with what I
call the BLIND LIBRARIAN ploy, picking elements at random from other works and melding them into a short piece that will
hopefully get your mind back on whatever track you want it on…but hopefully not that siding where it’s been parked.
This isn’t something that should be done alone though, so everyone involved will be expected (coerced) into making
suggestions…and the wilder the better.
We’re trying to break out of a mold here! Or brushing the mold that’s been growing over our old ideas away by infusing
them with…well, something else!
RECREATING MAGIC: REMAKING AN OLD STAPLE IN KATE GRIFFIN’S MATTHEW SWIFT SERIES
Let’s look at some facts:
1) Magic is Old, belonging to a world we’ve never known but know well from fairy tales and modern children’s stories
2) Magic is Fascinating, luring us from the modern world where everything runs on science, on technology; where
everything runs the way it does for a logical reason
3) Magic is Hot in regards to its commodity in the literary marketplace – even people who write literature are melding it
into their work via magical realism. Magic has broken free of the confines of Fantasy and appears in every genre now
But does the magic in a modern story need to be the same that was practiced by Merlin or Dumbledore, by Morgan Le
Fay or Lord Voldemort?
If you answered yes, it simply means you haven’t encountered the urban magic of Kate Griffin’s world in her Matthew Swift
series. Here magic no longer comes from the Earth, from growing things, animals, stones, and weather – it comes from
the evolved world, from telephones, trains, cars, rubbish, graffiti, and electricity.
And it’s powerful. Not just in the way a sorcerer wields it, but in the way Griffin molds it, crafts it, and makes magic – both
modern urban magic and urban legend magic – work well in her freshly coined London landscape.
Whether you have heard the Lorelei call of magic, enjoy horror or dystopian-ish tales with a satisfying ending, and a main
character worthy of being termed “hero”, this look at Kate Griffin’s work should satisfy your cravings.
That’s not all this workshop focuses on though. Though we’ll look at how intricately woven and well constructed Griffin
has made Swift’s world over four weeks time, using each of the first three Matthew Swift books, the second goal is to
study Griffin’s work for craft clues.
This workshop is for writers looking to put a different spin on a familiar trope, whether it be magic or not.
REVAMPING MR. HOLMES: CHANGING YOUR CHARACTER TEMPLATE WHILE REMAINING TRUE
TO THE VISION OF YOUR HERO OR HEROINE OR VILLIAN
Ever wonder how you can take the same character type and rewrite it when it comes to your next book? We’re talking one
of your MAIN characters here, be they the hero, the heroine or even the villain of the piece.
This is particularly important if your first book was a success, but a stand alone title, and now you need to come back and
do it all over again – only differently.
But not TOO DIFFERENTLY, because publishers and readers alike lean toward familiar elements being repeated even
when you aren’t writing a series.
It’s the pursuit of these changeable elements – just a few twists, replacements, morphings, or
re-imaginings – that is our goal. Using the various re-incarnations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson,
Lestrade, Moriarty, and Irene Adler, we’ll puzzle out the ways these characters have found new homes in tales by other
authors while still remaining recognizably Holmes and his cohorts.
Along with the work of other authors who have written novels using one or more of the Holmesian world (among them
Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery series and Carol Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler mysteries), we’
ll also look at the more recent revamps for the movies (SHERLOCK HOLMES I and II with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude
Law) and for the smaller screen (BBC’s SHERLOCK, set in the 21st century).
By using characters like Holmes, who most of us are very familiar with, we’ll sort out how to reconstruct, reconfigure, and
rewrite our own favorite type of main character, going beyond merely giving them a new name, new hair and eye color,
and a new profession. These same considerations will aid in having the leads in established series change over time
while remaining basically the same, too.
You don’t have to be a mystery writer or a Sherlock Holmes fanatic to enjoy or benefit from this workshop. Holmes is
merely one of the most recycled characters in literature and film, which makes for an excellent and familiar example to
use. Perhaps the workshop should have been called “A Study in Black and White and Technicolor”, to paraphrase Conan
Doyle’s A STUDY IN SCARLET.
It runs 4-weeks and there will be Challenges (assignments) issued once a week and lectures twice a week. Questions,
comments and any other postings are answered daily.
(This workshop would be available by the Fall of 2011, as it not only waits on the release of the second SHERLOCK
HOLMES movie and possibly second season of SHERLOCK, but on a thorough scan of currently available Holmesian
literature.)
RIPPED FROM YELLOWED HEADLINES: HISTORICAL CRIMINALS AND CRIMINAL CASES
Looking for some historical inspiration when you sit down to plan and write your next mystery? Why not take a leaf from
the notebook of many contemporary mystery and thriller authors and look to the headlines for ideas to mine?
Historical headlines, that is.
During the 4 weeks of this workshop we’ll visit famous, infamous, and little known dastardly tales of murderers, thieves,
and other nefarious sorts. We’ll also look at ways to ferret out information on other crimes, or follow the details of a trial,
or even understand thieves cant (slang). Along the way we’ll touch bases with highwayman Dick Turpin and other holdup
artists, murders infamous (Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden) to those nearly forgotten because the body count was low, to
con artists, pickpockets, prostitutes, jewel thieves, and other criminal types.
All real folks, all real crimes. So step right up for an information filled month of historical mischief and mayhem.
SABRES TO WINCHESTERS: ARMING YOUR HISTORICAL HERO: A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Where making sure your heroine is wearing the appropriate gown and undergarments is an important element of a
historical novel, insuring that your hero has the equipment he needs to best the bad guys is equally important.
Therefore, this mini workshop will take participants from the dashing era of sword wielding men to the range wars of the
late 19th century. It will deal with armour, siege engines, sharp objects on poles, in sheaths, in scabbards, and all the
various gadgets that use gunpowder. Even some weapons that aren't sharp or explosive. In other words, things that are
used by explorers, adventurers, mountain men, dandies, dukes, and other dashing types of gentlemen…or not so gentle
men.
The week will consist of lectures and Challenges (Assignments) for participants. And participants can be beginning level
writers through novelists looking to expand into time travel or the historical genre. Lists of research sites and materials
will be supplied.
SEND YOUR MUSE BACK TO CREATIVE SCHOOL: JUMP START YOUR IMAGINATION
Feel like your once very creative muse has crawled into a hamster wheel? You know, nothing but the same old sort of
storyline keeps coming to mind and while that can be comforting to some, to many writers it’s like an itch they can’t
scratch. We need diversity, we need challenges! We need to do something different occasionally or something silly, or
even something downright weird. You know, retrain your muse or at least give them a refresher course!
Among the Core courses your muse will be exposed to in this workshop are The Blind Librarian, the Berserker Muse, the
Chinese Menu, 52 Pick Up, Go Fish and…well, other different, silly, and most definitely weird ways to jump start your
imagination.
Twice a week for 4-weeks Challenges (so much nicer sounding than an Assignments) will be given to dream up
something totally out of your comfort zone using a variety of…shall we say “things”…to write a short story, say 1000
words or more (that’s around 4 pages or…well, more). You need only write one a week although there will be two
challenges and you can do them both. Or, in lieu of a short story, it could be the start of a first chapter. Your choice…but
you’ll need to do it with the elements I suggest…or someone else in the workshop suggests or assigns to you.
If your muse doesn’t get jolted out of his/her complacency, it won’t be for lack of trying. You might even get the glimmer of
a new idea to pursue…chase…hunt down…until you have a totally new style of story…well, at least for you. And possibly
a new market as well.
Students will be urged to post what they write and comment on each others work. Q&A and feedback is a seven-day-a-
week promise.
SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE: How to Put Together an Online Workshop and Find Hungry Students
Ever hear writers talking about a workshop they’ve taken online and, after eavesdropping to find out what it dealt with,
thought “Heck! I know a lot about that – and even more about other things!” Or did you sign up for a workshop and find
that your publishing history and experience far outweighed the presenter’s, or that you disagreed with what they said and
felt you needed to share the other side of the story?
Well, then you need to build your own workshop and flog it to the folks hungry for new or different or eclectic information
when it comes to writing!
If you haven’t a clue as to where to begin or what to do to place your workshop where students can find it, well – this is
the place to come for help in putting it all together.
We’ll begin with what you feel you know most about and figure out how to distribute lessons over a four week period
(which is the most common workshop format), write a syllabus, write lectures, figure out assignments, discover how much
time you’re likely to spend answering questions or commenting on student’s work, and finally, how to write a proposal for
the workshop and find the various online writers organizations and chapters and “firms” that offer online workshops. And
if an arm is twisted and a whole lot of pleading and whining done, we might even tell you what it means to you in monetary
terms.
This is a 4 week workshop for writers who have worked with an editor (or various editors) to bring a newly published book
into the world. Ideally, the workshop participant will have had more than a single book published by a major publishing
firm. After all, to get a student to sign up for your workshop in the future, they will be scrutinizing your publishing
background to decide if you know what you’re planning to talk about.
SPINOFFS! Enjoying More Time With Your Favorite People – Your Characters
What’s a writer to do when a character tries to remake their place in a story? Or they get their own fan club? Or you
simply liked them so well you can’t let them just fade away, like a footnote in a book where they didn’t have a starring role?
You write a SPIN-OFF – that’s what!
How does a Spin-Off differ from a sequel or a series? Well, for one thing, you usually didn’t have it in mind when you
started the storyline the character first appears in. If you did, it might well be a series and involve more than just this one
character. Therefore, what a Spin-Off is is a tale that the characters write for themselves. Sometimes you get to have
control; sometimes you’re just along for the ride. Well, someone has to hit the keys, right?
What should you expect once a character gets the bit between their teeth – literally? A wild and exciting ride, frustration,
delight, teeth grinding, mental arguing matches – it can run the whole gambit.
In the end, you’ve got to have control. And this workshop helps you not only get the whip in hand but let’s you hang-out
with a character you already know quite well – and find new and interesting things about them that you’d no idea existed
when first they made an appearance in that previous story.
How do I know? Well, it’s happened to me – more than once! Three of those Spin-Off books ended up published and two
more are still in the works. Those once secondary characters were to be nothing more than confidants, buddies,
sounding boards, yet somehow they each decided they wanted a book of their own – or enough people wrote to me
ASKING for a book just about them. And oddly enough, I usually liked the second book better than the first when I
finished – as well as while I was working on the second one.
In this 4-week workshop we’ll cull what we already know about these up-for-another-run characters and what we still need
to know. We’ll dream up scenarios – more than one – and let the character decide which suits him or her best (I did run
through a couple ideas before settling on the set up for MATERNAL INSTINCTS which was a Spin-Off of MR ANGEL
which was a Spin-Off of NEW YEAR’S EVE). Then we’ll decide whether characters from the original book need to “visit”,
what elements need to be repeated only in a different format, and in what way this slightly recycled, reconstructed,
revived character needs to change from who they were to who they will be – all based on what they already were!
Sound confusing? We’ll have four weeks to sort it all out. The only requirement for this workshop is that you have a
previously written story – published or unpublished – wherein a secondary character let you know they weren’t finished
with you quite yet. And yes there will be Challenges/Assignments to help us along the way. Lecture/Guidelines for
Pondering supplied on Mondays and Wednesdays with posting of Challenge responses, Q&A, from Friday through the
weekend each week.
STEALING IDEAS FOR MYSTERIES: CULLING A FORMAT FOR YOUR BOOK
FROM TELEVISED MYSTERY SERIES A 1-Week Mini Workshop
There are a lot of different types of mysteries to write, but if you are interested in breaking into the mystery-suspense
field, knowing what is currently attracting audiences should be high on your list of priories.
And what better place is there to find out what readers might want than to look at what viewers are watching? Readers do
put books down to turn into their favorite shows, after all.
In this five day workshop, participants will take their favorite TV mystery program and break down the elements of
continuing characters, repeated themes, side stories, type of crime, number of scenes, and chart the rise and fall as the
main characters find their way to a conclusion in less than 60 minutes every week. And manage to supply a different twist
on what is basically the same old story…or at least setting and characters…week after week.
This is a workshop that actually WANTS you to watch TV…well, at least a few hours of it.
Viewing is of your choice, whether you choose to concentrate on the more serious and profession specific shows like the
CSI or LAW AND ORDER franchises, the comedic mysteries like PSYCH or the now retired MONK (which is still a valid
choice), or the combination amateur sleuth-police procedural comedy-drama CASTLE. There are many more to choose
from, but please stick with what’s playing on your local cable or dish networks right now. As much as you might have
loved SIMON AND SIMON, ROCKFORD FILES, or other classics, the market changes and we need to be on top of what’s
catching everyone’s attention today.
Our goal is to build a basic format to use for writing YOUR mystery, be it for book or teleplay.
STEAMED UP: THE ANATOMY OF WRITING STEAMPUNK
Toss another shovel full of coal on the fire, it’s time to get steamed up with Steampunk, one of the newest “societies”
around.
What qualifies it as a society? Let’s see, there are graphic novels, jewelry, apparel, home accessories, music, movies,
video games, roll playing games, and, oh, yeah, novels all circling around the essence of Steampunk. And if you loved
the Robert Downey Jr. SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, enjoy Victorian settings or alternative history in your reading
material, and a touch of the paranormal or magic, Steampunk may be just up your alley…or mews. It could certainly
intrigue your writing muse!
Now, while you may decide to reconfigure your computer to look like it was produced by a 19th century craftsman or want
to don Victorian styled clothing when you sit down before it (in a comfy winged and tufted armchair, of course), if you are
intrigued by Steampunk’s growing popularity and are thinking of swinging aboard this particular locomotive, there are a
few…well, quite a few, really…elements to take into consideration.
And that’s what this workshop aims to do.
We’ll look at the basic requirements for any Steampunk tale. We’ll consider what’s been published, what’s been filmed,
where to search out the historical data necessary, how to warp it into what we need it to be, and…well, get ourselves
really steamed up over writing what looks to be a very promising land for new manuscripts.
There will be lists and lists and lists of books to read, be they the current crop of Steampunk titles or the classics upon
which the concept is founded – does the name Jules Verne ring a bell? Considering how “new” the genre appears to be,
it’s been around in graphic novels, movies, and television series since before the 1980s. And in fantasy novels even
longer. Steampunk is basically alternative history, taking inventions out of their time period and plunking them down in
another, in time travel, the paranormal world, and in magic.
And because the setting is frequently (but not always) Victorian England, things can get shrouded in fog. But that’s what
this workshop aims to do: clear the fog over the anatomy of a Steampunk novel, and create a visual guideline on how to
write Steampunk fiction.
The workshop would run four weeks with two lectures per week. Assignments would revolve around feedback from
participants as they read Steampunk, watch Steampunk, submerge themselves in Steampunk. And there will be lists of
research materials, novels, available videos, websites, magazines, all dealing with Steampunk to aid writers as they dive
into the genre.
Writing level for the workshop is varied, only enthusiasm for new market opportunities is required.
STEAMPUNK AMERICAN STYLE: Weird West and Weird East
The American West was wild – hey, we’ve seen the movies, heard about the outlaws, maybe even seen the various
boothills where the legends are buried while we were on vacation. But the American East was just as wild – it lacked
tumbleweeds and shootouts between only two men in a dusty little town, but the cities had gamblers, prostitution,
corruption, gang wars, graft, and more. And considering that machines and big business were in the process of
changing, and polluting, the world as well as tromping down the immigrants, well, we’ve got the perfect settings for some
humdinger Steampunk tales.
