This class will be a mixture of lecture and activities that exposes new and intermediate writers to the business of publishing: queries, agents, editors, publishers, contracts, debut publication, film/foreign rights and how writers make money/launch their careers. This class will focus on book-length fiction and non-fiction. Attendees can expect a crash course in talking and writing about their books in a professional way, identifying their markets, polishing their materials, targeting and querying agents, building on rejection, understanding the expectations of different publishers and the things to know to be savvy in early conversations with publishing professionals. The focus of exercises will include writing synopses, author bios and pitching.

Why do we write? How do we write? How do we create something out of just our minds? The longer I've been writing for a living, the more I've been focusing on process. It's unique for every writer, but how we process idea, story and put them into our writing. A topic rarely covered, but I've found it's the most fundamental thing a writer needs to understand.

The ongoing global health pandemic has sent everyone’s stress levels soaring. In addition to the fear and grief directly related to the virus, many of us are also experiencing financial difficulties, ourselves, or we know people who are struggling. This interactive session offers strategies for answering the following questions.
• What do you during an emergency if you don’t have an emergency fund?
• In great uncertainty, should you keep funding your retirement account?
• What resources should you use first if money is tight?
• How do you qualify for unemployment?
• What are the new rules about using retirement accounts for COVID-related expenses?

Peggy will also take questions from the audience, so come prepared with your concerns. Unthinkable emergencies aren’t common, but when they happen, you need a plan.

Launching to Win provides a comprehensive overview of the steps needed to ensure a successful launch of your indie‐published novel. Divided into three phases (Design, Pre‐Order, and Post Launch), this talk reveals the steps bestselling indie authors use to ensure their books launch with a bang and are indistinguishable from those of a Big Five publisher. Attendees will each receive a customizable Book Launch Planning Guide to organize their next book launch as well as a thorough overview of the steps needed to crack the popularity charts, gain – and hold – a high sales rank, and succeed in each launch phases.

For many of us, writing isn’t just a personal hobby. Yes, we write for ourselves, but we also write for our readers, and we want to make a profit. For the IRS to consider your writing a business, you need to take several steps. This interactive session answers the following questions:
• Why should you treat your writing like a business?
• How do you prove to the IRS that your writing isn’t a hobby?
• What tax deductions are available to writing businesses, and how has recent legislation changed them?
• Can you qualify for government assistance or unemployment as a writer?
• What financial and tax records do you need to keep?
Peggy will also take questions from the audience, so come prepared with your concerns.

Friction between rival characters must generate explosive energy. Whether you favor exaggerated archetypes or simpler foes, those opposing forces need to fascinate your readers to unleash maximum drama, impact, and emotion on every page. Whatever your genre or experience level, you’ll leave this two hour masterclass with a fresh handle on the protagonist/antagonist dynamic duo and an arsenal of simple, language-based techniques that go beyond quirks and clichés to help you craft worthy adversaries.

One of the hardest editorial comments a memoir writer hears is this: “Just because it happened to you doesn’t mean the reader cares.” We’re already facing the daunting task of writing past the fear of exposure, and now we have to write our true-life experiences like a gripping novel with sympathetic characters and a driving plot? What’s the difference between a memoir and an auto-biography anyway? In this two hour class you will learn vital information about the craft of memoir, as well as get guided writing time from a New York Times, USA Today, and international best-selling memoir writer and expert teacher of the top-ranked Haven Writing Programs.

Even the most compelling plot and likeable character won't make for a story unless you have a world for it to occur in. How do you go about supplying the details that a reader needs in order to construct their own version of that world in their head and how do you avoid having it conflict with your vision? What are the secrets to making the reading experience truly immersive -- and why do so many of them depend on worldbuilding? Join Cat Rambo for a master class on creating the stage on which your story takes place.

