Class

The Next Level: Keys to Strengthening Your Narrative

Need to jumpstart your writing? Know your fiction or memoir is missing something but can’t figure out what that is? This class provides tools to lift your writing to the next level. We’ll explore ways to add depth and intensity to narrative by breaking down the techniques that more fully develop characters––as essential for writing memoir as it is for fiction. Next discover five key connections that help ground readers in your narrative context, to make what you've written crackle with life. We’ll focus on components needed for developing engrossing scenes, then build upon that in exploring tips to write more effective beginnings and more satisfying endings, together with a better defined narrative arc that connects the two. In-class writing exercises are designed to inspire. Leave class with guidelines on how to approach the re-visioning of your work going forward. Separate from class, the instructor will critique up to 5000 words of your writing as part of a private half-hour consult for each student.

This class takes place in-person, at the Loft at Open Book; we encourage participants to be fully vaccinated and masked in the interest of everyone’s safety. Please see the Loft’s website for the most up to date information about the Loft’s COVID policies.