Our focus is not only the Weird West Steampunk story but Steampunk tales that take place on either side of the
Mississippi, in fact, those that could roam from “sea to shining sea.”
We’ll look at what’s been written, what elements in American history are just asking for inclusion in a tale after having
gone through a bit of warping, twisting, mauling and morphing into whatever suits that story that’s been hovering in the
back of your mind.
And if there are interested parties among us, will touch on Australia as well. As I understand it, Australia in particular had
a lot in common with the Wild West and no doubt, the equally Wild East. There’s story fodder just waitin’ fer ya, mate.
I came to Steampunk after one too many editors and agents said “no one is buying historicals set in the Old West”. The
choice was grind my teeth and throw in the towel or recreate the Old West – and East – in a different genre. I wasn’t
interested in the prairie romances. I wanted a tad more adventure, danger, and evil to deal with. If you feel the same way,
Steampunk’s the place to be.
The workshop is 4-short weeks long but you’ll need to whip your horses up, shovel a lot of mental coal, and tinker and
reinvent the 19th century as best suits your story needs. It’ll be a heck of a lot of fun so, hope ta see ya here, pilgrim.
STORY SENSE / STORY LOGIC
It doesn’t seem to matter whether the story I’m reading is someone’s manuscript or a published book, the element that is
very irksome to find missing is a sense of Story Logic, or Story Sense.
I define Story Sense as the actions of the characters remaining true to how they are being portrayed. Story Logic is much
the same thing, but has more to do with the way the plot plays out.
For instance, if a hero is going to take on a terrorist or a mugger, he needs to have a background that included any
martial arts he now unveils to save the day…and the writer should have alluded to his expertise early on, not waited to
spring it on readers.
Or perhaps the author is spinning a tale where characters are either older or younger than she or he is. In that case the
twenty-something heroine can’t prefer listening to Cole Porter or Gershwin tunes or talk about Cary Grant movies, not
even if she was brought up by her grandmother who enjoyed these things. She has to be a contemporary woman.
Likewise, if a character is a decade or more older than the writer, it isn’t likely that they will head to a modern dance club,
or suddenly go goth -- unless you've given them a clear cut reason to do so that makes perfect sense, is seeped in logic,
to a reader.
Story sense and story logic go hand in hand, but they can easily be lost or overlooked. And they are far more subtle than
the above obvious examples. The trick is to catch, recognize, and repair things before they leave home to nest on an
editor’s desk.
Because it is far easier to spot things in other people’s work, students will be urged to post their synopsis, or post a free-
write in which they spin the elements, or steps, that they plan to take along the way.
Lectures would be posted on Monday and Wednesdays with comments on pieces posted by students returned before the
next Monday posting. Each posting will be limited to 10 pages per week, though, as turnaround time would not allow for
more than that. The class runs for four weeks.
The only requirement for students would be a willingness to share their storylines with the rest of the class, although
lurkers would be welcome as well.
THE GAME IS AFOOT: WRITING THE STEAMPUNK MYSTERY
Steampunk…the word on the lips of editors and readers…and writers…everywhere in the book reading world.
Or so it seems.
Steampunk is a subgenre of a subgenre (Alternative History) of a genre (Fantasy), but it breaks down into even further
subgenres of its own.
One of those is mystery.
For four weeks – a full month – we’ll not only look at how to build a Steampunk novel, a Steampunk world, but how to
make it a Steampunk mystery. There are a few such series already being written, so tearing down what they each do and
don’t do and could do and what we want to emulate, and why all this comes together in the end and all fits together like a
well constructed puzzle…Well, that in itself is a mystery to be solved.
There will be challenges (aka assignments) to start everyone on the right road to creating a Steampunk mystery. There
will be lists and lists and lists of already told tales to sample, of things to consider, things to choose, things to research,
things to warp…lots and lots of lists.
But helpful ones!
So don your goggles, purchase that airship ticket, loosen your corset and put aside that pipe. Do bring a notebook,
writing utensil, and an unfettered imagination with you. And, no, clockwork servants can not slip into the parlour with you;
each must have their own ticket for entry.
TICKETS TO RIDE…BACK IN TIME: BASIC HISTORICAL RESEARCH FOR NOVELISTS
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
If you’ve been considering writing an historical novel but are worried that the research may kill you, fear not. We’re here
to give you the itinerary to get you started on your trip back in time.
In this mini workshop we’ll talk about choosing a time period and what you’ll need to know before you begin writing and
what you’ll need to know somewhere during the writing of your novel.
We’ll give you a nudge in the right direction with some lists of sources to check out and a list of questions to help guide
you when it comes to all the fascinating paths historical research can lead you down…and away from your focus. In one
week, you’ll get bread crumbs to follow for this will be just the start of your adventure.
Participants can be beginning novelists to more experienced writers looking for backstory, time travel elements, or
tempted to get their feet wet in a genre jump into historical fiction. The workshop consists of four lectures, two Challenges
(Assignments) and one day of Q&A.
TICKLING YOUR MUSE: WARPING CLASSIC FAIRY TALES TO RECHARGE YOUR INVENTIVE
BATTERIES
Feeling like you need something to boost your creative juices? That’s what this 4-week workshop aims to do through
creative rewrites of familiar stories: those told by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, and other storytellers
around the world.
The aim is to rewrite four fairy tales in quick succession, changing the tone while remaining with the familiar theme.
We’ll update to the contemporary world, take the story off-planet or into a different dimension, spin a comic version, and
even combine two tales into one storyline.
Participants can use the same fairy tale (including versions from different countries or cultures) for all four or entertain
themselves by corrupting, warping, reworking up to four or five tales.
These will be short stories (2,500 words or less), one written each week, and if we have enough tales to incorporate into
an anthology at the end of the month, we’ll put one out for others to enjoy.
Because we’re working with familiar scenarios, tales, and characters, that part of the process will already be done,
allowing our muses full rein on ways to redo the themes, and thus get our fiendishly plotting minds working in new and
different ways – recharging the inventive nodes, if there are such things.
TWEAKING HISTORY: STEAMPUNK AND OTHER TALES OF ALTERNATE HISTORY
You know how hindsight allows you to see all the things you should have done differently in your life if you had the
chance? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a time machine to go back and fix things – not choose that horrible shade of gown
for the prom, not go to it with the dream date who turned into a nightmare? Not marry the guy who turned out NOT to be
Prince Charming? Not choose that disastrous stock in your 401K portfolio?
The list goes on, right? How nice then that one doesn’t have to stick with the way history happened when it comes to
writing fiction!
And unless you are writing a strict historical, you don’t have to. You can use the historical world as your stage and then
tweak what you’d like to create your own alternative view of it all.
Alternative history tales have been around for a number of years in the fantasy world, some even written by historians.
Currently the Steampunk version of history altering is in demand whether in the world of romance or that of fantasy.
This workshop will cover what’s needed to readjust the world to your storytelling muse’s delight. We’ll take things out,
change the winners in war, the circumstances in discoveries, and borrow and warp whatever we wish whether the end
result is Steampunk or something else entirely!
We’ll do it all in 4-weeks, too. Lectures and Challenges (also known as assignments) will be given and issued on
Mondays and Wednesday. Feedback and questions and comments will be an ongoing thing.
TWISTING HISTORY: WRITING THE ALTERNATIVE HISTORICAL NOVEL A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Whether your goal is to write in the Fantasy genre or spin a Steampunk tale, if you are setting your tale in Earth’s
historical past chances are you’ll be warping it to your own needs. In other words, you’ll be writing an alternative historical
novel.
These are storylines where William the Conqueror dies at Hastings rather than Harold, so the Saxon line continues and
the Normans lose big; where the American Colonies are French rather than British, or the local tribes win the day; where
Hitler never rises, Napoleon becomes a farmer in Sicily and in France they eat cake; where the asteroid misses Earth and
the dinosaurs never die out. They are tales where reality and legend blend together or theories, machines and marvels
from the future become everyday elements a century or two before they actually did.
Storylines where “WHAT IF” gets milked for all it’s worth and imaginations are urged to run rampant!
But which “what if” questions should get asked first, or last, or asked at all? That’s what this mini workshop looks at and
explores.
The only requirement is that participants be willing to share, imagine, and go beyond what they’ve ever envisioned
before. There will be three lectures, three Challenges (Assignments) and a Q&A session to end the week.
VICKY AND BERTIE: Researching the Victorian or Edwardian Tale (1830-1919) With or Without
Steampunk Twists
It’s familiar, it’s the past, it’s popular. What is it? The modern 19th century novel. That is, a modern novel SET in the 19th
century.
It can be a Regency, sure, but that’s really the Georgian Era. When we think 19th century, we’re more likely to picture the
Victorian age and then slip into the Edwardian, which is really early 20th century, but not all that different in many ways.
In 4 weeks this workshop looks at all things Victorian and Edwardian: wardrobes, weapons, entertainments, songs,
cant/slang, inventions, science…well, a lot of what a writer needs to know about in building their own Victorian or
Edwardian world.
We’ll also take a stroll into Steampunk where all things Victorian and Edwardian are celebrated and warped, twisted, and
mutated into an alternative historial.
This is an information laden workshop that will pose some Challenges to participants in shorting out what they need, give
some suggestions on finding the answers, or guiding anyone interested in tinkering with history for their own means.
Some of the things mentioned are coinage, where to shop for a Worth gown, why walking sticks really don’t have swords
in them but could, and what a wonder maps are in charting your way about a London town that no longer exists.
WARBLINGS, WINNINGS, AND SPECTACLES: FOUR CENTURIES OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR
HISTORICAL WRITERS 1-Week Workshop
What do your historical characters do when they aren’t hacking with a board sword, dueling with a foil, pacing off with a
dueling pistol, shouldering a rifle, pouring tea, tending the ill, avoiding the villainous or being seduced?
Well, they go in for a bit of entertainment, of course! The trick is knowing what they are listening to, reading, seeing
performed, performing, turning a card over, putting money down on, or oohing and aahing over.
In one week we’ll do a hasty run through four centuries of things that brought a smile to a person’s face. We begin with
the 16th century, the era of the Tudors, the Renaissance, move on to the 17th century, then the 18th, and finish up in
the 19th century. Well, we might edge a bit into the 20th century, but not past the Roaring Twenties.
This is 5 days of lectures stuffed with data, and a couple more for comments, shared clues, and camaraderie.
It ought to bring smiles to our faces as well.
WARDROBES, WEAPONS, WARBLINGS AND WORDS: Shopping, Entertainment, and
Slang for Your Historical Characters
To get the right feel in a historical novel, it’s all about stage setting, looking right, sounding right, and having the right
“water cooler” chit chat for the people who traipse through your historical landscape. Can you trust what you’ve read
elsewhere? Maybe, maybe not. So how do you decide what you need BEYOND the plot? And where do you go to find it?
Those are exactly the questions that this workshop addresses.
In fact, we go looking FOR dresses! Yes, shopping with your heroine is the first thing on the list, whether she needs to
don farthingales or those frisky little flapper frocks. We’ll spend a full week searching out, one century at a time,
everything the well prepared heroine might need.
Then during week two, we pry the hero away from napping in a comfy haystack or armchair and trail after him as he
roams through gun shops, smith’s forges (for swords, knives), armament rooms (maces, axes, armour, shields, bows and
arrows), and then looks over the available carriages from horse drawn to snappy 1920s motor cars. He shouldn’t mind
this sort of shopping.
But historicals of any kind are not ALL dire events to be dressed right to endure, be they ballrooms or battlefields. No,
characters like to be entertained as well, so we’ll look at entertainments, songs, musical instruments, poetry, paintings,
plays, games of chance and dances for flirtation. And while our characters chat each other up we’ll make sure they drop
a few words to tell readers they aren’t in the 21st century anymore, so we’ll use appropriate slang or phrasing or words
that can be slipped into conversations.
And we’ll do all that in four short weeks.
WEIRD WEST: STEAMPUNK WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Odd, isn’t it, that with Steampunk currently a hot commodity when anyone talks about American settings for these genre
blending flights of fancy a television series that shot into our homes before many of the Steampunkers were even born is
mentioned.
I’m talking about the WILD, WILD WEST with its wild inventions, nefarious villains, dashing Secret Service agents, travel
by steam powered locomotive, plus comedic adventure. You might be more familiar with the movie version with Will Smith
and Kevin Kline taking over the roles of Jim West and Artemis Gordon. Whichever it is, the WILD, WILD WEST gives a
fairly good idea of what American Steampunk literature is considered. Perhaps it’s time to change that perception.
In this 4-week adventure into Steampunk, we’ll look at the various inventions that did exist, dream up some that didn’t but
could have been steam powered, consider whether the story would work best in one of the western territories, the land
massive Western States (as compared to the skimpier land masses of the Eastern States), and the building and thriving
cities and the opportunities each offers as a colorful setting.
Along the way we’ll look at outlaws, the Indian Wars, the mining booms, the railroads, the cattle and sheep baron wars,
dime novels, scandalous mistresses and famous actors and actresses, natural disasters (like San Francisco’s 1906
Earthquake), border wars, and anything else that catches our Steampunk related interest from the California Gold Rush
through to the first western movies (silent ones, of course).
We’ll be taking what was and twisting it to what we need it to be with the hoped for outcome being the start of a Weird
West Steampunk plot.
The journey commences in virtual time traveling stage coaches powered by teams of clockwork centaurs armed with
Winchester rifles. Bring your own canteens of tea or something stronger, and please no marked decks of cards or loaded
dice to wile away the time with in rooking your fellow passengers.
WHAT’D HE SAY? CANT AND HISTORICAL SLANG FOR BEGINNERS A 7-Day Mini Workshop
In an age where much of daily conversation is couched in slang and sound bites and advertising slogans, it may appear
odd that in the past these would have been considered vulgar language and much frowned upon.
But there is nothing that gives the flavor of an era better than a few dropped bits of cant or period slang in a historical
novel. However, doing the same with words we now consider archaic or “big” does the same thing.
This mini workshop looks at ways to carefully drop in just enough to flavor your historical story without leaving your
reader clueless about what is being said.
The emphasis will be on British and American slang, sampling verbalings from the Tudor era, to the late 18th century
through the Roaring Twenties. The trick for the writer eager to commune with a voice from the past is to pick and choose
what to use and to have a good reason for using the chosen words or phrases.
The workshop itself will consist of lectures and Challenges with a final day for feedback from all participants.
WITH MACHETE IN HAND: HOW TO CUT UP TO 5,000 WORDS FROM YOUR MANUSCRIPT
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Ever reach the end of your story and find that rather than stay within the word length the publisher’s guideline specified,
you’ve gone over it? WAY OVER IT?
It’s happened to me and more than once. I’ll have been keeping track of things all along the way and then the inspiration
– or the downhill run, if you prefer – to the finish gets me in its grip and I shoosh past the maximum number of words and
off the course entirely.
Well, as far as word count goes. The story now has all the details, the intricate nuances I would like and reads like a
dream…but a dream that has inched into nightmare status if I want a sale.
And let’s face it – we want a sale. If the story was told for our own benefit, we wouldn’t have bothered with correcting the
spelling, the grammar, or perhaps even with typing the thing in the first place. We would have stared into space and let it
unfold in our minds.
