Audience: Teens and Adults; Duration: 45 min to 1 hour

Discovering Core Values

What are your character’s basic beliefs? How do these beliefs affect their relationships and the way they interact with society? In other words, what makes them ‘tick’? Discovering your character’s core values will help you create a character with a sustainable, believable, and consistent motivation that will drive your character through the entirety of your story. During this class, participants will explore examples from classic books and movies. Then brainstorm and share insights about their own character’s core values and the trajectory of their journey toward the conclusion of their book.

Discovering Core Values Handout

Kid Speak: Creating Dialogue for Young Characters

Dialog can be tricky, especially if it’s been a while since you were your character’s age. In this workshop, participants will practice tapping into their inner child to create unique dialogue for their young characters. Concrete examples will be examined which will explore deciding a character’s tone, choosing ‘how’ to say something, creating conversations, and adding depth with unspoken words.

Sidekick Kick-Starter

Harry Potter had Ron and Hermione. Frodo had Sam. Katniss Everdeen had Peeta. Even well-constructed main characters can’t do it all alone. The story load is too heavy. This workshop will explore the various roles of supporting cast members and how to incorporate these character types to add depth to your novel. Then we’ll apply practical strategies for making supporting cast members intriguing and multi-dimensional.

Distancing Verbs

This interactive workshop explores verbs and phrases that distance a reader from the action in a story. Use these verbs intentionally to achieve a reporter’s point of view. Or replace distancing verbs with an active voice to bring readers closer to the action. Participants will dissect and rewrite examples, and share their results.  Then leave the workshop prepared to apply their ‘un-distancing’ skills to their works in progress.

Passive Verbs: To Use or Not to Use

Eliminating passive verbs can make prose stronger. But what is passive voice? How can passive voice become more ‘active’? Do writers really want to edit ALL of it out of their story? During this workshop, we will explore and dissect specific examples comparing passive and active voices, when to use each, and how to apply voice to character dialogue. Then participants will have multiple opportunities to hone their passive-to-active skills and share their insights.