When we talk about how stories get told, what we really talk about is: Who speaks? To whom (who’s listening)? And, from what distance? Consider the opening line to “Incoming Tide,” a short story in the collection Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: “The bay had small whitecaps and the tide was coming in, so the smaller rocks could be heard moving as the water shifted them.” You might be surprised to learn that Kevin, the third-person point-of-view character and the story’s protagonist, has just driven from New York back to this small coastal town in Maine with a gun in the back of his VW Bug. Kevin is considering suicide. There is a distant quality to this telling that is detached from suicidal Kevin. How does that happen?
This two-hour master class will include a series of readings, discussions, and practice exercises designed to explore: 1) voice (how to distinguish between world view detached author voice and story limited character voice; 2) narrative distance (how near or far the telling is from the occasion); and 3) psychic distance (how emotionally close to the character the telling makes us feel). The goal of this class will be to develop techniques that will allow you to gain control over how you tell your stories in order to better manage your readers’ journey.
Key take away points:
1) How to distinguish author voice from character voice (and how to know when the use of each is appropriate).
2) How to manage narrative distance (to guide the reader from wide-shot world building into a close engagement with characters struggling under pressure).
3) How to manage psychic distance (to guide the reader’s engagement with your characters from an emotional distance all the way in to their most intimate interior reactions).

A manuscript’s first page acts like a little window. Here, we peek into your writing power, your storytelling moxie, your unique voice. Usually, if it’s not working on page one, then it’s not working on page two hundred. The first page has to pop! That’s where purposeful play comes in. In this fun and interactive workshop, writers will learn how to play by using two creative tools. First tool: The Three Magic Hats, a daily warm-up to jump-start a writer’s day. Second tool: The Kick in the Pants. Workshop participants will leap from bestselling authors’ first lines and create a draft of an opening page that pops. The goal of these fun exercises is to not only help writers conquer the blank page but also to help them write an opening draft that will catch the eye of an agent or acquisition editor.

Does your marketing copy earn its keep? This two-hour session hits loglines and blurbs head-on with a hard look at the language of hooks and high concept. We'll unpack the knack of boiling any project into words that close the sale, before and after publication. You’ll learn to summarize your story’s strongest selling points and leave with dynamic promo language that sells your stories.

Plot, whether in fiction or film, is not a structural device into which characters are inserted. Nor will characters merely behaving in an interesting way magically generate a plot. In this three-hour intensive workshop, award-winning author David Corbett (The Art of Character, The Compass of Character) will guide students in an exploration of how character generates structure, not the reverse. We’ll examine how to link inner needs with the outer goals and ambitions of the story to ensure character drives the action, not the reverse. Finally, we’ll see how the characters’ pursuit of their need-driven ambitions can create conflict, trigger meaningful action with profound stakes, and prompt the kinds of insights – whether on the part of the characters or the reader/audience – that produce thematic richness, dramatic tension, and moral resonance.

It’s no secret that the current TV industry has exciting possibilities for writers and that agents, producers and executives are all looking for original pilots. If you’ve got a feature script, a play, novel, short story, or a stand-up act, it could have a second life as a TV series. In this practical masterclass, Ellen identifies the essential differences between a single story narrative and a pilot, and she gives you the keys to transform your story into an engine for a lot of stories—in other words, a series pilot. PLUS Ellen gives you a breakdown of a series proposal (aka “bible”). BONUS: She reveals the absolute best tool to beat your inner critic and get your script written! You don’t have existing material to adapt? But you do have an unfinished project or maybe an idea for a pilot? That’s enough, this workshop will set you on track to develop it. Questions and Live participation encouraged.

You wrote a screenplay. Or at least a draft that might be anywhere from a vomit first draft to a polished masterpiece. Now what? In this class you'll learn how to support your work as a screenwriter by taking the next step towards the business of marketing and hyping your work. If you're in it to win it, you need to know how to take those next steps towards getting your name and work out there to managers, agents, producers and studio execs, all to support your work and play the Hollywood game. Kim Hornsby, an awarded, sold, optioned screenwriter will talk about contests, your brand, networking, querying, pitching and developing your business as a screenwriter that will be taken seriously. Don't miss this class if you're serious about taking your scripts to the next level, whether features or scripts for TV.