But we wrote it all down to share the enjoyment of all those nuances and to hopefully make a bit of moolah on it. So
rather than trust to Fate, a quixotic creature at best, and hope that a publisher is willing to put another chunk of paper
into the bound book and a reader is willing to pay for that extra chunk of paper at the bookseller’s, we have to fix things.
This is a mini-workshop – one week long – in which ways to trim, blend, reword, and hack, hack, hack at the manuscript to
bring it back in line with the specified word count those publishers’ guidelines demand will be reviewed and attempted.
Participants would ideally have a completed manuscript that they are in the progress of editing, not just for word count
but possibly for clarity or buffing up the finished project to a nice shine. It’s all right to have fewer than 5,000 words that
have to be trimmed. You can even have more than that. The whole idea is discovering ways to hone your prose so that
no word is wasted but worked to full capacity and efficiently.
WORLDBUILDING FOR THE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
It isn’t just fantasy or paranormal novels that need worlds built. It’s every novel, no matter what the genre or subgenre.
But the Contemporary Romance is the story that few consider as a Worldbuilding arena. That’s were things run amuck.
This workshop will look at the various “normal” elements that must go into constructing the background – the stage –
upon which the players move. No, this isn’t about description, it’s about life in the town, the layout of the town, the things
the characters are involved in daily, their beliefs, their neighborhoods…heck, even where they shop for groceries,
whether they are involved in carpools, volunteer groups, cookie drives!
These things matter whether the characters have children or not, jobs that are or aren’t related to the plotline, pets,
family in town or out-of-town…well, all kinds of things.
We’ll sort them out and in a CHALLENGE (aka Assignment) put together the world the folks in one or more than one
group of characters moves about it. After all, if you invent a town from scratch, why use it for just a single book? There
are plenty more characters living there than just those watched over during the course of one book!
Don't see a workshop with the theme or topic you were hoping for?
Contact us via Beth@RomanceAndMystery.com and we'll see if we can create something new!
It isn’t often that a new author’s name appears on the New York Times best seller list, particularly in the top ten. And far
more male writers land a position there than females do. What do these guys write? More often than not, it’s action-
adventure.
But that’s too simple a classification because these tales tend to also have a historical mystery or treasure to be
uncovered or found and then protected. They have some romance, though never a love scene. They have puzzles to
solve, trails to follow, mysteries to be uncovered, exposed, and villains to be bested, brought to justice, or inadvertently
killed.
There are continuing themes that the men on the NYT list work into their tales. Some specialty their hero has, perhaps.
With Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series, it was an underwater element. With Dan Brown’s past three titles it was symbolism
and secret societies.
With Steve Berry it’s military/political as well as involving something historical – and the clock is always ticking. In fact, in
one of Berry’s books, you get to hit a number of tourist sites and usually have a gun battle erupt at them. Berry also has
what many of the other male writers don’t seem able to pull off – an equally qualified and believable female lead who
carries the secondary storyline that always blends into the main storyline at the conclusion.
So a look at what makes a Steve Berry tale tick is well worth the effort, whether your goal is to land a spot on the NYT list
or merely improve the sales potential of your novel. To make it easy to find a title to use as our textbook (via library or
bookstore), we’ll be working with THE ALEXANDRIA LINK, copyright 2007. It’s 499 pages long, which means we’re taking
4-weeks to read, study, evaluate, and do a bit of plot-wise emulating along the way.
AND WITH A COMPOSITIONAL FLOURISH...: Using Rhetorical Devises to Improve Your Prose
To paraphrase Cole Porter, advanced speech geeks do it, presidents and lawyer type creeps do it, Aristole and the
Greeks do’d it, let’s do it, let’s…well, Cole says “let’s fall in love” but we’ll change that to “let’s write with flare.”
In other words, let’s use the same compositional and speech tactics that have been getting results for well over a
thousand years. The things I term compositional flourishes.
Some of them we’re all probably familiar with…onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, metaphor, simile, and of course the
romance writer’s constant companion, euphemism. But how can we direct these specifically toward writing scenes fraught
with sexual tension, love scenes, and erotica?
That’s what this workshop is all about. Not only will workshop attendees rub shoulders with terms the Greeks flung about
with careless abandon, they’ll see how each of the various tactics can work for them and improve their writing skills by
reworking things, making lists of great word parings, and various other assignments.
Using them also makes for more fascinating reading material, although readers may not recognize the subtle touch of our
pens.
This is a four week course. Lessons are posted on Mondays and Wednesdays and any feedback from the instructor on
questions, etc., is given before the next Monday lesson is posted, if not sooner. On Fridays things are restricted to
comments, suggestions, and feedback.
There are around 45 different rhetorical devices, but the workshop would focus on the 16 that would work best for fiction
writers.
BACK IN PRINT! KEEPING YOUR BACK LIST AVAILABLE
It’s sad how short a time our sweat and toil stays on a bookseller’s shelves, isn’t it? And with new titles released every
month, unless you’ve managed to make it repeatedly to the NYT or USA Today bestseller lists, it’s pulled—stripped—and
returned for credit within far too short a time.
Contracts tie our hands for years, but once the legal limit has been reached authors can and should request the rights
back on previously published titles. Why? So they can turn things around and make those books available once more,
whether through a reprint publisher, through electronic publishing or even by becoming their own publisher.
While the major writers associations have denounced self-publishing, there isn’t a single published author alive who
wouldn’t like to have their back list – their FULL back list – available to readers who missed titles the first time around.
And that is what this workshop is about – getting previously published books back in circulation once more, and not
through recycling of used copies. We’ll also talk about creating spin-off items or collections to build yourself – things that
your publisher isn’t interested in, like a build-your-own-anthology of your shorter work – things written for all those
contests you entered, perhaps?
Debate is fierce over whether becoming your own publisher is a smart option or a disastrous decision, but we’ll also look
at the smaller publishing houses that are interested in contracting for reprints, and every choice there can be made to
get back list in readers hands once more.
This class is not just for authors with previously published titles but for anyone who is interested in, is toying with the idea
of, or is gung-ho to take the leap into what might well define publishing in the 21st century: small niche publishing houses
and independently published print and electronic books.
Things to be discussed are editing, interior layout, cover design, distribution choices, pricing, and promotion for
independently published and/or electronic books.
Searches will be made for publishers who do reprints or e-books or audio books of previously published material as well
as various was to investigate independent publishing through contracts with local publishing firms, micro-publishers, or
publish-on-demand houses. While Lulu.com is the instructor’s POD choice for minimum financial outlay for small print
runs, other POD publishers will be discussed as well. We'll also talk formatting for Kindle and PubIt!, the Nook alternative.
Participants can have a manuscript ready to load, or be interested in learning what they need to do to independently
publish through a small publishing house specializing in e-books, through use of a POD, Kindle or PubIt!, or simply have
information to consider in regards to the many options they could pursue to get backlist available once more.
BREAKING THINGS DOWN INTO THREES: Plot Organization for Pantsers as well as Plotters
A 3-Week Workshop
Plots require organization – even those written by Pantsers. Why? Because all storytelling requires a flow, a smooth
transition from one scene to the next. Getting it doesn’t require an outline though. All it requires is a system. A system of
breaking everything down into thirds.
Three is a magic number. It’s used in art, music, interior design, and in literature. After all, doesn’t every story have a
Beginning, a Middle, and an End? Three things.
But we need to go further. Need to section the various elements of our storylines into smaller and smaller divisions of
three.
Many have already have done this in writing essays at school, or in a public speaking class. Opening either a essay or a
speech by telling the audience what is going to be discussing or telling them about, then breaking the body of the
essay/speech into sections, and finally recapping everything at the end.
Look at it this way. What was said is: 1) here’s what has occurred before and what we need to change, 2) here is how we
can change it or why we should change it, and 3) the problem is this because of this and that and we need to do this to
correct it.
Storylines in fiction do exactly the same thing, they simply use characterization, action and reaction to move along.
Scenes can be broken down into threes; chapters can; POVs can. And in thinking by threes to create each tale, each
element of a tale, story flow results.
Participants should have a work in progress, but it can be in any state of development – thinking about, early chapters,
middle, or heading toward the conclusion. Thinking by threes works at any level, including editing. It can also help identify
things that aren’t really needed in the book, the sort of things editors delete.
Lectures are posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with responses from the instructor posted for questions or
assignments before the next Monday’s lecture. It is, oddly enough, a 3-week class.
This class is for writers at any point in their writing career from unpublished to midlist.
BUILD AN E-BOOK COVER FOR KINDLE OR NOOK 1-week workshop
It isn’t enough to have a great story to rerelease or a mini-niche non-fiction tale to produce, if you want your book up and
available as an e-book for either Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook, you are going to need a cover.
Building one isn’t that difficult, even if you don’t have any graphics layout experience in your background. It’s simple a
step-by-step process, which we’ll cover in this 1-week mini-workshop.
THINGS YOU’LL NEED
1) title of the book and the author name. Hey, you know those already, right?
2) a publisher’s name – not the original publisher, if this is a reprint, but the name you want to use as an independent
publisher of your own e-books
3) desk top publishing software – I’ll tell you where to find a free one and guide you through using it
4) some ideas of what colors you want to use
5) a decision on whether you want an illustration and what sort of illustration (and I’ll tell you how to find royalty free
ones, though you will probably have to pay a token one time fee to use the one – or ones – you choose)
6) a color printer, possibly with a scanner
7) the ability to create .jpg files (which frequently are tied to the scanner) and know the pixel count
8) a laptop or PC, which you already have if you are reading this!
9) approximately two or more hours at least two or three nights during the workshop week to work on your cover
10) to ask questions if having any problems.
Our expenses will be modest and the results can be amazing, spectacular, and quite simple.
BIO: Beth Daniels does have a background in graphics advertising layouts but she had to teach herself how to use the
programs that create covers because she left the advertising field before personal computers began being used to do
layouts. After a sufficient amount of mental and muttered swearing, she worked out the kinks and is willing to share. You
can find samples of the covers she created by looking up Kindle or Nook e-books by Beth Henderson, her pseudonym.
CHANGING GENRES: How to Decide What to Keep and What to Dump, What to Change, What to
Enhance When Following Trends, Jumping into Different “Lines” or Going Down A New Road
The publishing world is in constant transition with different aspects in novels changing, sometimes over a decade,
sometimes – it seems – nearly overnight. Will you be ready? Or are you already thinking of jumping from your current
“ship”, swinging with the finesse of Captain Jack Sparrow onto the publishing vessel riding the waves to starboard or port?
There are a number of reasons why writers decide to try something different. Some do it because the bottom has fallen
out of what they were writing, some because they are excited about a rising trend. Whatever your reason for considering
making the leap there are decisions to be made. And that is what this workshop is all about.
Just because editors are no longer buying what you have been writing doesn’t mean you need to junk your style entirely.
There are elements that travel well between genres, even if the genres stay within the romance marketplace or leap into
an entirely different marketplace. Determining what can or should be kept and what needs to be altered, enhanced,
dumped, or learned goes beyond simply deciding to take the leap.
This workshop runs four weeks and sets challenges twice a week. These challenges (or homework, if you will) address
things like the marketplace, evaluating the elements required, making note of how many of them are already part of the
writer’s style, deciding what needs to be learned/adapted/changed, and even confessing – or realizing – the reason a
writer is considering leaping into a new field. In other words, “what’s it going to take and can I follow though?”
All that is required of attendees is a vague idea of where they’d like to go, where they’d like to be as their writing career
evolves. Both unpublished and published authors welcomed.
CHOOSING YOUR NICHE IN THE MYSTERY FIELD
You love mystery. I mean, really love mystery. You buy mystery, read mystery, watch mystery series on TV, head to the
theatre to be immersed in mystery, your favorite board game is Clue, and you've even had dinner or board a train where
the audience becomes part of the evening’s entertainment in a mystery.
But there are so many different types of mystery tales! How is a mystery buff to decide which style they should choose
when it comes to writing a mystery?
We’re here to help you sort out the possibilities. During the four weeks of this workshop, participants will evaluate what
they like best in a mystery, take a “dip” into various niches within the mystery by reading either novels or short stories
(depending on their time allowances) in different…well, we’ll call them mystery disciplines, and sort through what their
strengths and weaknesses are in relation to research interests, plotting, sleuth building, red herrings, and all the rest that
goes along with writing a mystery.
Among the niches investigated will be: romantic suspense, comedic cozy, police procedural, historical mystery, caper
tales, spy/action adventure stories, the children’s market for mystery, the paranormal in mystery, plus series and stand-
alone titles.
Participants given weekly Challenges (aka homework or assignments) to help them sort out what will work best for their
interests, strengths, and writing style in creating a mystery or mystery series by the close of the workshop.
Lectures posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with questions and answers taken and answered throughout the week.
Participants are urged to post their Challenges answers for discussion and comment by ALL participants.
CORSETS, GOGGLES, AIRSHIPS, OH MY! Researching and Writing Steampunk
The skies are filled with airships, the ground crowded with ladies in corsets with parasols and men in top hats or derbies
leaning on walking sticks. Everyone owns a pair of brass goggles and is up on all the latest in steam powered clockwork
technology, the discovery of new lands, and possibly conversant with the paranormal as well. Or considering ways they
can take over the world, or at least get it eating complacently out of their hand.
Is this the Age of Victoria?
Not exactly. It’s definitely the World of Steampunk. And if you are interested in writing for this subgenre, born of the
Romeo and Juliet like liaison of the Historical and the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genres, then researching and writing your story will
be a melding of the ways as well.
For research you do need – not just into the Industrial Age, but also into the Current Era and the About-To-Be wonders
of technology. Steampunk throws them all in the pot and turns them into quite uncommon porridge.
The key is knowing what you can use that actually was and what you can warp, morph, twist, tweak, alter, reconfigure,
and dream up in connection with it.
Steampunk is more than merely a pseudo-Victorian world, for it can play out in the future or in an alternate universe just
as easily as it can be performed on the 19th and early 20th century stage. But until you know what sort of homework you
need to do in preparing to write your story, how can you cook up a lovely steamed meal of fact and fantastic fiction?
This 4-Week workshop tells how by guiding participants through the doors of history and on an excursion into the world of
clockwork mechanics as well as highlighting the various elements that make up Steampunk.
For beginning novelists and for those interested in switching to or expanding into a new genre.
COVERING YOUR BASES: PROMOTIONAL AND PERSONAL USES FOR POD TRADE PAPERBACKS
and KINDLE and NOOK E-BOOKS
POD – the ubiquitous Print On Demand self-publishing option – is not all bad. Particularly if you are using it to:
1. provide adjunct material, such as short stories or novellas set in the same world as a longer manuscript to build
readership, provide conference “goodie bag” handouts, treat fans between new releases
2. provide materials when presenting workshops
3. turn workshops into mini-books
4. convert previously published articles or short stories, or unpublished articles or short stories into mini-book sized
collections
5. have a convenient carry-around “book” for editing purposes if laptops aren’t an option (books don’t depend on
batteries or electronics, after all, and certainly aren’t as heavy or bulky)
6. create special projects for friends and family…for fans!...at the holidays or to celebrate new releases from your major
publisher
7. continue a series that a publisher pulled the plug on – or closed their doors leaving it homeless – when other
publishers balk at picking up a series that was original released through another publisher
8. get a manuscript you love but can’t find a home for off your desk so you can move on!
