Instructor: Sharon Mignerey
June 8 - 29: Fee: $30
The verbal exchanges our hero or heroine has with other characters is usually where a story comes alive. Great dialog infuses characters with life as little else does, and poor dialog reduces them to caricatures. As with other aspects of writing, there=s a craft to dialog that can be learned and can take talent to the next level.
This online workshop includes:
-- The basics, punctuation and format.
-- Making your character=s dialog personal
-- Using dialog to reveal ... and hide ... character
-- Dialog as it propels a plot forward
-- Finding the subtext
-- Something important to say ... or simple chitchat
Instructor: Mario Acevdeo
June 4 - 29; Fee: $30
You love your undead bloodsuckers, be they monsters, super villains, or maybe even the hottie hero. How do you turn them from stock characters to unique and interesting personalities?
What are the rules to the supernatural?
What about other fantasy stories? Or science-fiction?
How do you get over the suspension of disbelief and pull the reader into a compelling world?
What are the details you need for credible world-building?
Other topics include: Vampires, Other Supernatural Creatures, Voice in Fantasy, Supernatural Villains, World-Building, Writing a Series, Writing Dark, Writing YA, and elements of creating a make-em-go-WOW world.
You'll learn from these talented authors:
-- Carrie Vaughn, NYT bestseller
-- Stephan Graham Jones, acclaimed horror master and creative writing professor at CU-Boulder,
-- Dakota Cassidy, RT award-winning author
Plus -- Jaye Wells, Diana Rowland, Warren Hammond, and more.
The authors will not only share their knowledge and prose, they will also deconstruct their shared examples to explain what they wrote and why. The narrative tones and writing styles vary from light and humorous to ass-kicking action to rich epic fantasy to creepy horror.
Liquid Story Binder XE is a uniquely designed word processor for professional and aspiring authors, poets, and novelists. Like Scrivener, this is writing software for those who require the editing ability of a commercial text editor as well as a document tracking system, priced affordably. It is for those who want the freedom to create, outline and revise but are tired of losing track of their work.
Liquid Story Binder has a wicked learning curve. This Windows-based software is straight forward to use, once you have defined your writing style and discovered which tools in this giant toolbox work best for you.
We'll be talking about the different methods writers use to create and build a story, and then showing how LSB can be used to promote productivity.
We will cover what each tool does and how it can be used, including when it may be okay to use a screwdriver to pry open a stuck jar lid.
For those who do not currently own the program, Black Obelisk Software offers a 30 day free trial that can be used during the class. Your chapters are stored in rich text format, so they will be accessible outside of the program if you decide not to purchase it.
Margie Lawson
June 5 - July 14 : Fee: $90
Three Prerequisites, Online Courses or Lecture Packets:
1. Empowering Characters' Emotions
2. Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More
3. Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist
Do you want to dig deep into deep editing?
Do you want to take an advanced class with all Margie Grads?
Do you want Margie's Deep Edit Analysis for any 30 pages of your WIP?
If so, this squeal-it's-a-deal class is for you!
Lectures will be short. Emphasis is on applying deep editing to your WIP.
We'll focus on making each word, line, sentence, paragraph, page, and scene provide a clear, smooth, empowered read.
Enrollment is limited to 30.
Join me in Fab 30 and give your writing and writing career a rocket-powered boost!
Instructor: Margie Lawson
Dates: June 18 - 29
Fee: $20
Do you need a psychological boost to put yourself back in charge of your writing life? This two week class will motivate both sides of your brain and give you a kick in the patoot.
Class members will receive brief lectures (2 to 3 pages) each weekday. The focus is on identifying needed changes, staging changes, and maintaining changes.
DSDB Power Punch is for graduates of Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors.
Prerequisite: Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors -- online class or Lecture Packets
To meet the prerequisite, order the DSDB Lecture Packet, CLICK HERE.
Please check back on June 1st to see courses offered in July and August.
Thank you!
The courses listed below are being offered now.
Instructor: Sharon Mignerey
May 4 - 31; Fee: $30
Conflict … the foundation of great fiction. Models abound:
Goal, Motivation, & Conflict (Debra Dixon)
Goal, Conflict, & Disaster (Dwight Swain)
Three levels of Conflict (Robert McKee)
Not to mention inner conflict and outer conflict and story conflict. We all know what it is.
Still, the rejections come with notes to the effect of “the conflict between the characters just isn’t strong enough” or “the characters don/t struggle enough” or “the conflict isn’t believable.”
This workshop focuses on how to build believable conflict, how to test a character’s behavior in the midst of conflict, and how to keep the tension escalating to the story climax. .
Instructor: Lisa Norman
May 3 - 31; Fee: $30
This four week session will include 3 lectures each week, homework to develop and refine your marketing strategy, and discussion with classmates and the instructor. Students who have a completed work can work through the publication process during the class, ending with your work published!
