SESSION: Desires, Fears, Urges & Inhibitions: Narrating Your Characters’ Fantasy Lives

As writers, we’re already personally familiar with how it feels to be moving through one reality in the physical world while our minds are often somewhere else – but how do you narrate such a scenario for your characters? We’ll take a look at a wide range of literary characters with active fantasy lives to answer this question. Walter Mitty is the classic example, but we’ll also look at additional historic and contemporary examples of literary characters whose reality is deeply affected by their fantasy lives. We’ll also study examples of non-fiction – like the best-selling memoir Educated – in which the narrative is propelled partly by the tension between the fantasy upheld by the author’s family and her experiences in the “real” world.

Along the way we’ll discuss how illuminating characters’ fantasy lives is a kind of hack. Why? Because accessing their fantasies allows you to convey your characters’ deepest fears and desires, urges and inhibitions, through the stories they dream up. You’re not stuck having characters think explicitly about their fears and desires — instead, they tell themselves a story that reveals aspects of their interior life that they, themselves, might be blind to. Whether it’s Sylvia Plath imagining herself as a fig tree or George Saunders’ lonely barber crafting elaborate erotic daydreams that fall apart even in his imagination, giving your characters active fantasy lives is a great way to reveal interiority, create tension between characters with competing fantasies, and propel your plot forward.

SESSION: Writing Collective “We” Narrators

The Virgin Suicides. Then We Came to the End. We Ride Upon Sticks. When it comes to fictionalizing our complex communities, be they a set of sisters or a field hockey team, the first person plural narrative point of view is a powerful tool and often overlooked as an option. This guided writing session takes authors through prompt exercises to sharpen their skill at writing from the “we” using A.E. Osworth’s four pillars of writing the collective: breadth of sight, scope of opinion, linguistic idiosyncrasies, and structure of knowledge. Our discussion will include not only the how of writing collective narrators, but will explore the why as well; in other words, how do you know whether this particular narrative strategy is the right one for your project?

SESSION: Hero of Another Story: The Antagonist Who Drives the Story Forward

The best stories have antagonists who, in another book, would be the heroes of their own story. While your main character should be the only one to whom the story can happen, a multi-faceted person blocking your protagonist from their goals drives the plot forward and creates compelling, gripping fiction. Through exercises and discussion, this workshop will help you get to know your antagonist, how they oppose your protagonist, and how to be as invested in them as you are in your main character.

SESSION: Plot Engine Tricks: Getting and Keeping It Moving

Whether you’re just starting a novel and unsure where to go with the initial idea, or in the middle somewhere and feeling stalled out, this session will get the wheels turning again. We’ll discuss familiar elements of the novel, but we’ll also use tricks from GrubStreet’s Novel Generator course to shake up your plot: we’ll consider your characters’ secrets and lies, and their general power dynamics. We’ll discuss the Rule of Neat Stuff, and Magic Objects—two tricks to help the novel gel together. We’ll look at some scenes from published books to inspire us, and we’ll discuss what it takes to finish a novel without going mad-hatter crazy.

SESSION: Rejection Doesn’t Have to Suck: Turning it into a Positive

As a writer, rejection is inevitable, whether in a one-star review or a pass from an agent. And it doesn’t discriminate, affecting the talented and novice writer, the bestselling and debut author alike. Developing a conscious strategy for not only handling rejection but intentionally turning it into a positive is critical to your career and spirit.

We’ll discuss tools to help you avoid internalizing criticism and keep a healthy mindset. We will explore ways to distinguish productive from “ignorable” criticism and will help you compile a toolkit of positive actions you can take in the face of rejection.

No one can remove the sting and pain of rejection, but how you manage the tough emotions that accompany it impacts your motivation and your confidence, and can help you turn those "nos" into beneficial experiences.