A mechanic doesn’t pop the hood for the first time and immediately know what’s wrong with the car.  A pilot doesn’t slide into the cockpit without logging the required hours of training. A master author doesn’t magically hit the bestseller lists. A master author knows the basics. And there are a lot of basics to […]

So you have a character you're just dying to kill. Maybe he is a real villain and deserves to die. Or, instead, she is a sweet child and everybody cries when she slips away in the middle of the night. Regardless, there's a right place, time and reason to get rid of that character and […]

Anthologies are the "hot" item lately, giving authors a chance to collaborate and create amazing themed books. The writing side is usually pretty easy for an author, but what about all the details? A partnership can be a real problem if the business side isn't addressed. This class, taught by an author/editor who has published […]

Comic books and graphic novels are nothing new but, in today's publishing world, they've become a fantastic way to get your story out there. In fact, graphic novels have seen phenomenal growth – a sales surge of up to 15% -- in the last four or five years. Even better? You can write a graphic […]

Characters are like people. Each of us has "good" traits, like courage and resilience and intelligence, but we also have traits that get us into trouble like foolhardiness, stubbornness, and too smart for our own good. Same with our characters. We create strong traits, on both sides of the spectrum, and watch as our characters […]

Tension belongs: In every book In every scene On every page Without it, who cares?  The whole story falls flat.  In this class, we’ll drill deep to find exactly what creates tension in a scene or a character and we’ll learn dozens of ways to make sure you’ll use Margie’s orange highlighter at all the […]

Are you running your writing like a business?  A better question may be “Should you run your writing like a business?” The answer is: YES!!   It’s not hard. Really! But most writers don’t think they need to be a business, mostly because so few of us make appreciable money at it. But it’s possible that utilizing […]

Ever thought about writing your OWN story? Memoirs and autobiographies are the perfect way to connect with your family, to tell your story your way, and to create a lasting memory of who you are. In this class, we’ll: Explore the difference between an autobiography and a memoir Use themes to discover and organize memories […]

Mind-mapping: Using the Way We Think to Create Story Are you a pantster or a plotter? Or some combination of both ends of the spectrum? Most of us fall somewhere in the middle but, regardless, mind-mapping can launch your planning abilities into the stratosphere! A mind map is a simple tool that utilizes the way […]