Topics include:
Learning to tell gold from iron pyrite
-- defining your writing identity
Basic geology and avoiding landslides
-- marketing without getting buried alive
-- understanding the changing nature of the industry
Making peace with the natives
-- building your tribe
Staking your claim
-- creating a marketing plan
Refining process
-- setting goals
-- evaluating their success
Digging in the dirt
-- basic manuscript preparation and formatting
-- converting for e-readers, HTML, CSS, and EPUB
Bringing in the heavy equipment
-- how to hire a contractor
-- rights and licenses
-- distribution and discounts
-- contracts and concessions
Taking your gold to the bank
-- dealing with the emotions of completing the process
-- patience required for marketing
-- going on to the next project
77 Secrets To Writing Young Adult Fiction That Sells
Instructor: Tiffany Lawson Inman
May 3 - 31; Fee: $30
Are YOU the next Suzanne Collins, Richelle Meed, Cassandra Claire, Veronica Roth, Darynda Jones, Richard Paul Evens, or Sara Zarr?
Make sure you are pushing the Bestselling Young Adult Fiction envelope with your writing craft and story. Agents want extraordinary voice, extraordinary story, extraordinary character.
Are you giving it to them?
No matter which YA sub-genre you write, including, Paranormal, Contemporary, Dystopian, Historical, Horror, Scifi, Fantasy, Mystery, YA writing has to be better than great to get published. YA writing has to be better than great to rise to the top of the ever increasing competition.
Course Topics:
The classrooms for courses taught in April will remain open through May 15th.
From MADNESS to Method: Out-of-your-chair acting techniques to invigorate your writing and make your characters Oscar worthy!
Instructor: Tiffany Lawson Inman
April 2 - 30
Fee: $30
No matter where you are in the writing process – this class will crack open your psyche to reveal dynamic character, motivation, and reaction; showing you how to activate emotion you never knew you had.
If we held an Academy Awards for the characters in our novels, would yours be a highly acclaimed nominee? Polish those shoes and spray on a sunny tan. After this workshop your characters will be hitting the red carpet!
From Madness to Method uses the father of all acting techniques, The Method Technique. Writers learn how to create the most real of moments. These exercises push the writer to enhance their emotional repertoire.
This class is for all genres, all levels of writers. The Method Technique will enable your story to live and breathe beyond the page.
From Madness to Method includes lectures, out-of-your-chair exercises, examples from multiple genres, and interviews with NYT bestsellers.
You will learn how to:
Instructor: Lisa Miller
April 2 - 27
Fee: $30
Beautiful words and exciting scenes aren't enough to propel the reader through a novel. Stories need structure, a plan, a focus from beginning to end.
Story Structure Safari will guide you through the dense jungle of information about story. Our trek will include excursions into the lands of Story Structure and Transformational Character Arcs and Plot.
We'll step back and explore the sweeping overview of several popular novels and movies to explain and reinforce the concepts. We'll also take some intimate hikes to zoom in on the work and knowledge of plot and story structure superstars.
Throughout the class, I'll share information from award-winning authors and writing experts including James Scott Bell, Nancy Pickard, Les Edgerton and Larry Brooks. They will discuss how they structure their stories for success. Editors, including Deborah Halverson, Lorin Oberweger, and plot consultant Martha Alderson, The Plot Whisperer, will talk about story structure strategies. Strategies that will strengthen your chance to sell.
Using a variety of techniques, you'll have opportunities to infuse these ideas into your story, creating a tantalizing experience for the reader.
Reactions of past students:
"I only wish I did this course 10 years ago. Heck, even 1 year ago would have made a difference."
"This has been one of the best classes I've ever taken -- Ever! I am so pleased that I am pretty much ready to finalize my outline and start writing. I struggled with Story concepts but now feel I have a much firmer grasp than I ever have. I've taken Robert McKee's Story workshop and others, but found them very theoretical - which is great, but it wasn't until I was able to practically apply these concepts through the exercises Lisa so carefully prepared that I understood what I needed to in order to plot/write my book."
"I LOVED the methodology you taught and from the moment that we had divided our novel into quadrants I was hooked. Before Safari, I had been stuck for a couple of months with my story idea but hadn't done anything with it besides research (even though I'd really tried) and in your class I realized it was because it was such a big story (first time I'd truly tackled a full-length novel) that the idea of writing it by the seat of my pants was very overwhelming. It was like dropping someone into a country they're unfamiliar with and then saying, "see you in X town" and then leaving them there without a map or a compass or anything. Safari gave me a map and a compass and a GPS device."
"Your feedback on things was priceless. The information and the timeliness of your responses were fantastic."
