Online Workshops: Many Different Courses
| Opportunities abound in 2010 for Writers interested in taking online classes related to their craft. See if any of the workshops noted below fit what you're looking for. Website addresses supplied for registration and fee information. Each has Beth Daniels, aka Beth Henderson, J.B. Dane, at the helm. |
September 6th through 30th HISTORICAL ANGLES: Writing Historical Fiction Host: Savvy Authors SavvyAuthors.com 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. The instructor is the author of six historical romances, holds a BA in History, and is a volunteer at one of her local historical sites. She reads voraciously in the historical fiction field, citing George MacDonald Fraser, Bernard Cornwall, C.S. Harris, Georgette Heyer, Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Laura Kinsale among the authors she not only reads but rereads. 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 would be the main focus. also September 6th through 30th TWEAKING HISTORY: STEAMPUNK AND OTHER TALES OF ALTERNATE HISTORY Host: Dunes and Dreams RWA www.dunesanddreams.org 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. October 2010 SELF-PUBLISHING FOR THE FRUSTRATED: Using Lulu.com's Print On Demand and Amazon's Kindle E-Books Host: Low Country Romance Writers http://LowCountryRWA.com/online-workshops/ 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. Self-Publishing for the Frustrated is for published authors with backlists and unpublished authors interested in testing the waters with storylines that don’t meet the major publishing houses’ needs. Beth Daniels turned to POD when the rights to her backlist titles began reverting to her. But she also chose to self-publish a story she loved and had rewritten over and over for ten years based on editor suggestions and still hadn’t landed a contract. Another title appeared only as an e-book which made it impossible to take along to book signings…until she self-published it in print form. And when Amazon’s Kindle reader went into a second generation, she took the leap to be available in more than a single venue. 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. The class has two available schedules: two weeks or four weeks. In either case, half the time is spent on self-publishing in print and the other on e-book preparation, for Kindle in particular. 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 be interested in learning what they need to do to self- publish through a POD or Kindle, or simply be considering one or both of these options for their work. Also in October 2010 AND WITH A COMPOSITIONAL FLOURISH: Using Rhetorical Devises to Improve Your Prose Host: Passionate Ink RWA Chapter www.passionateink.org 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 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 make for more fascinating reading material, although readers may not recognize the subtle touch of our pens. This is a four week course. Lessons will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays and any feedback from the instructor on questions, etc., will be up given before the next Monday lesson is posted, if not sooner. On Fridays I will restrict things to comments and ask for feedback. There are around 45 different rhetorical devices, but the workshop will focus on the 16 that would work best for fiction writers, particularly romance writers. And yet another one in October 2010 IS THERE A SET DESIGNER IN THE HOUSE? Using Description to Enhance Your Fiction Host: Savvy Authors www.SavvyAuthors.com 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 will 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 will be on character tells, action sequences, verbal nuances, visuals with background, wardrobe and character description, plus sound, touch, scent, and taste. Lectures will be posted twice a week (preferably on Monday and Wednesday) with assignments posted for comment from instructor and other students Friday through Sunday. November 2010 STORY SENSE / STORY LOGIC Host: Yellow Rose RWA Chapter www.YellowRoseRWA.com 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 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. 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 by the instructor 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. Ideally the class would run four weeks. The only requirements for students would be a willingness to share their storylines with the rest of the class, although lurkers would be welcome as well. ALSO IN NOVEMBER BREAKING THINGS INTO THREES: Plot Organization for Pantsers as well as Plotters Host: Savvy Authors www.savvyauthors.com 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 would be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays with responses from the instructor posted for questions or assignments before the next Monday’s lecture. This class is for writers at any point in their writing career from unpublished to midlist. For 2011 Workshop Schedules keep checking back -- Posting will begin Fall 2010 for these |
NEW UPDATES! MORE WORKSHOPS!
| Plan Ahead for 2011! January Curing the "What Comes After the First Three Chapters" Blues & Changing Genres February Puzzling Out the Necessary Bits & Steamed Up April The Organic Writer's Guide to Plotting as You Go & The Next Book & Is There a Set Designer in the House? Description July Curing the "What Comes After the First Three Chapters" Blues August Changing Genres and Choosing Your Niche in Mystery September Steamed Up October November Plotting for Pantsers AND More! |
| Ready to Write your very first book but not sure how to get started, stay on track, create characters, and everything else that needs to be figured out, mused on, and written before the first draft of the manuscript is complete? Beginning in September 2010 and running through August 2011 is a series of ten workshops crafted just for the beginning writer. Taught by Beth Daniels for SavvyAuthors More details available by returning to the HOME page and clicking on FIRST STEP or Visit SavvyAuthors.com at the Savvy University section for more information or to register for this or another of the many online workshops dealing with writing fiction! |
| Not sure you can handle a 4-week workshop schedule? Try a 1-week Mini Workshop! Click here for upcoming topics and dates |
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