Fiction & Novel Writing
Drawing from his personal experience as a full-time essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Terry Sanville will discuss the various opportunities and challenges in writing short stories in this informative session. He will also touch on the potential role these play in developing your story telling chops, and the multitude of sources each of us has access to for a variety of story ideas. A robust Q&A period will be provided as well.
From fast-paced thrillers to contemplative literary novels and everything in between, readers need to connect to your characters to create a page-turning story. Emotion is the thread that binds readers to your characters鈥� experience. This session, led by Author and Editor Jordan Rosenfeld, will help you use sensory cues, powerful imagery, character demonstration and other tools to evoke the emotion that hooks readers and creates deep, compelling characters.
In this engaging session, best-selling author Sheila Roberts will offer tips on story structure which keeps the plot moving and how it relates to character development. She鈥檒l talk about how to turn your idea into a story with a developed plot, characters, and conflict. In addition, Sheila will offer a check list for authors to refer to as they develop their story, and share strategies that have helped her along her writing journey which includes penning 50+ books under various names.
Your submission鈥檚 success is dependent on whether or not you are able to capture an agent鈥檚 or editor鈥檚 attention in the early pages with compelling writing鈥ll while not showing any common red flags that will lead to them quickly hitting the delete key and moving on. Join Random House author Mark Parsons as he discusses the things you want to do鈥攁nd not do鈥攊n your novel鈥檚 first chapters. He鈥檒l share over a dozen specific do鈥檚 and don鈥檛s, and discuss the overall goal of your novel鈥檚 opening pages鈥攔egardless of genre or age range鈥攁nd ways you can accomplish this goal. Mark will also take questions on writing craft, publishing, and any aspect of navigating the agent/editor/publisher paradigm. So鈥ome with questions!
No matter how beautiful your cover or how wonderful your story, you only have about twenty seconds between the time a reader finds your book and decides whether topurchase it. Award-winning author Eldonna Edwards will help you test your opening and offer ways to improve it. She will also discuss how to deliver on the promise you made on that critical first page. (Please send your opening paragraph to eldonna@gmail.com for consideration.)