SATURDAYS, Sept. 9th - Oct. 28th | Whether you want to revise a full draft or you’ve only got a few pages, writing a detailed synopsis of your entire book is going to save you years of frustration.. In this workshop, we will focus on planning rather than writing to get the most juice out of your story, up the stakes, and add compelling surprises like plot twists and reveals.
How do you know if your novel premise is a good one? Are you querying your book but facing endless rejection? Every day, writers come to me with stories full of logic holes, or a lack of stakes, emotion, and suspense. They have a golden premise with no idea how to properly get it out of their head and onto the page. I can relate. When I wrote my first novel, I relied on instinct, smart beta readers, and sheer will. But after four years of pantsing it, I realized I’d written myself up a tree and couldn’t get down. I am now and forever a dedicated planner and I hope you’ll join me in my crusade! In this workshop, we will focus on asking the hard, deep questions that will take your story from a cool idea to a well-reasoned, thoroughly-plotted story readers won’t put down. Each week, we will work on filling out planners, beat sheets, and studying mentor texts to learn from the greats. By the end, you should have a completed synopsis that will enable you to take the amazing world in your head (or already written) into the real world of publishing deals and eager readers. We will use the beat sheet plotting tool in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, so please have a copy before the first class. You don't need to read the whole thing in advance, but it will save time if you use the book to identify your genre. This workshop is probably best for single POV fiction, but it could be any category from middle grade, young adult, to adult. Writers of fantasy, speculative fiction, or any story with detailed world-building should find this workshop especially helpful.