9. put back-list titles back in print and available once more
These are some of the ways a writer can use self publishing and Kindle to advantage without resorting to self-publishing
for the wrong reasons, such as wanting complete control over your project – never a good idea as it’s akin to
representing yourself in court rather than hire a lawyer. Finding a reliable and recognized royalty paying, advance
supplying publisher with marvelous distribution services should always be the main goal. But augmenting your product
with POD and Kindle (and its cousins) can boost your presence in the marketplace and/or provide professionally
produced material for promotion that is worth keeping.
Not only will this 4-week workshop discuss these nine possibilities, it will also guide participants through creating a cover,
and formatting the manuscript for either POD or Kindle or PubIt!. Challenges (aka assignments) will be issued each week.
Questions answered, comments replied to, and feedback given are all daily benefits, although more formal lectures will
be posted twice a week.
CREATING COMMUNITIES FOR YOUR CONTEMPORARY OR HISTORICAL NOVELS
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
There are two ways to go when it comes to the setting for your novel: 1) use a real place, or 2) make one up.
On one hand this is difficult if you want to set your story in New York City but you live in Cody, Wyoming and have never
visited the Big Apple, or did so briefly on a vacation. On the other hand this is difficult if you’re using an historical period
and what the city looked like when your characters will be roaming it and what it looks like now are two different things –
and sources are hard to find.
Therefore, to move ahead in your storytelling, why not combine elements and build your own backdrop, your own city,
your own town, your own community? That’s where flexibility is achieved.
During this 5-day workshop we’ll begin building such settings – ones that you can use over and over and add to as
necessary.
Turn NYC or Chicago into Gotham City under a different name. Kim Harrison morphed Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington,
Kentucky (just across the Ohio River from each other) into her urban fantasy world so that Covington becomes The
Hallows where all the non-humans tend to live, though they visit or work in an almost normal Cincinnati. The emphasis is
on ALMOST NORMAL.
Build a little house on the prairie near a town that never existed, but could have and probably did under a different name.
Take what you can find out in regards to daily life in what is now a ghost town or abandoned castle ruin or a cave and
extrapolate the community you need to live there for your story.
Use the familiar to fill in the gaps and create the place where your characters live. Or at least draw up sketchy plans for
the construction crew to muse over.
This is a part of world building, a niche of world building that doesn't necessarily need to involve a sci-fi or fantasy world,
just the world your characters walk around in. It’s where they shop, work and live. If you don’t give them a street to tread,
who will?
CURING THE "WHAT COMES AFTER THE FIRST 3 CHAPTERS" BLUES: Dealing with the Middle of
Your Story
The idea for your story has been brewing for quite awhile now. You knew how it opened, and we all know how they close
– everyone lives happily ever after (except any villain that needs to be caught), girl gets boy, and wedding bells will or do
or might ring.
But now you’ve got those first three chapters…or first 50 pages…done and you’ve slammed into a very large, very firm,
very unyielding brick wall. The dreaded writer’s block virus is far more deadly than any new strain of flu because there is
no vaccine to prevent it. All you can do is work through it.
How the heck do you do that when your mind has frozen or your story seems to be circling and circling without moving
ahead?
That’s what Curing the “What Comes After the First Three Chapters” Blues is all about. It’s dealing with the Middle of
Your Story. FINDING a middle to your story. And not just one that suffices, but one that will have readers (which are what
editors are, too) wanting to keep turning the pages. It’s going beyond the vague to the specific, moving from one scene to
the next, making each one count whether the object is to build suspense or simply build a better love story.
There is only one requirement: students must have at least three chapters (or 45 to 50 pages) of a story written or have
a detailed, written plan/plot of how the story opens on through approximately the first 50 pages. We’ll be working on what
comes after this part.
Sharing will be urged, but won’t be required.
The class runs for four weeks. During that time lectures/suggestions will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Comments from the instructor will be made on anything a student submits (be it for the entire class to view or just the
instructor) before the next Monday’s posting.
DR. FRANKENSTEIN’S SYSTEM: BUILD A SUBGENRE TALE BY STITCHING
MISMATCHED STORY ELEMENTS TOGETHER
Victor Frankenstein was into recycling before the word was even invented. He took a little of this, a little of that, and
created a totally new and unique creature.
Okay, so it was a monster. No one else had one quite like it, did they? No way.
New is good but UNIQUE…ahh, that’s what really gets one noticed, isn’t it?
And that’s what this 4-week workshop is concerned with – building something from various genre elements to build a story
style that sets you apart from the crowd – and in a good way!
We’ll investigate the blending worlds of urban fantasy, Steampunk, magical realism, and then launch into picking and
choosing what would work best for us from the worlds of mystery and suspense, sci fi and fantasy, the classics, history,
science, psychology and anything else that strikes the fancy or is a hot topic. We’ll also look at some of the flights of
fancy that have made a mark on the big screen from THE MATRIX to INCEPTION to…well, whatever seems to fit the
Frankensteinian model of stitching different parts together to create a new storyline.
Mary Shelley was inspired by the explosion of ideas and changing world of the early Industrial Age as well as really dismal
weather (thanks to a volcano eruption) while on holiday in Switzerland with her creative – and possibly stoned or overly
intoxicated – friends (George, Lord Bryon and Percy Bysshe Shelley) when she wrote FRANKENSTEIN in 1816.
We have it easier with a world of possible ideas just a Web surf away. And surf we will! All the way to a passel of new
ideas, to be sewn together from bits and pieces of other genres, the news, and truly soaring flights of fancy.
For the Beginning or Intermediate writer or those in search of a new lease on their writing life.
EDITING THE HECK OUT OF THINGS: INTENSIVE 4-WEEK POLISHING, REWRITING, DELETING,
AND GENERALLY IMPROVING THE DRAFT FOR SUBMISSION
Many have proven that they can write the first draft of a book in a month, or a bit over if the word count is 90,000 words
or better. But the thing that can really drag on for months and months and months, even a year, is the editing. So often
we never reach the stage where the manuscript can be submitted to an editor, and continue to spin our wheels reworking
it.
The reasons are many, of course, but the most common are 1) because we’re continually tinkering with it, we tend to ruin
it more than improve it, and 2) we’re never sure when it IS finished and ready to leave the nest.
Of course there’s another reason, too: we haven’t set a deadline by which to finish the editing process.
This 4-week workshop does that.
It’s intensive. You’ve got an entire draft of a completed manuscript to buff up, trim down, rewrite, and improve the heck
out of in just four weeks – 28 days.
We’ll break things down, crack whips, even bring in a virtual Jillian Michaels, if that helps, to snarl at you when you feel at
your wit’s end.
So clear the calendar. Load up on vitamins, TV dinners, and coupons to the local restaurants. Cancel all appointments,
arrange for others to take the kids to practice or cheer them on the playing field. Allow no one to have birthday parties,
weddings, or cosmetic demonstrations. Volunteer for nothing – not nowhere, no how. This time belongs to you and your
manuscript.
We’re going to whip this puppy into shape and make it ready to fly out of your hands and onto an unsuspecting editor’s
desk, be it through electronic submission or good old snail mail.
The benefit at the close of these 4-weeks? While you wait for word from a publisher, you’ll be able to play with an entirely
new batch of characters and situations – also known as finally getting around to writing the NEXT manuscript.
EXCHANGING ELEMENTS: TURN YOUR FAN FIC INTO A SELLABLE STORY
So you’re really into Fan Fic, huh? You churn out thousands of words about the adventures of people others created and
have the adulation of your fellow fan-fic-ers for the creativity of your story…and yet you can’t sell it.
Hmm. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?
Oddly enough, there are quite a lot of people who write fan fiction who claim they want to be professional writers. Are they
typing up manuscripts to be submitted to publishers? Usually not as quickly as they create a new episode from an already
established fictional world.
Does this sound familiar? Are you spinning tales about members of the Skywalker-Solo family, or the crew as on the
Starship Enterprise, or something featuring a brilliant alien who travels the universe and time in a blue box? Are you
telling tales in a TV series’ world that went off the air decades ago? If so, these stories can be edited, recreated, and
turned into something that is clearly of your own creation, not spun off from another’s, and morphed into something that
can snag an editor’s interest.
4-weeks is enough to get you started on the road to recovering your prose, boiling it down, converting those fan fic
elements to something of your own creation, and yet still keep the basic story you’re already told.
It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Particularly if you want more from your writing than just accolades from folks who are fan fic-
oholics, too. Come on, give it a try. After all, you’ve already written the story, haven’t you? All that’s needed is some
worldbuilding of your own and a bit of character redesigning. It wouldn’t do to have Mark Cloudrunner take on the
Monarch of the Dynasty, would it? Too recognizable as a knight naked Skywalker and a certain Emperor. But Teoa Link
could infiltrate the Orion Corp to make them crumble, couldn’t she? It’s all in the element exchange.
You don’t even have to bring a receipt with you.
EXPANDING YOUR HORIZONS: JUGGLING MORE THAN ONE GENRE or SUBGENRE
Ever study art history and learn about the artists studios where apprentices and journeymen laid down the basic portrait
and then the master himself came through, added a few dabs of paint and signed the piece? It was the only way an artist
could blanket the market in the eras before easy duplication and photography made such studios obsolete. And the more
an artist’s name appeared before the public, the more popular – and famous – and successful – he became.
Today there are well known authors who farm out some of their ideas while keeping their name the most prominent one
on a cover. But there are others who can’t keep their pen – or keyboard – quiet and blanket the marketplace with their
name in turning out one title after another, or who don another name and slip into another market. Sometimes the fans
from one market travel along with them, but other times it’s the excitement of being discovered by readers who have no
interest in the previous genre that draws an author.
For me it has always been about adventure – doing something different, even if it isn’t all that different. I don’t read in just
a single genre so why would I want to write in just one?
And I’m not alone. Stephen King has used more than a single name. Nora Roberts is also J.D. Robb. Jean Plaidy used to
write as herself, as Phillippa Carr and Victoria Holt. Dr. Barbara Mertz writes non-fiction archaeology as herself, but had a
long running romantic-suspense career as both Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters, before converting the EP name
to historical mystery with her Amelia Peabody series. And Dean Koontz once wrote anything anyone would buy while
building his reputation – even Regency romance under a feminine pen name. Personally, I’ve written under five different
names, and all for different reasons.
You don’t have to have a separate pseudonym to write in another genre though. Often times what you write is in the
same family, for instance, historical romance and historical mystery, or contemporary romantic comedy and cozy comedic
mystery.
If you are looking to expand your horizons, to break out of a rut, to don another hat, or simply keep your name among
those on a bookseller’s shelves, this workshop can help you find your way, your new niche, or simply offer suggestions
on how to juggle being two writers in one.
While there will be lectures to jumpstart discussions, two each week, during the four weeks of the workshop, questions,
suggestions, and feedback, and an ongoing dialogue between participants and participants and instructor are equally
important elements. Among the topics for discussion are: the reason for using or not using a pseudonym, will readers
follow to a new genre or subgenre, what sideways move is the best “fit”, the changing marketplace, the niche comfort
zone, and others.
Participants can be published or unpublished with diversified interests and a desire to branch out into a new sector of
their writing career.
FINDING YOUR STYLE NICHE: WHICH ARE YOU, REALLY? PLOTTER OR PANTSER?
How often have you attended a conference and heard an author in a workshop claim the way they write their books is
basically the professional way to go about it, then move to the next workshop and hear another author tell how everything
the last speaker you heard said was all wrong and that their way is the tried and true way to do things?
This workshop isn’t going to claim anything of the sort. It is based on the premise that there is no one way to do anything.
That the only 100% guaranteed way to write your manuscript is the way that works best for you.
This could be the Plotter style, where preplanning is king, outlines are common, scenes are choreographed, and the
author knows exactly (or close to exactly) where each character is going to plant their foot. Or it could be the Pantser
style, where stories grow organically and the writer never knows what’s going to happen next until it pours onto the PC
screen.
But what happens if you haven't managed to work your way through writing an entire book yet? Or did, but weren't happy
with what you went through in giving birth to it? Sometimes the only way to know what way will work best for you is to give
more than one "system" a trial run. And that's what this workshop does. It guides you through Plotting a story for two
week and then switching to another story idea and rewheeling it as a Pantser.
While those who are primarily beginners, or unpublished writers might be the most interested in this class, it could also
appeal to those who have had a book or two published but seem to have hit a wall, or are having difficulty moving ahead
in a current project. Students are asked to have two different story ideas to flesh out, one for each style sampled.
The posting schedule, for both lessons and turn in of assignments, would be twice a week with feedback from the
instructor on each assignment, or questions asked prior to the next Monday’s posting.
The class runs for four weeks.
FINDING WORDS/KILLING WORDS: BRINGING YOUR MANUSCRIPT IN AT THE RIGHT WORD
COUNT
You’ve done it! You’ve finished writing your manuscript at long last. But just before you move on to sending it out, you hit
word count one last time.
And HORRORS!!! It either says you still need a couple thousand words or you’ve gone over the publisher’s posted
maximum word count by a couple thousand.
What’s a writer to do?
That’s what this workshop will do. In (fill in the number of weeks) we’ll give you hints on how to add up to 5,000 words to
your manuscript or delete up to 5,000 words from it.
We’ll work on adding words at first then switch over to killing a bunch of them, picking them off a couple at a time or in
massacred clumps.
There’s a system to doing both things. Editors do it all the time, so you can learn to recognize opportunities to add a bit
or to kill it, too.
Regretfully, your modest presenter has had to do both a lot of times. But it makes her an expert on it, doesn’t it? Now, let’
s have YOU master the tricks as well.
FLIGHTS OF THE TARDIS: WHAT THE WORLD OF DR. WHO CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT PLOTTING
…EVEN IF YOU’RE A PANTSER! A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Whether you discovered BBC’s DR WHO as a child in the 20th century or have become an addict of the 21st rebirth of
the series (one with a much larger production budget), chances are you equate the good Doctor’s name with the fantastic.
What else could it be for a Time Lord who is the last of his kind traveling in a craft (the Tardis) that is the last of its kind,
who appears to have a fascination for Earthlings to the point of always having one of the female persuasion as a
traveling companion as well as rushing to the planet’s aid time after time after time. Did I mention he’s over 900 years old
and thanks to the regeneration process when he’s been killed, looks like a different man…at least 11 different one’s to
date as the actors who play him turn the role over to the next enthusiastic fellow.
It’s a kid’s show, you say? Well, yeah, but in the long run children probably make up the smallest demographic of the
audience and fans worldwide. Even if you aren’t a Whoian, there are things to be learned from the series – like how to
blend the laugh with the fantastic, the monsters with the clueless, how to hide in plain sight, survive with little more than a
sonic screwdriver and an unlimited imagination.
And how to twist, spin and corrupt every familiar plot trope available. And they’re all available. To you, too.
This 1-week mini-workshop uses the 21st century reincarnation of the DR WHO series as a springboard for the
imagination of writers of all genres, not merely those that would mesh with the DR WHO world. Familiarity with the new
series is not required – watching it is not a prerequisite. The workshop will lay it all out in black and white, focusing on a
handful of the programs featuring David Tennant as The Doctor. We only have a week, after all, and no Tardis of our
own.
The workshop is for anyone interested in taking a leap into the unknown when it comes to tweaking often played
elements when building a plot.
