DRESSING THE SKELETON: LONG FORM WRITING FOR SHORT FORM WRITERS (Forthcoming)
Learn and acquire tips, strategies, tools, and techniques for writing long form specifically targeted towards those who are more acquainted with short fiction (short stories, flash fiction, micro fiction, drabbles). This workshop will explore areas such as differences between long form and short form openings, character arcs, structures, and plot and subplot development, as well as how to use short fiction techniques to a writer’s advantage in long form. In short, this workshop will help guide sparse writers in their novel, novella, and novelette writing endeavours.
SHORT FORM CHAOS: FILLING THE STORY TOOLBOX (Forthcoming)
What is a short story? What are elements of short fiction? And how can writers further improve their craft and refine their execution? What if we get stuck when writing? What if we finished a story and can’t find inspiration to start another? Now that we’re finished a short story, what do we do next? Where and how can we go about sending short stories and which markets might be best for our work?
These are all questions that writers often ask themselves before, during, and after the completion of a short story or short stories, and in this workshop, we’ll be tackling all of them in more depth.
Participants will gain tools for writing and revising, combating writer’s block, and discover where they can find inspiration. We will break down the different elements of a story: character, plot, setting, perspective, language/syntax, and theme. There will be exercises for writers to practice each of these story elements so they can better use and identify them in their own short stories. Writers will acquire strategies for submitting short stories and how to navigate publishing and short story markets.
UNCONVENTIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN STORYTELLING (Past)
In this workshop, you will learn how to use/experiment with unconventional POVs in writing, and discover how it might strengthen narrative/character voices and forward the themes and intentions of your short and long form works. Participants are encouraged send in an example of a published short story (preferably one free to read online with a link to the story itself, or if it isn’t free, a passage or two from the piece) or excerpt from a published long-form work (a passage or two highlighting the POV use) prior to class that uses an unconventional perspective and be prepared to speak about it.