Martha Alderson:
Martha Alderson, The Plot Whisperer, helps writers find the plot and structure of their stories. Her Plot Whisperer blog, YouTube How to Plot a Novel, Memoir, or Screenplay series and upcoming book The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master are just a few of the tools she's developed to help writers.
James Scott Bell:
James Scott Bell is a bestselling suspense writer. His books on craft, Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, Write Great Fiction: Revision & Self-Editing and the Art of War for Writers are three of the most popular writing books available today.
Larry Brooks:
Larry Brooks is a critically-acclaimed bestselling author of four psychological thrillers, in addition to his work as a freelance writer and writing instructor. His Storyfix blog and craft book Story :: Mastering The Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing break down novel and screenplay writing process into specific developmental criteria, from concept to character to sequence and theme, with a vision for how all the parts come together to become a whole in excess of their parts.
Deborah Halverson:
Deborah Halverson edited children's books for ten years—until she climbed over the desk and tried out the author's chair on the other side. Now she is an award-winning author of books for young readers, including the teen novels Honk If You Hate Me and Big Mouth and Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies. She also has a site DearEditor.com to help authors.
Les Edgerton:
Les Edgerton is a full-time writer with fourteen books in print including Hooked: Write Fiction that Grabs Readers On Page One & Never Lets Them Go. He teaches creative writing on the university level, through private coaching of writers, and on various on-line venues. He is the Editor-at-Large for Noir Nation International Journal of Crime Fiction. His latest novel The Bitch was awarded the Best Thriller of 2011 in the Predators and Editors Reader's Poll.
Lorin Oberweger:
Lorin Oberweger is a highly sought-after independent book editor and ghostwriter with more than twenty years experience in publishing. She offers writing seminars nationwide with Donald Maass and others, as well as Story Shaping Workshops, intensive one-on-one story development weekends for writers. In addition, she serves as Editor-in-Residence/Class Instructor for the renowned Writers Retreat Workshop. An award-winning author, Lorin's poetry, short fiction, and articles have appeared in well over one-hundred periodicals.
Nancy Pickard:
Nancy Pickard is the author of eighteen popular and critically acclaimed novels. She has won multiple Agatha and Macavity awards for her novels. Two of her novels, The Virgin of Small Plains and The Scent of Rain and Lightning have been named Kansas Notable Books. The Virgin of Small Plains was the Kansas Reads Book of 2009. Nancy also puts her energy into teaching writers. She is the author of a how-to book for writers, 7 STEPS ON THE WRITER'S PATH.
Instructor: Margie Lawson
April 1 - 27; Fee: $40
Learn how to write body language and dialogue cues from a kinesics specialist. No more cliched, trite, and overused facial expressions.
Writers will learn how to write more than basic facial expressions, more than basic body lanugage, more than basic dialogue cues, and write them so well, I'd rate them NYT!
Writers will learn how to write fresh:
Each teaching point will be illustrated with examples from bestselling authors, their excerpts dissected and analyzed.
Bonus Lecture from a Police Detective: Body Language in the Police and Criminal Worlds -- Interrogations, Spotting Criminals, Hostage Negotiations
April: Fab 30: Advanced Deep Editing, A Master Class
Margie Lawson
April 2 - 27; Fee: $75
Three Prerequisites, Online Courses or Lecture Packets:
1. Empowering Characters' Emotions
2. Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More
3. Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist
Do you want to dig deep into deep editing?
Do you want to take an advanced class with all Margie Grads?
Do you want Margie's Deep Edit Analysis for any 30 pages of your WIP?
If so, this squeal-it's-a-deal class is for you!
Lectures will be short. Emphasis is on applying deep editing to your WIP.
We'll focus on making each word, line, sentence, paragraph, page, and scene provide a clear, smooth, empowered read.
Enrollment is limited to 30.
Join me in Fab 30 and give your writing and writing career a rocket-powered boost!
Instructor: Tamela Buhrke
April 5 - 30; Fee: $30
A publisher will expect you to have a blog, but you shudder at the very idea. Who are you to blog? Maybe you don't even have a book out yet. What value could you offer? Where can you find the time? And what will you write that will make even the slightest difference in the sales of your book or the process of being published?
If you think blogging is a waste time that could be better spent writing your book, then join this class and you'll find out how blogging might just be the best thing to happen to your writing, your author career and your book sales.
Better yet, you might even have fun doing it.
Lawson Writer's Academy
June Courses
1. Fang It to Me: Writing Vampires, Fantasy, and the How-to’s of World-Building
Instructor: Mario Acevedo
2.Write YOUR Way with Liquid Story Binder
Instructor: Lisa Norman
3. Fab 30 in 40 Days: Advanced Deep Editing, A Master Class
Instructor: Margie Lawson
4. Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors, Power Punch 1
Instructor: Margie Lawson
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