FLIPPING THE DUST BUNNIES!: REWRITING AND RECYCLING THE ABANDONED MANUSCRIPTS
HIDING UNDER YOUR BED AND ON THE FLOOR OF THE CLOSET
Everyone has them…or will have them. Story ideas that were started, made it through a few chapters before being
abandoned, or completed manuscripts that were turned down so often all hope was lost.
All this happened before your prose improved to its present level, right? These were written before you knew what you
know now about the publishing world.
I don’t think there is any such thing as a bad story idea. There are simply poor presentations, manuscripts that don’t
match current market interests, and giant writers’ block walls that appeared insurmountable. All of these can be overcome
with some serious rethinking.
FLIPPING THE DUST BUNNIES is about finding the redeeming elements and jettisoning those that bog things down. It’s
about rethinking, rewriting, reconstructing, reworking, and flipping those once discarded ideas into publishable
manuscripts.
“Flipping” works for do-it-yourselfers when it comes to taking a house in need of tender care and turning it into a
desirable property once more through simple remodeling tasks. When it has achieved all of this attention it turns into a
home for someone else, and at a profit for the “flipper.” So why can’t the concept work on any and all manuscripts
gathering dust in closets, file boxes in attics or garages, or communing with the dust bunnies under the bed?
It can. And this is the place to begin reevaluating, tearing apart, and rebuilding a more desirable manuscript from the
shell of that uncompleted or tired out manuscript.
This is a 4-week workshop that consists of two lectures each week, challenges (aka assignments) to spur participants in
deconstructing and rebuilding, and daily responses to questions, comments, and any other postings. The workshop can
be for students at beginning or intermediate levels, but basically for anyone who has a manuscript they haven’t
completed or have given up hope on.
FORMAT YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR KINDLE and NOOK 1-week workshop
You’ve heard the siren call, haven’t you? The one that your book murmurs, “make me available on Kindle; make me
available on Nook.”
Perhaps you looked into having someone format your manuscript for the conversion and found that prices begin at $200
and work their way up depending on the number of pages and whether a book cover needs to be built as well. That’s if
you have someone else do it for you.
In this 1-week workshop we won’t build a cover – that’s another 1-week workshop. We’ll simply be concentrating on
turning the well edited and polished manuscript into a format that looks good and looks professional for the “inner” pages
of the title.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1) either an edited and polished new manuscript or a rekeyed backlist book that follows word-for-word what appeared in
the original
2) some ideas of what you’d like it to look like – think modest appearance as this will be your first endeavor
3) an account at Amazon.com and/or one at Barnes and Noble’s PubIt.com
4) the ability to create a WORD doc and/or an .html one
5) an Internet access
6) at least two or three evenings during the workshop week to format and load your manuscript to the Amazon and/or
Barnes and Noble PubIt! system
7) a ton of questions if need be
And that’s all it will take. Oh, you won’t be able to make it active without a cover, but there is a mini-workshop for that, too.
Taken in tandem, they’ll soon have your work available via Kindle and/or Nook. A 1-Week Workshop.
BIO: Beth Daniels took the Kindle and PubIt! plunge in the closing months of 2010. It took a couple of weeks of swearing,
backing off and redoing, contacting Help desks, and down-and-dirty stick-to-it-ativeness, but she finally got to the point
where her backlist can poof into the e-book lineup with little trouble now. She’s worked out the kinks and is willing to share
the secret to formatting your manuscript for Kindle and Nook.
FROM FARTHINGALES TO FLAPPERS: WHAT’S IN YOUR HISTORICAL HEROINE’S WARDROBE?
A 7-Day Mini Workshop in Historical Research
With the focus on the correct apparel for a historical heroine of any period from the 16th century to the early 20th
century, this week long mini-workshop goes on a shopping trip, decking characters out in era specific clothing.
During the week there will be four lectures focusing on where to find information on hats, day dresses, ball gowns,
undergarments, shoes, boots, outerwear, plus perfumes, cosmetics, hairstyles (and wigs)…everything a heroine might
don during her adventures whether she be a Cinderella yet by the hearth or a Modern dancing the night away in a
Twenties Speakeasy.
There will also be lists of sources supplied and searches urged in three Challenges (Assignments). Participants would be
new writers or writers in need of detail for time traveling characters or those considering a genre jump into the historical
field.
GALLOPING OFF TO SEE THE ELEPHANT: Spinning an Historical Set in the American West
Revenge. Rivalry. Colts and cattle. Winchesters and winning hands. Gold and guts. The American frontier west of the Big
Muddy has been the stuff of which legends are made since Beadle and Adams and Smith and Street, the two major dime
novel publishers of the 19th century, snapped up stories and distributed them to eager readers. And even once the
western frontier was declared closed – extinct -- in 1890, the American West was still a place to fascinate Easterners and
Europeans. Buffalo Bill Cody made a fine living with his Wild West Show for many years after that auspicious 1890s date.
The Old West still fascinates many around the world. The most American image recognized around the world is that of
the cowboy. And although he passed on quite a while back, Louis L’Amour’s name alone conjures up the image of this
particularly American Western Hero – a man with a strict code by which he lives and rights wrongs as he does so.
There are a number of ways to write an historical of the American West today, L’Amour’s brand being only one, and even
that has altered through the years. There’s the standard Western (usually a series), the stand-alone literary western, the
historical Western romance (whether with R or G rated love scenes), the mystery series frequently with a Pinkerton or
historical figure solving crimes and tracking villains, and the alternative history Western in the fantasy arena.
Within four weeks we’ll look at what’s out there, where the markets are, and then spend the majority of time talking about
the things participants are most interested in writing about in regards to the Old West. In other words, this workshop may
never run the same way twice. The focus is on what participants need it to be.
However, some things don’t change and plot and research vehicles will be discussed, the legends of the west, the
society, the cities and towns, the miners, the outlaws, the gamblers, the railroaders, the immigrants, the cattlemen, the
tribes, the entertainers, the con artists, the weapons, fashions, food…well, everything that’s needed to build a correctly
reflective story of the American West. And how best to pick and choose from among all the choices, too! It’s a wide, wide
country we’ll be traveling through though the number of years are a spare sixty or so, pardner.
Lectures will appear on Mondays and Wednesdays with participants reporting in Friday through Sunday on the results of
their own research and plots and plans. One Challenge/Assignment will be given every week. Q&A and comments on
things posted are a continuing feature throughout the workshop.
GROWING MORE WORDS: ADDING UP TO 5,000 WORDS TO YOUR MANUSCRIPT TO MEET
PUBLISHER GUIDELINES A 7-Week Mini Workshop
You know your market, you’ve written your story, avoided the worst case scenarios of writer’s block or smite them with
your pen (far mightier than the sword) but now you have yet another problem.
Your tale falls short of the required minimum word count the publisher wishes. And this can really happen if your first
choice publisher’s guideline was met but they passed on the project. The next publisher – or even the one after that –
has an entirely different word count minimum and it’s higher than what you’ve currently got.
Does that mean you need to junk the idea of ever finding a home for this story? NO! It means you simply have to grow a
few words…well, maybe more than just a few, but in the grand scheme of things, it really is just a few.
So how do you do it? Funny you should ask.
In a mini-workshop lasting a spare week, you can find ways to beef up your word count without bogging down your
manuscript. Trust me on this. I’ve had to do it myself a couple times. Particularly when a publisher changed their
guidelines while I was diligently writing to the old ones.
HISTORICAL ANGLES: WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION
History, they say, is written by the winners. So how do YOU become a winner when it comes to writing historical fiction?
In many ways, actually. There are subdivisions in the field that run the gambit from true-to-life depictions to twisted,
altered versions of events and outcomes.
This workshop looks at every angle from which a historical novel can be written and branches into the research
necessary, the creation of believable characters, settings, details, and looks at some of the practitioners – the successful
ones – in this very diversified genre. We’ll look at some movies and TV series, too, for visuals (though these will not be
viewed within the workshop).
Some of the diversifications include: a historical personage as the main character; fictional characters working with
historical personages; and fictional characters within a real historical event or merely within a historical period/society.
There are also the distinctions between brutal depictions of war (as in Bernard Cornwall’s Agincourt), a view from the
other side (as in C.C. Humphreys’ Jack Absolute series), the many faces of historical romance, the historical setting in
mystery, and alternative history in fantasy and science fiction.
While this workshop deals with romance it is far from limited to just the romance end of the scale. The scope is the entire
historical marketplace. A list of publishers of historical novels will be included in the workshop materials. Among things
covered are: medieval and renaissance settings, the royals of Europe, European wars, the Colonies (U.S. and Australia),
the American West and the Western, Victoriana, Holmes and his brothers-in-deduction, and the 20th century historical.
This is set up as a four-week long workshop with reading and searching assignments given once a week. The only
prerequisite is an interest in writing historical fiction. The workshop is open to writers at all levels of their career, although
beginners and intermediate level writers are the main focus.
HISTORICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES: A BRIEF LOOK
We’ve all heard the names – Scotland Yard, Interpol, the Surete, FBI, CIA, MI5, Pinkertons, Wells Fargo, Texas Rangers,
U.S. Marshalls, U.S. Treasury Service/Secret Service – but do you know when they began operation and how they have
changed over the years?
Particularly if you are interested in writing historical mysteries set in the 19th century or early 20th century, it’s handy to
know what you can use, what your characters can do if they belong to any of these agencies, and at what time period
particular elements will work or won’t work for your story.
This 4-week workshop grounds perspective historical mystery writers – or those mystery writers looking to branch out of
the era in which they have been writing – with dates, names, places, changes to the systems, major cases, jurisdictions,
weapons and uniforms worn. Course materials will include a list of sources for those interested in digging even deeper in
regards to their agency of choice.
HISTORICAL PATHS: RECREATING A HISTORICAL SETTING VIA WORLDBUILDING 1-week Mini
Workshop
We do the research. We dream up the story. We figure out what the characters will wear, eat, and how best they can
wave the correct sword, musket, or revolver around, how to do the correct steps in the dance, even who they listen to
when invited for an evening of musical entertainment at a wealthy home or hie off to the local dance hall.
But do we know who they pass in the streets every day, where they should go to purchase fish that isn’t a day old, the
names of the emporiums, ale houses, costermongers? Do we know the street layout, the nearest church and which
denomination it is? And where does one go to buy a meat pie – or jerky – to eat on the way?
Yes, some of this you discovered in research. But some of it was impossible to find, and if you have invented your own
town, keep, parish, etc., then you need to build the community around it and be as familiar with it as your characters will
need to be.
That’s what we’ll do in one short week: work out a layout of our lands, our towns, our travels if need be. Figure out
distances, which way to turn to get where we’re going, and which shop or home or tavern we’ll visit or past. In fact, we’ll
sort out a heck of a lot of things and even draw some maps or room layouts. Doing so in crayon is fine if you can sneak
them away from the crayon owners. We won’t tell.
And neither will our characters.
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING FOR BEGINNERS: Creating and Formatting Manuscripts for Lulu.com’
s Print On Demand, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook E-books
With the belt drawn tight at numerous publishing houses, many writers are turning to the relatively inexpensive and fast
Print On Demand (POD) publishers and to the e-book marketplace. Debate is fierce over whether becoming your own
publisher is a smart option or a disastrous decision.
Independent Publishing for the Frustrated is for published authors with backlists, for those interested in putting together
personal or promotional extras for distribution, and for unpublished authors interested in testing the waters with storylines
that don’t meet the major publishing houses’ needs or in publishing limited or local market only non-fiction books.
This class if for anyone who is interested in, is toying with the idea of, or is gung-ho to take the leap into what might well
define publishing in the 21st century: self-published and electronic books.
Things to be discussed are editing, interior layout, cover design, distribution choices, pricing, and promotion for self-
published and/or electronic books.
While Lulu.com is the instructor’s POD choice, other POD publishers will be discussed as well.
Students can have a manuscript ready to load, or simply be interested in learning what they need to do to independently
publish through a POD or Kindle or PubIt!, or simply be considering one or both of these options for their work.
IS THERE A SET DESIGNER IN THE HOUSE? Using Description to Enhance Your Storyline
In the movie world there are folks whose whole job revolves around finding locations in which to film. They look for
elements that will add to the script, and so do the wardrobe people, the professionals who choose the actors, the
composer who writes the theme song and/or scores the soundtrack, the stunt coordinator who teaches the star to fake
the slug in the jaw…. Well, it goes on and on.
But when we write a book it’s all up to us. And we’ve got only one thing to use to bring it all together – words.
This is a four week workshop for writers still working on their first manuscript and for those who want to improve their work
through the use of description.
Assignments have participants making lists of words they have used, and ones they could use to improve the clarity of
what they see in their heads when it needs to land on the written page.
The emphasis is on character tells, action sequences, verbal nuances, visuals with background, wardrobe and character
description, plus sound, touch, scent, and taste.
Lectures posted twice a week (on Monday and Wednesday) with assignments posted for comment from instructor and
other students Friday through Sunday.
JUGGLING GENRES: EXPAND YOUR WRITING REPERTOIRE
Some writers settle into one niche and stay there, comfy, and content to write only one type of story. Others do the
opposite and write in more than one genre, or niche within a genre. They tend to be more prolific. And prolific equals one
very golden result: success.
If you have been tempted to write in a different category or genre or niche lately, this is your chance to see which one –
or more – is a good fit for you.
There are the sort of moves one can make sideways…writing much the same thing for a different audience, such as
writing romantic comedy for adults and also for the YA audience. Perhaps the move should be one that incorporates
another element or subtracts one, such as romantic-suspense-adventure leading to the non-romantic mystery field or
even urban fantasy. Or the leap should be daring and unlike anything you ever thought you’d write before.
This workshop looks at all the possible junctions you can find as you stroll along your familiar lane. It also points out how
many other authors have diversified, have expanded their writing repertoire, and in what ways.
During the 4-weeks of the workshop twice weekly plans or details will be presented and one Challenge (so much nicer
sounding that Assignment) given each week. Participants are urged to post their musings, plans, and offer each other
suggestions. Q&A and feedback is a seven-day-a-week promise.
KNOWING WHICH WAY TO TURN: WORLD BUILDING FOR THE MYSTERY OR SUSPENSE TALE
1-week Mini Workshop
Does your story take place in a cozy little town that exists only in your mind’s eye or is it laid out in the mega city, one that
actually exists?
It doesn’t matter which sort of setting you have in mind when it comes to creating the world in which your sleuth or agent
moves. You still need to know some basic things like, where’s the station house? Is there a forensic unit at hand or is
there one shared out by a county or collection of counties? And where does your sleuth head at the end of the day to
relax? If you give them a chance to relax, that is.
It’s just as important to do worldbuilding for the mystery or suspense novel as it is for a fantasy or paranormal one. The
things you need to know are simply more down to earth. Perhaps you thought you knew enough to work them into the
story as you went? Could be that if you are actually a cop on the same beat in real life that would work, but if you
aren’t…best to plan ahead.
If you are creating your own community, your own town, well, there are a lot of elements to put in place…and I’m not
talking about the line up of possible perps or the cup full of clues you need to spill. I’m talking about what the streets are
named, which way you turn when leaving some place, what the name of the donut shop is or the yogurt bar, the martial
arts place, the gunshop, the pharmacy/chemists, the funeral parlor, and how big the cemetery is in the event you want a
scene there – and you might not even realize that there will be one there – yet.
