Enhance your writing with the specific details and dialogue that bring scenes alive on the page!
What makes a scene stay in your mind, is it rhythmic language, a character’s gesture, or that line of dialogue? It’s in the details! The specificity, the unexpected emotional turn, the layered meaning of just one word. In this workshop, we will study and practice the art of brevity and selective details in scene writing. We will study how sensorial language connects with readers and our imaginations as we write. And finally, we will talk about the elements in scene work that create the voice of a piece. Each week we will read a section from Abigail Thomas’ Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life and discuss how she achieves the depth of feeling and voice in her short chapters. The in-class exercises can be used to develop existing work or create a new piece. Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life and discuss how she achieves the depth of feeling and voice in her short chapters. The in-class exercises can be used to develop existing work or create a new piece. Whether you write fiction, memoir, or personal essay, your paragraphs will become more evocative!
Live video conference: This workshop will be held via our online video conferencing platform, Zoom. You can view brief tutorials on using the platform here. On the start date or the day before, participants will receive an email with login info (please check your spam if you don’t see it).
In this workshop you’ll learn:
- Dialogue
- Evocative details
- Character development
- Narrative arcs
- Sentence structures
Time requirements
- We will read 60 pages of short essays each week, likely an hour or two of reading outside of class.
Materials
- Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, Abigail Thomas
Who should take this workshop?
- This workshop is designed for prose writers of all levels interested in developing their scene work through discussion, lecture, and in-class generative exercises.
If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.