Have you ever completed a story or been partway through writing one when you realized “This just isn’t working as it should”? I’ve been there and I’ve finagled my way out. Sometimes not as quickly as I’d like, but that’s why I realized my imagination was coasting, not actually pulling its weight.
It needed a challenge! One that would SAVE THE PLOT! SAVE THE CHARACTERS because they were sorta ho-hum and dragging the story down.
That’s what the aim is in this four-week workshop: to Stop Writing Tales that Rate a “Meh”!
We’ll look at the genre niche requirements and also at what other writers have done to up their ante in one you’ve chosen.
We’ll put the characters under a microscope (sorta) to sort out why they aren’t jumping off the page and into OUR hearts, because if they aren’t, why would a reader want to hang out with them? If you don’t love everything about them, there’s a problem. And this isn’t just the characters with the stars on their dressing room doors, it’s the entire cast!
The Plot itself won’t get overlooked either. We’ll move from first thoughts about it to finding solutions, and then we’ll see if it needs an adrenaline boost and what would create that boost.
This has a lot to do with building in twists, withholding data from backstory to a point where it makes a reader’s mouth drop open in shock, but also the action (whether is in a love scene or fight scene).
But even more, in dreaming up surprises that no one sees coming. That’s what gets a story talked about as a “you’ve got to read this” book!
Join me for four weeks of putting your imagination in over-drive!
Presenter’s BIO: Beth Daniels has been turning out novels—published novels—for three decades and counting. She’s done so in various genre niches and under a variety of pseudonyms for a varied audience of age group (YA to adult) and reading preference: historical romantic adventure, historical romantic mystery, romantic comedy, romantic suspense, urban fantasy PI mystery comedy, alternative history (Steampunk, 1920s Dieselpunk, 1880s London Gaslamp fantasy), and cozy mystery. She’s traditionally published but also does Independent Publishing releases. In fact, if you actually hung out with her, you’d find she has but one passion: writing genre fiction. She has a BA in History, an MA in English Composition and creative writing, has taught at the college level but prefers the virtual classrooms of Online Workshops, which she’s been presenting since 2010.