In one week we’ll concentrate on building whatever community you need, be it a neighborhood or precinct in a metropolis
or a cozy, comfy small town in the middle of next-to-no-where. There will be one CHALLENGE – and that’s to create the
place where your characters live, work, love…and, oh yeah, solve crimes in.
LIFE GOES ON: THE SUBPLOT OF CHARACTERS’ REGULAR LIVES
No matter what a character in a novel has to deal with when it comes to the major plot of a storyline, they still have a
“normal” life to deal with on the side. In some manuscripts it’s an ongoing complication, in others it takes a back seat.
But no matter what level in your story the day-to-day business of a character’s life falls, it’s gotta be part of your game
plan.
Most often it’s the subplot…even in a romance. Some times it needs to evolve and other times it barely gets tweaked. Yet
it’s always there – or should be.
This 4-week workshop looks just at the subplot in terms of grounding the people in your story, in making them appear
more normal, in giving them chores, responsibilities, and all the other little things that might enhance or complicate things
for them when matched with the demands of the overlaying major plot.
We’ll look at what best suits your character, how these elements might feed from backstory and paint the way each of
your people look at life…and thus react to things.
No, this isn’t backstory…it’s continuing story. The normality of the familiar and its interaction with the fantastic – be it
stalkers, murderers, thieves, spies, terrorists, alien invaders, the paranormal or magic worlds, a ticked-off Mother Nature,
or a lover. Even during the excitement there are still friends, relatives, jobs, and grocery shopping to see to, aren’t there?
And mundane as it all sounds, even this daily drag needs to be refreshed to match the thrills and chills, just at a different
level. The subplot level.
For Beginners and Intermediate writers interested in building better and more convincing storylines.
NANO PLOT BYTES: CLICHÉS AS PLANNING CRUTCHES
Clichés are the Grim Reapers of any creative endeavor. Or are they? What is a cliché after all? It’s something that has
been used so often that an audience knows what to expect, isn’t it?
No, I’m not suggesting you pepper your current plot with clichés – I’m suggesting that they aren’t all bad if you use them
properly. Like crutches when your plot is limping along and you aren’t quite sure what should come next.
A cliché gives temporary substance, fills the hole until you can come back and deal with it when you have a better idea.
It can also be warped, mutated, twisted, spun around, altered, morphed, to make your storyline take the leap into Plot
Land like it’s never quite done before.
This 4-week workshop lays it all out, suggesting ways to spin clichés in a centrifuge and turn them into…well nano plot
bytes.
For beginners and intermediate writers looking for a different way to lever themselves out of the ordinary (or free of
writer’s block) and into the extraordinary by using what other creative writing disciplines have used quite frequently: that
which is familiar along with a strong dose of imagination.
NOT SO WEST BUT STILL WEIRD: STEAMPUNK SETTINGS IN OLD NEW YORK, BOSTON,
CHICAGO AND ELSEWHERE IN THE INDUSTRIAL EAST
Steampunk says Victorian Britain to many readers, but the Industrial Revolution was making steam in the 19th century in
America, too. Frequently this is referred to as Weird West Steampunk and tends to have settings west of the Mississippi,
following the axiom that Horace Greeley never said “to go west, young man.”
However, it takes a city to really get the boiler steamed up, and we have some excellent Industrial cities to use as settings
for the type of Steampunk tale as those Victorian ones plunked down in foggy London.
In the four weeks of this workshop we’ll investigate what 19th century New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and
sample bits of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburg history can offer in the way of inspiration as well as setting for a “Weird
East” Steampunk tail. Might even toss in a bit on New Orleans and St. Louis. They might not be totally East of the
Mississippi, but they’re purdy darn close.
Things to be lined up on the tea table and long mahogany bar are American inventions, industries associated with the
cities, the transportation hubs, the slums, red-light and gambling districts, the coppers and private detective firms,
science, slang, and entertainments that could be found in these American cities from the 1850s to the close of World
War I.
So come with the glimmer of an idea or none at all. A lot of story dreaming and a bit of research will be required along the
way.
ORGANIC WRITER'S GUIDE TO PLOTTING AS YOU GO
How often have you attended a conference and heard an author in a workshop claim the way they write their books is
basically the professional way to go about it, then move to the next workshop and hear another author tell how everything
the last speaker you heard said was all wrong that that their way is the tried and true way to do things?
This workshop isn’t going to claim anything of the sort. It is based on the premise that there is no one way to do anything.
That the only 100% guaranteed way to write your manuscript is the way that works best for you.
Still, most of the workshops out there are run by dyed-in-the-wool Plotters who don’t understand the way an Organic
Writer’s mind works…that is, sort of freeform and falling into and out of road blocks or having inspiration dry up when
they most need it, yet savoring the excitement of never REALLY knowing what is going to happen next. You know, the
same thrill we get when reading a book!
What’s needed is a few guidelines and wild ideas on how an Organic Writer (or a Pantser as we’re sometimes called) can
work through just about anything that holds us up in a storyline. And there’s not just one way to look at these things. One
way simply lacks the variety needed.
During the 4-weeks of this workshop we’ll play with at least 20, maybe more, ways to rethink or think ahead to and
through the scenes yet to be written. Yes, there will be assignments, but I prefer to call them Challenges…much more
Organic and open to interpretation…but it will be writer’s choice on how you might use one of the ideas presented in
working with your storyline.
While those who are primarily beginners, or unpublished writers might be the most interested in this class, it could also
appeal to those who have had a book or two published but seem to have hit a wall, or are having difficulty moving ahead
in a current project. Students are asked to have at least one story in progress to use for the Challenges.
The posting schedule, for both lessons and turn in of assignments, is twice a week with feedback on each assignment, or
questions asked prior to the next Monday’s posting.
"NEXT" BOOK
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a series with continuing characters or stand alone titles, the one thing that a
professional writer must always keep in mind is: What’s the NEXT book going to be about?
Why? Well, it’s certainly going to be one of the things an editor will ask. In fact, the first thing my first editor asked me
once I’d cried “YES!!!” upon being offered a contract was, “do you have anything else finished or in progress?”
Fortunately, I could follow that “yes” up with a “yep” and get something else in the mail to her.
The Next Book workshop is geared to thinking ahead. If you’re writing stand alone titles, then one of the things to
consider is how you can write a similar book without repeating yourself. Readers like consistency and if you want them
lining up to purchase the next title, you can’t disappoint them. So, what elements do you need to keep and which ones
can be jettisoned, even temporarily? They could resurface in the next-next book after all.
Writing a group of linked books, that is, a series of three to four (or more) books that revolve around different members
of the same family or town or friends or is it a Spin-Off? Will you need more than just a mention of or a cameo
appearance by the characters who have yet to appear as the main characters, or who “starred” in a previous book. Will
the previous main characters be as involved in the new story in secondary character roles as the current main characters
were in the previous book? You’ll need to repeat the good parts – only with a twist this next time around. So what are
those similarities and how do you keep them yet make them different?
And what about those long running series? Did you have a preplan that would cover five, ten, twenty, titles with the same
characters holding down the hero and/or heroine positions? How can you make each of those titles a reflection of what
has come before and yet not bore your reader into turning elsewhere for their next purchase?
The Next Book is an important element in the planning and execution of your current work in progress. It should be
percolating in the back of your mind. And this class offers guidelines on what to clone, what to change, and finding the
correct direction a writer should go as they work ever closer to turning The Next Book into the Current Project.
This course is a 4-week workshop. Students should be currently working on a manuscript so that they have a launching
pad to begin sorting out what elements are needed in the Next Book. Lectures posted on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Students will be asked to share synopses with everyone through posts, then discuss what elements they plan to continue
as well as ask the classroom at large what elements they recommend be kept. Comments posted prior to the next
Monday’s lecture.
This class can be for the unpublished, for the newly published, or midlist authors.
PEELING YOURSELF OFF THE WALL: 20 WAYS TO DUCK THE WRITER’S BLOCK BULLET
It doesn’t matter whether you prefer plotting your book entirely before writing one word of prose or whether you prefer
“pantsing”, flying off onto page one with enthusiasm and only a vague idea of where you’re going. We all strike it at some
time – the dreaded, seemingly impenetrable stone wall of Writer’s Block. Can’t seem to get through it or over it, or go
around it or tunnel beneath it. We’re stymied and the project at hand is at a dead stop.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way…at least twenty ways, in fact, to get things rolling again. Writer’s Block can be
reduced to a level where it is simply one of the normal, if pesky, elements involved when writing a book. Knowing how to
demolish it, even if temporarily, can reduce your stress level when it does rear up to block progress though. And having
an idea of what actions to take the moment it strikes can get you writing again much more quickly.
This workshop is for anyone interested in ways to slough past the parts where our imagination fails to go, through the
times when our Muse heads for the Caribbean and leaves us to fend for ourselves. During four weeks, with two lectures
and one Challenge (or Assignment) weekly, we’ll cover twenty different ways to pole-vault, tunnel, trek around, or
bulldoze through writer’s block.
Some of the ways will be familiar: storyboarding, freewriting, world building, comparison. Others will be tweaks on
outlining, research, even daydreaming.
This workshop requires feedback – not just from the presenter, but from those in attendance – to gather suggestions, stir
ideas, kill, hack, or give birth to usable solutions. Thus it would be very handy to have a work in progress or one that
stalled out and needs a jolt to get it back on the move again. For any questions or comments made by attendees
throughout the week, answers will be supplied usually within 24 hours or less. Lectures will be posted on Mondays and
Wednesdays with Challenge results posted by students through the weekend.
PLOTTING FOR PANTSERS: KNOWING JUST ENOUGH TO KEEP THINGS ROLLING
Pantsers are free-wheeling types. They take the glimmer of an idea, sit down at the computer or pick up a pen and let the
idea blossom into a story.
And then the ideas dry up suddenly and a major case of writer's block arrives -- enough to build a house...sometimes a
whole subdivision.
This workshop can help. Will it force you to be a Plotter? No. Will it allow you to continue being just as surprised at what
happens in your story as your characters are? Mostly.
What Plotting for Pantsers does is give you a few ideas on how to know enough of what is going to happen -- or needs to
happen -- to keep the creative ball rolling while leaving more than enough wiggle room for your imagination to create as
you type or scribble.
Confusing? Perhaps, but that's only because the word "plotting" can send shivers down the spines of Pantsers. The
problem is, we do need SOME idea of where the story is going, and that’s what Plotting for Pantsers is all about.
It offers you 40 different (sometimes similar with a quirk) ideas on how to stumble ahead in writing your book, that is
plotting out what should come next, what will take the story into as yet undiscovered turns and twists, and also eliminate
some of the situations that build those writing block walls. And it does so by merely keeping you mentally working a few
pages ahead of your flying fingers.
In 4-weeks we’ll run though a lot of ideas. There will be Challenges along the way – a kinder word, a more accurate word,
for what others might call assignments. These are to let students “sample” some of the plotting idea elements for
themselves. And, yeah, the word Outline does raise it’s ugly head, but in a much more sleepy fashion. More often we'll
talk about things called Berserker Muse, Blind Librarian and Doctor’s Glove Balloons. I did promise 40 ways to look at
plotting from a Pantser’s view, and I’ll deliver with examples in some cases. Clarity is always a good idea.
Lectures on Mondays and Wednesday. Comments and questions answered throughout the week.
PUZZLING OUT THE "NECESSARY" BITS
Have you gotten rejection after rejection on manuscripts that your beta readers love but editors quibble over. You know
the kind of rejection: “Love your writing style but the story just isn’t right for us.”
As nice as the compliment was, what you really want is a contract, right? So what the heck was missing or wrong to make
the story not “right” for the publisher?
This is the workshop where we dig into what’s being published to find the elements that slipped from our grasp before
and make note of them for inclusion in current or future projects.
The one thing students will be required to have are one or two books in the same genre that they really love. Books
written by other authors, that is. These can be two by the same author or they can be by different authors. Why do we
need them? Because they are going to serve as the treasure map, the mine to be plundered. From the elements
gathered from these stories a personal format for use in our own books will be built.
Some of the things we’ll look at are: characters, settings, professions, technology, detail, backstory, tension level,
comedy level, rise and fall of action, heat level of love scenes, dialogue/language, and anything else that appears
pertinent based on what style and what genre each student is working within.
The class would run four weeks with lectures and/or assignments posted on Mondays and Wednesdays. Comments on
posted questions or completed assignments would be answered prior to the next Monday’s lecture.
This class is for unpublished and newly published writers and for those interested in switching genres or the style of story
within a genre.
REBOOT YOUR IMAGINATION A 1-Week Mini Workshop
Been staring at the blank page a lot lately, be it paper or computer screen? Stalled out on your current project or longing
for the next brilliant idea to strike, yet feeling that the lightning is passing you by?
Minds are like computers…or is that computers are like minds? Whichever, both need to be rebooted at times. Whether
you are picturing that as meaning a steel-toed size 13 being aimed at…well, the thing you sit upon – and we’re not talking
about the sofa or desk chair – or that bolt of lightning striking the old cerebellum, there is something less drastic you can
do to entice ideas from the nooks in which they hide.
You can join the five day workshop, REBOOT YOUR IMAGINATION.
What we’ll be doing is forcing you to write something unlike anything you’d write otherwise. We’re going to go with what I
call the BLIND LIBRARIAN ploy, picking elements at random from other works and melding them into a short piece that will
hopefully get your mind back on whatever track you want it on…but hopefully not that siding where it’s been parked.
This isn’t something that should be done alone though, so everyone involved will be expected (coerced) into making
suggestions…and the wilder the better.
We’re trying to break out of a mold here! Or brushing the mold that’s been growing over our old ideas away by infusing
them with…well, something else!
RECREATING MAGIC: REMAKING AN OLD STAPLE IN KATE GRIFFIN’S MATTHEW SWIFT SERIES
Let’s look at some facts:
1) Magic is Old, belonging to a world we’ve never known but know well from fairy tales and modern children’s stories
2) Magic is Fascinating, luring us from the modern world where everything runs on science, on technology; where
everything runs the way it does for a logical reason
3) Magic is Hot in regards to its commodity in the literary marketplace – even people who write literature are melding it
into their work via magical realism. Magic has broken free of the confines of Fantasy and appears in every genre now
But does the magic in a modern story need to be the same that was practiced by Merlin or Dumbledore, by Morgan Le
Fay or Lord Voldemort?
If you answered yes, it simply means you haven’t encountered the urban magic of Kate Griffin’s world in her Matthew Swift
series. Here magic no longer comes from the Earth, from growing things, animals, stones, and weather – it comes from
the evolved world, from telephones, trains, cars, rubbish, graffiti, and electricity.
And it’s powerful. Not just in the way a sorcerer wields it, but in the way Griffin molds it, crafts it, and makes magic – both
modern urban magic and urban legend magic – work well in her freshly coined London landscape.
Whether you have heard the Lorelei call of magic, enjoy horror or dystopian-ish tales with a satisfying ending, and a main
character worthy of being termed “hero”, this look at Kate Griffin’s work should satisfy your cravings.
That’s not all this workshop focuses on though. Though we’ll look at how intricately woven and well constructed Griffin
has made Swift’s world over four weeks time, using each of the first three Matthew Swift books, the second goal is to
study Griffin’s work for craft clues.
