Advanced Craft

You know the feeling – when you start a book and immediately suspend disbelief to fall into the story world. As authors, we know that this isn’t easy to do. It takes more than a good scene. It takes a maestro of craft to pull it off.

If you’re past problems with POV, character development and stage direction, this class will help you understand the subtle nuances that can be the difference between a ‘good writer’ and a popular author.

What you’ll learn:

Anchor the reader in deep POV
Say it once, say it well
Triple-duty descriptions
Get rid of Same old/same old body language
Dialog tags – who needs them?
Write tight
Tell us what we don’t know
Trust your reader
Backstory slivers – no dumps here!
How to write fully rounded characters

Who should take this course:

Writers who understand the basics of Point of View, dialogue, characterization, etc.
‘Journeymen’ – meaning those who have finished a story (be it novel, novella or several short stories) but have not yet published.
Any ready to take their writing to the next level

Lesson Plan

Lesson One:

Beginnings
First lines
Did I start in the right place?

Lesson Two:

Deep POV
Dialogue tags
Be the dude
Altering time for emotional power
Whose scene is it, anyway?

Lesson Three:

Backstory done right
Make your words to double-duty
Where to insert backstory

Lesson Four:

Trust your reader
- Say it once, say it well
- Tell us what we don’t know
- Telling then showing

All the rest
- Adverbs
- Write tight
- Write fresh
- Cadence
- Cliches
- Description shortcuts

Every lesson comes with reference material; great blogs and articles explaining salient points.

Every lesson has Homework. We’ll be posting our beginnings, receiving feedback, and revising.

Teacher

Laura Drake, 2014 RITA Winner for Best First Novel, doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. After a total of three novels, and 417 queries, in June of 2011, she scored an agent — Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill and Associates.

She now has twelve published novels. The first, The Sweet Spot, won the 2014 RWA RITA for Best First Book. When she isn’t writing, she speaks to writers groups and teaches online. She is a founder of Women’s Fiction Writers Association as well as the Award-Winning, Writers in the Storm Blog. Laura is a multi-Margie immersion grad. She credits Margie with taking her from ‘good’ to ‘sold’!

Laura realized a lifelong dream of becoming a Texan and is currently working on her accent. She gave up the corporate CFO gig to write full time. She’s a wife, grandmother, and motorcycle chick in the remaining waking hours.