This workshop is for writers looking to put a different spin on a familiar trope, whether it be magic or not.
REVAMPING MR. HOLMES: CHANGING YOUR CHARACTER TEMPLATE WHILE REMAINING TRUE
TO THE VISION OF YOUR HERO OR HEROINE OR VILLIAN
Ever wonder how you can take the same character type and rewrite it when it comes to your next book? We’re talking one
of your MAIN characters here, be they the hero, the heroine or even the villain of the piece.
This is particularly important if your first book was a success, but a stand alone title, and now you need to come back and
do it all over again – only differently.
But not TOO DIFFERENTLY, because publishers and readers alike lean toward familiar elements being repeated even
when you aren’t writing a series.
It’s the pursuit of these changeable elements – just a few twists, replacements, morphings, or
re-imaginings – that is our goal. Using the various re-incarnations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson,
Lestrade, Moriarty, and Irene Adler, we’ll puzzle out the ways these characters have found new homes in tales by other
authors while still remaining recognizably Holmes and his cohorts.
Along with the work of other authors who have written novels using one or more of the Holmesian world (among them
Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery series and Carol Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler mysteries), we’
ll also look at the more recent revamps for the movies (SHERLOCK HOLMES I and II with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude
Law) and for the smaller screen (BBC’s SHERLOCK, set in the 21st century).
By using characters like Holmes, who most of us are very familiar with, we’ll sort out how to reconstruct, reconfigure, and
rewrite our own favorite type of main character, going beyond merely giving them a new name, new hair and eye color,
and a new profession. These same considerations will aid in having the leads in established series change over time
while remaining basically the same, too.
You don’t have to be a mystery writer or a Sherlock Holmes fanatic to enjoy or benefit from this workshop. Holmes is
merely one of the most recycled characters in literature and film, which makes for an excellent and familiar example to
use. Perhaps the workshop should have been called “A Study in Black and White and Technicolor”, to paraphrase Conan
Doyle’s A STUDY IN SCARLET.
It runs 4-weeks and there will be Challenges (assignments) issued once a week and lectures twice a week. Questions,
comments and any other postings are answered daily.
(This workshop would be available by the Fall of 2011, as it not only waits on the release of the second SHERLOCK
HOLMES movie and possibly second season of SHERLOCK, but on a thorough scan of currently available Holmesian
literature.)
RIPPED FROM YELLOWED HEADLINES: HISTORICAL CRIMINALS AND CRIMINAL CASES
Looking for some historical inspiration when you sit down to plan and write your next mystery? Why not take a leaf from
the notebook of many contemporary mystery and thriller authors and look to the headlines for ideas to mine?
Historical headlines, that is.
During the 4 weeks of this workshop we’ll visit famous, infamous, and little known dastardly tales of murderers, thieves,
and other nefarious sorts. We’ll also look at ways to ferret out information on other crimes, or follow the details of a trial,
or even understand thieves cant (slang). Along the way we’ll touch bases with highwayman Dick Turpin and other holdup
artists, murders infamous (Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden) to those nearly forgotten because the body count was low, to
con artists, pickpockets, prostitutes, jewel thieves, and other criminal types.
All real folks, all real crimes. So step right up for an information filled month of historical mischief and mayhem.
SABRES TO WINCHESTERS: ARMING YOUR HISTORICAL HERO: A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Where making sure your heroine is wearing the appropriate gown and undergarments is an important element of a
historical novel, insuring that your hero has the equipment he needs to best the bad guys is equally important.
Therefore, this mini workshop will take participants from the dashing era of sword wielding men to the range wars of the
late 19th century. It will deal with armour, siege engines, sharp objects on poles, in sheaths, in scabbards, and all the
various gadgets that use gunpowder. Even some weapons that aren't sharp or explosive. In other words, things that are
used by explorers, adventurers, mountain men, dandies, dukes, and other dashing types of gentlemen…or not so gentle
men.
The week will consist of lectures and Challenges (Assignments) for participants. And participants can be beginning level
writers through novelists looking to expand into time travel or the historical genre. Lists of research sites and materials
will be supplied.
SEND YOUR MUSE BACK TO CREATIVE SCHOOL: JUMP START YOUR IMAGINATION
Feel like your once very creative muse has crawled into a hamster wheel? You know, nothing but the same old sort of
storyline keeps coming to mind and while that can be comforting to some, to many writers it’s like an itch they can’t
scratch. We need diversity, we need challenges! We need to do something different occasionally or something silly, or
even something downright weird. You know, retrain your muse or at least give them a refresher course!
Among the Core courses your muse will be exposed to in this workshop are The Blind Librarian, the Berserker Muse, the
Chinese Menu, 52 Pick Up, Go Fish and…well, other different, silly, and most definitely weird ways to jump start your
imagination.
Twice a week for 4-weeks Challenges (so much nicer sounding than an Assignments) will be given to dream up
something totally out of your comfort zone using a variety of…shall we say “things”…to write a short story, say 1000
words or more (that’s around 4 pages or…well, more). You need only write one a week although there will be two
challenges and you can do them both. Or, in lieu of a short story, it could be the start of a first chapter. Your choice…but
you’ll need to do it with the elements I suggest…or someone else in the workshop suggests or assigns to you.
If your muse doesn’t get jolted out of his/her complacency, it won’t be for lack of trying. You might even get the glimmer of
a new idea to pursue…chase…hunt down…until you have a totally new style of story…well, at least for you. And possibly
a new market as well.
Students will be urged to post what they write and comment on each others work. Q&A and feedback is a seven-day-a-
week promise.
SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE: How to Put Together an Online Workshop and Find Hungry Students
Ever hear writers talking about a workshop they’ve taken online and, after eavesdropping to find out what it dealt with,
thought “Heck! I know a lot about that – and even more about other things!” Or did you sign up for a workshop and find
that your publishing history and experience far outweighed the presenter’s, or that you disagreed with what they said and
felt you needed to share the other side of the story?
Well, then you need to build your own workshop and flog it to the folks hungry for new or different or eclectic information
when it comes to writing!
If you haven’t a clue as to where to begin or what to do to place your workshop where students can find it, well – this is
the place to come for help in putting it all together.
We’ll begin with what you feel you know most about and figure out how to distribute lessons over a four week period
(which is the most common workshop format), write a syllabus, write lectures, figure out assignments, discover how much
time you’re likely to spend answering questions or commenting on student’s work, and finally, how to write a proposal for
the workshop and find the various online writers organizations and chapters and “firms” that offer online workshops. And
if an arm is twisted and a whole lot of pleading and whining done, we might even tell you what it means to you in monetary
terms.
This is a 4 week workshop for writers who have worked with an editor (or various editors) to bring a newly published book
into the world. Ideally, the workshop participant will have had more than a single book published by a major publishing
firm. After all, to get a student to sign up for your workshop in the future, they will be scrutinizing your publishing
background to decide if you know what you’re planning to talk about.
SPINOFFS! Enjoying More Time With Your Favorite People – Your Characters
What’s a writer to do when a character tries to remake their place in a story? Or they get their own fan club? Or you
simply liked them so well you can’t let them just fade away, like a footnote in a book where they didn’t have a starring role?
You write a SPIN-OFF – that’s what!
How does a Spin-Off differ from a sequel or a series? Well, for one thing, you usually didn’t have it in mind when you
started the storyline the character first appears in. If you did, it might well be a series and involve more than just this one
character. Therefore, what a Spin-Off is is a tale that the characters write for themselves. Sometimes you get to have
control; sometimes you’re just along for the ride. Well, someone has to hit the keys, right?
What should you expect once a character gets the bit between their teeth – literally? A wild and exciting ride, frustration,
delight, teeth grinding, mental arguing matches – it can run the whole gambit.
In the end, you’ve got to have control. And this workshop helps you not only get the whip in hand but let’s you hang-out
with a character you already know quite well – and find new and interesting things about them that you’d no idea existed
when first they made an appearance in that previous story.
How do I know? Well, it’s happened to me – more than once! Three of those Spin-Off books ended up published and two
more are still in the works. Those once secondary characters were to be nothing more than confidants, buddies,
sounding boards, yet somehow they each decided they wanted a book of their own – or enough people wrote to me
ASKING for a book just about them. And oddly enough, I usually liked the second book better than the first when I
finished – as well as while I was working on the second one.
In this 4-week workshop we’ll cull what we already know about these up-for-another-run characters and what we still need
to know. We’ll dream up scenarios – more than one – and let the character decide which suits him or her best (I did run
through a couple ideas before settling on the set up for MATERNAL INSTINCTS which was a Spin-Off of MR ANGEL
which was a Spin-Off of NEW YEAR’S EVE). Then we’ll decide whether characters from the original book need to “visit”,
what elements need to be repeated only in a different format, and in what way this slightly recycled, reconstructed,
revived character needs to change from who they were to who they will be – all based on what they already were!
Sound confusing? We’ll have four weeks to sort it all out. The only requirement for this workshop is that you have a
previously written story – published or unpublished – wherein a secondary character let you know they weren’t finished
with you quite yet. And yes there will be Challenges/Assignments to help us along the way. Lecture/Guidelines for
Pondering supplied on Mondays and Wednesdays with posting of Challenge responses, Q&A, from Friday through the
weekend each week.
STEALING IDEAS FOR MYSTERIES: CULLING A FORMAT FOR YOUR BOOK
FROM TELEVISED MYSTERY SERIES A 1-Week Mini Workshop
There are a lot of different types of mysteries to write, but if you are interested in breaking into the mystery-suspense
field, knowing what is currently attracting audiences should be high on your list of priories.
And what better place is there to find out what readers might want than to look at what viewers are watching? Readers do
put books down to turn into their favorite shows, after all.
In this five day workshop, participants will take their favorite TV mystery program and break down the elements of
continuing characters, repeated themes, side stories, type of crime, number of scenes, and chart the rise and fall as the
main characters find their way to a conclusion in less than 60 minutes every week. And manage to supply a different twist
on what is basically the same old story…or at least setting and characters…week after week.
This is a workshop that actually WANTS you to watch TV…well, at least a few hours of it.
Viewing is of your choice, whether you choose to concentrate on the more serious and profession specific shows like the
CSI or LAW AND ORDER franchises, the comedic mysteries like PSYCH or the now retired MONK (which is still a valid
choice), or the combination amateur sleuth-police procedural comedy-drama CASTLE. There are many more to choose
from, but please stick with what’s playing on your local cable or dish networks right now. As much as you might have
loved SIMON AND SIMON, ROCKFORD FILES, or other classics, the market changes and we need to be on top of what’s
catching everyone’s attention today.
Our goal is to build a basic format to use for writing YOUR mystery, be it for book or teleplay.
STEAMED UP: THE ANATOMY OF WRITING STEAMPUNK
Toss another shovel full of coal on the fire, it’s time to get steamed up with Steampunk, one of the newest “societies”
around.
What qualifies it as a society? Let’s see, there are graphic novels, jewelry, apparel, home accessories, music, movies,
video games, roll playing games, and, oh, yeah, novels all circling around the essence of Steampunk. And if you loved
the Robert Downey Jr. SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, enjoy Victorian settings or alternative history in your reading
material, and a touch of the paranormal or magic, Steampunk may be just up your alley…or mews. It could certainly
intrigue your writing muse!
Now, while you may decide to reconfigure your computer to look like it was produced by a 19th century craftsman or want
to don Victorian styled clothing when you sit down before it (in a comfy winged and tufted armchair, of course), if you are
intrigued by Steampunk’s growing popularity and are thinking of swinging aboard this particular locomotive, there are a
few…well, quite a few, really…elements to take into consideration.
And that’s what this workshop aims to do.
We’ll look at the basic requirements for any Steampunk tale. We’ll consider what’s been published, what’s been filmed,
where to search out the historical data necessary, how to warp it into what we need it to be, and…well, get ourselves
really steamed up over writing what looks to be a very promising land for new manuscripts.
There will be lists and lists and lists of books to read, be they the current crop of Steampunk titles or the classics upon
which the concept is founded – does the name Jules Verne ring a bell? Considering how “new” the genre appears to be,
it’s been around in graphic novels, movies, and television series since before the 1980s. And in fantasy novels even
longer. Steampunk is basically alternative history, taking inventions out of their time period and plunking them down in
another, in time travel, the paranormal world, and in magic.
And because the setting is frequently (but not always) Victorian England, things can get shrouded in fog. But that’s what
this workshop aims to do: clear the fog over the anatomy of a Steampunk novel, and create a visual guideline on how to
write Steampunk fiction.
The workshop would run four weeks with two lectures per week. Assignments would revolve around feedback from
participants as they read Steampunk, watch Steampunk, submerge themselves in Steampunk. And there will be lists of
research materials, novels, available videos, websites, magazines, all dealing with Steampunk to aid writers as they dive
into the genre.
Writing level for the workshop is varied, only enthusiasm for new market opportunities is required.
STEAMPUNK AMERICAN STYLE: Weird West and Weird East
The American West was wild – hey, we’ve seen the movies, heard about the outlaws, maybe even seen the various
boothills where the legends are buried while we were on vacation. But the American East was just as wild – it lacked
tumbleweeds and shootouts between only two men in a dusty little town, but the cities had gamblers, prostitution,
corruption, gang wars, graft, and more. And considering that machines and big business were in the process of
changing, and polluting, the world as well as tromping down the immigrants, well, we’ve got the perfect settings for some
humdinger Steampunk tales.
Our focus is not only the Weird West Steampunk story but Steampunk tales that take place on either side of the
Mississippi, in fact, those that could roam from “sea to shining sea.”
We’ll look at what’s been written, what elements in American history are just asking for inclusion in a tale after having
gone through a bit of warping, twisting, mauling and morphing into whatever suits that story that’s been hovering in the
back of your mind.
And if there are interested parties among us, will touch on Australia as well. As I understand it, Australia in particular had
a lot in common with the Wild West and no doubt, the equally Wild East. There’s story fodder just waitin’ fer ya, mate.
I came to Steampunk after one too many editors and agents said “no one is buying historicals set in the Old West”. The
choice was grind my teeth and throw in the towel or recreate the Old West – and East – in a different genre. I wasn’t
interested in the prairie romances. I wanted a tad more adventure, danger, and evil to deal with. If you feel the same way,
Steampunk’s the place to be.
The workshop is 4-short weeks long but you’ll need to whip your horses up, shovel a lot of mental coal, and tinker and
reinvent the 19th century as best suits your story needs. It’ll be a heck of a lot of fun so, hope ta see ya here, pilgrim.
STORY SENSE / STORY LOGIC
It doesn’t seem to matter whether the story I’m reading is someone’s manuscript or a published book, the element that is
very irksome to find missing is a sense of Story Logic, or Story Sense.
I define Story Sense as the actions of the characters remaining true to how they are being portrayed. Story Logic is much
the same thing, but has more to do with the way the plot plays out.
For instance, if a hero is going to take on a terrorist or a mugger, he needs to have a background that included any
martial arts he now unveils to save the day…and the writer should have alluded to his expertise early on, not waited to
spring it on readers.
Or perhaps the author is spinning a tale where characters are either older or younger than she or he is. In that case the
twenty-something heroine can’t prefer listening to Cole Porter or Gershwin tunes or talk about Cary Grant movies, not
even if she was brought up by her grandmother who enjoyed these things. She has to be a contemporary woman.
Likewise, if a character is a decade or more older than the writer, it isn’t likely that they will head to a modern dance club,
or suddenly go goth -- unless you've given them a clear cut reason to do so that makes perfect sense, is seeped in logic,
to a reader.
Story sense and story logic go hand in hand, but they can easily be lost or overlooked. And they are far more subtle than
the above obvious examples. The trick is to catch, recognize, and repair things before they leave home to nest on an
editor’s desk.
Because it is far easier to spot things in other people’s work, students will be urged to post their synopsis, or post a free-
write in which they spin the elements, or steps, that they plan to take along the way.
Lectures would be posted on Monday and Wednesdays with comments on pieces posted by students returned before the
next Monday posting. Each posting will be limited to 10 pages per week, though, as turnaround time would not allow for
more than that. The class runs for four weeks.
The only requirement for students would be a willingness to share their storylines with the rest of the class, although
lurkers would be welcome as well.
THE GAME IS AFOOT: WRITING THE STEAMPUNK MYSTERY
Steampunk…the word on the lips of editors and readers…and writers…everywhere in the book reading world.
Or so it seems.
Steampunk is a subgenre of a subgenre (Alternative History) of a genre (Fantasy), but it breaks down into even further
subgenres of its own.
One of those is mystery.
For four weeks – a full month – we’ll not only look at how to build a Steampunk novel, a Steampunk world, but how to
make it a Steampunk mystery. There are a few such series already being written, so tearing down what they each do and
don’t do and could do and what we want to emulate, and why all this comes together in the end and all fits together like a
well constructed puzzle…Well, that in itself is a mystery to be solved.
There will be challenges (aka assignments) to start everyone on the right road to creating a Steampunk mystery. There
will be lists and lists and lists of already told tales to sample, of things to consider, things to choose, things to research,
things to warp…lots and lots of lists.
But helpful ones!
So don your goggles, purchase that airship ticket, loosen your corset and put aside that pipe. Do bring a notebook,
writing utensil, and an unfettered imagination with you. And, no, clockwork servants can not slip into the parlour with you;
each must have their own ticket for entry.
TICKETS TO RIDE…BACK IN TIME: BASIC HISTORICAL RESEARCH FOR NOVELISTS
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
If you’ve been considering writing an historical novel but are worried that the research may kill you, fear not. We’re here
to give you the itinerary to get you started on your trip back in time.
In this mini workshop we’ll talk about choosing a time period and what you’ll need to know before you begin writing and
what you’ll need to know somewhere during the writing of your novel.
We’ll give you a nudge in the right direction with some lists of sources to check out and a list of questions to help guide
you when it comes to all the fascinating paths historical research can lead you down…and away from your focus. In one
week, you’ll get bread crumbs to follow for this will be just the start of your adventure.
Participants can be beginning novelists to more experienced writers looking for backstory, time travel elements, or
tempted to get their feet wet in a genre jump into historical fiction. The workshop consists of four lectures, two Challenges
(Assignments) and one day of Q&A.
TICKLING YOUR MUSE: WARPING CLASSIC FAIRY TALES TO RECHARGE YOUR INVENTIVE
BATTERIES
Feeling like you need something to boost your creative juices? That’s what this 4-week workshop aims to do through
creative rewrites of familiar stories: those told by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, and other storytellers
around the world.
The aim is to rewrite four fairy tales in quick succession, changing the tone while remaining with the familiar theme.
We’ll update to the contemporary world, take the story off-planet or into a different dimension, spin a comic version, and
even combine two tales into one storyline.
Participants can use the same fairy tale (including versions from different countries or cultures) for all four or entertain
themselves by corrupting, warping, reworking up to four or five tales.
These will be short stories (2,500 words or less), one written each week, and if we have enough tales to incorporate into
an anthology at the end of the month, we’ll put one out for others to enjoy.
Because we’re working with familiar scenarios, tales, and characters, that part of the process will already be done,
allowing our muses full rein on ways to redo the themes, and thus get our fiendishly plotting minds working in new and
different ways – recharging the inventive nodes, if there are such things.
TWEAKING HISTORY: STEAMPUNK AND OTHER TALES OF ALTERNATE HISTORY
You know how hindsight allows you to see all the things you should have done differently in your life if you had the
chance? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a time machine to go back and fix things – not choose that horrible shade of gown
for the prom, not go to it with the dream date who turned into a nightmare? Not marry the guy who turned out NOT to be
Prince Charming? Not choose that disastrous stock in your 401K portfolio?
The list goes on, right? How nice then that one doesn’t have to stick with the way history happened when it comes to
writing fiction!
And unless you are writing a strict historical, you don’t have to. You can use the historical world as your stage and then
tweak what you’d like to create your own alternative view of it all.
Alternative history tales have been around for a number of years in the fantasy world, some even written by historians.
Currently the Steampunk version of history altering is in demand whether in the world of romance or that of fantasy.
This workshop will cover what’s needed to readjust the world to your storytelling muse’s delight. We’ll take things out,
change the winners in war, the circumstances in discoveries, and borrow and warp whatever we wish whether the end
result is Steampunk or something else entirely!
We’ll do it all in 4-weeks, too. Lectures and Challenges (also known as assignments) will be given and issued on
Mondays and Wednesday. Feedback and questions and comments will be an ongoing thing.
TWISTING HISTORY: WRITING THE ALTERNATIVE HISTORICAL NOVEL A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Whether your goal is to write in the Fantasy genre or spin a Steampunk tale, if you are setting your tale in Earth’s
historical past chances are you’ll be warping it to your own needs. In other words, you’ll be writing an alternative historical
novel.
These are storylines where William the Conqueror dies at Hastings rather than Harold, so the Saxon line continues and
the Normans lose big; where the American Colonies are French rather than British, or the local tribes win the day; where
Hitler never rises, Napoleon becomes a farmer in Sicily and in France they eat cake; where the asteroid misses Earth and
the dinosaurs never die out. They are tales where reality and legend blend together or theories, machines and marvels
from the future become everyday elements a century or two before they actually did.
Storylines where “WHAT IF” gets milked for all it’s worth and imaginations are urged to run rampant!
But which “what if” questions should get asked first, or last, or asked at all? That’s what this mini workshop looks at and
explores.
The only requirement is that participants be willing to share, imagine, and go beyond what they’ve ever envisioned
before. There will be three lectures, three Challenges (Assignments) and a Q&A session to end the week.
VICKY AND BERTIE: Researching the Victorian or Edwardian Tale (1830-1919) With or Without
Steampunk Twists
It’s familiar, it’s the past, it’s popular. What is it? The modern 19th century novel. That is, a modern novel SET in the 19th
century.
It can be a Regency, sure, but that’s really the Georgian Era. When we think 19th century, we’re more likely to picture the
Victorian age and then slip into the Edwardian, which is really early 20th century, but not all that different in many ways.
In 4 weeks this workshop looks at all things Victorian and Edwardian: wardrobes, weapons, entertainments, songs,
cant/slang, inventions, science…well, a lot of what a writer needs to know about in building their own Victorian or
Edwardian world.
We’ll also take a stroll into Steampunk where all things Victorian and Edwardian are celebrated and warped, twisted, and
mutated into an alternative historial.
This is an information laden workshop that will pose some Challenges to participants in shorting out what they need, give
some suggestions on finding the answers, or guiding anyone interested in tinkering with history for their own means.
Some of the things mentioned are coinage, where to shop for a Worth gown, why walking sticks really don’t have swords
in them but could, and what a wonder maps are in charting your way about a London town that no longer exists.
WARBLINGS, WINNINGS, AND SPECTACLES: FOUR CENTURIES OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR
HISTORICAL WRITERS 1-Week Workshop
What do your historical characters do when they aren’t hacking with a board sword, dueling with a foil, pacing off with a
dueling pistol, shouldering a rifle, pouring tea, tending the ill, avoiding the villainous or being seduced?
Well, they go in for a bit of entertainment, of course! The trick is knowing what they are listening to, reading, seeing
performed, performing, turning a card over, putting money down on, or oohing and aahing over.
In one week we’ll do a hasty run through four centuries of things that brought a smile to a person’s face. We begin with
the 16th century, the era of the Tudors, the Renaissance, move on to the 17th century, then the 18th, and finish up in
the 19th century. Well, we might edge a bit into the 20th century, but not past the Roaring Twenties.
This is 5 days of lectures stuffed with data, and a couple more for comments, shared clues, and camaraderie.
It ought to bring smiles to our faces as well.
WARDROBES, WEAPONS, WARBLINGS AND WORDS: Shopping, Entertainment, and
Slang for Your Historical Characters
To get the right feel in a historical novel, it’s all about stage setting, looking right, sounding right, and having the right
“water cooler” chit chat for the people who traipse through your historical landscape. Can you trust what you’ve read
elsewhere? Maybe, maybe not. So how do you decide what you need BEYOND the plot? And where do you go to find it?
Those are exactly the questions that this workshop addresses.
In fact, we go looking FOR dresses! Yes, shopping with your heroine is the first thing on the list, whether she needs to
don farthingales or those frisky little flapper frocks. We’ll spend a full week searching out, one century at a time,
everything the well prepared heroine might need.
Then during week two, we pry the hero away from napping in a comfy haystack or armchair and trail after him as he
roams through gun shops, smith’s forges (for swords, knives), armament rooms (maces, axes, armour, shields, bows and
arrows), and then looks over the available carriages from horse drawn to snappy 1920s motor cars. He shouldn’t mind
this sort of shopping.
But historicals of any kind are not ALL dire events to be dressed right to endure, be they ballrooms or battlefields. No,
characters like to be entertained as well, so we’ll look at entertainments, songs, musical instruments, poetry, paintings,
plays, games of chance and dances for flirtation. And while our characters chat each other up we’ll make sure they drop
a few words to tell readers they aren’t in the 21st century anymore, so we’ll use appropriate slang or phrasing or words
that can be slipped into conversations.
And we’ll do all that in four short weeks.
WEIRD WEST: STEAMPUNK WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Odd, isn’t it, that with Steampunk currently a hot commodity when anyone talks about American settings for these genre
blending flights of fancy a television series that shot into our homes before many of the Steampunkers were even born is
mentioned.
I’m talking about the WILD, WILD WEST with its wild inventions, nefarious villains, dashing Secret Service agents, travel
by steam powered locomotive, plus comedic adventure. You might be more familiar with the movie version with Will Smith
and Kevin Kline taking over the roles of Jim West and Artemis Gordon. Whichever it is, the WILD, WILD WEST gives a
fairly good idea of what American Steampunk literature is considered. Perhaps it’s time to change that perception.
In this 4-week adventure into Steampunk, we’ll look at the various inventions that did exist, dream up some that didn’t but
could have been steam powered, consider whether the story would work best in one of the western territories, the land
massive Western States (as compared to the skimpier land masses of the Eastern States), and the building and thriving
cities and the opportunities each offers as a colorful setting.
Along the way we’ll look at outlaws, the Indian Wars, the mining booms, the railroads, the cattle and sheep baron wars,
dime novels, scandalous mistresses and famous actors and actresses, natural disasters (like San Francisco’s 1906
Earthquake), border wars, and anything else that catches our Steampunk related interest from the California Gold Rush
through to the first western movies (silent ones, of course).
We’ll be taking what was and twisting it to what we need it to be with the hoped for outcome being the start of a Weird
West Steampunk plot.
The journey commences in virtual time traveling stage coaches powered by teams of clockwork centaurs armed with
Winchester rifles. Bring your own canteens of tea or something stronger, and please no marked decks of cards or loaded
dice to wile away the time with in rooking your fellow passengers.
WHAT’D HE SAY? CANT AND HISTORICAL SLANG FOR BEGINNERS A 7-Day Mini Workshop
In an age where much of daily conversation is couched in slang and sound bites and advertising slogans, it may appear
odd that in the past these would have been considered vulgar language and much frowned upon.
But there is nothing that gives the flavor of an era better than a few dropped bits of cant or period slang in a historical
novel. However, doing the same with words we now consider archaic or “big” does the same thing.
This mini workshop looks at ways to carefully drop in just enough to flavor your historical story without leaving your
reader clueless about what is being said.
The emphasis will be on British and American slang, sampling verbalings from the Tudor era, to the late 18th century
through the Roaring Twenties. The trick for the writer eager to commune with a voice from the past is to pick and choose
what to use and to have a good reason for using the chosen words or phrases.
The workshop itself will consist of lectures and Challenges with a final day for feedback from all participants.
WITH MACHETE IN HAND: HOW TO CUT UP TO 5,000 WORDS FROM YOUR MANUSCRIPT
A 7-Day Mini Workshop
Ever reach the end of your story and find that rather than stay within the word length the publisher’s guideline specified,
you’ve gone over it? WAY OVER IT?
It’s happened to me and more than once. I’ll have been keeping track of things all along the way and then the inspiration
– or the downhill run, if you prefer – to the finish gets me in its grip and I shoosh past the maximum number of words and
off the course entirely.
Well, as far as word count goes. The story now has all the details, the intricate nuances I would like and reads like a
dream…but a dream that has inched into nightmare status if I want a sale.
And let’s face it – we want a sale. If the story was told for our own benefit, we wouldn’t have bothered with correcting the
spelling, the grammar, or perhaps even with typing the thing in the first place. We would have stared into space and let it
unfold in our minds.
But we wrote it all down to share the enjoyment of all those nuances and to hopefully make a bit of moolah on it. So
rather than trust to Fate, a quixotic creature at best, and hope that a publisher is willing to put another chunk of paper
into the bound book and a reader is willing to pay for that extra chunk of paper at the bookseller’s, we have to fix things.
This is a mini-workshop – one week long – in which ways to trim, blend, reword, and hack, hack, hack at the manuscript to
bring it back in line with the specified word count those publishers’ guidelines demand will be reviewed and attempted.
Participants would ideally have a completed manuscript that they are in the progress of editing, not just for word count
but possibly for clarity or buffing up the finished project to a nice shine. It’s all right to have fewer than 5,000 words that
have to be trimmed. You can even have more than that. The whole idea is discovering ways to hone your prose so that
no word is wasted but worked to full capacity and efficiently.
WORLDBUILDING FOR THE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
It isn’t just fantasy or paranormal novels that need worlds built. It’s every novel, no matter what the genre or subgenre.
But the Contemporary Romance is the story that few consider as a Worldbuilding arena. That’s were things run amuck.
This workshop will look at the various “normal” elements that must go into constructing the background – the stage –
upon which the players move. No, this isn’t about description, it’s about life in the town, the layout of the town, the things
the characters are involved in daily, their beliefs, their neighborhoods…heck, even where they shop for groceries,
whether they are involved in carpools, volunteer groups, cookie drives!
These things matter whether the characters have children or not, jobs that are or aren’t related to the plotline, pets,
family in town or out-of-town…well, all kinds of things.
We’ll sort them out and in a CHALLENGE (aka Assignment) put together the world the folks in one or more than one
group of characters moves about it. After all, if you invent a town from scratch, why use it for just a single book? There
are plenty more characters living there than just those watched over during the course of one book!
Don't see a workshop with the theme or topic you were hoping for?
Contact us via Beth@RomanceAndMystery.com and we'll see if we can create something new!
Workshops for writing and researching Steampunk, Mystery, Romance, and general Genre fiction
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