Frenchtown Bookshop Presents “The Craft of Writing,” A Seven-Week Writers’ Workshop with Writing Mentor Kathryn Craft.
Workshop is for authors seeking to improve their skills and make progress on novels, memoirs, plays, or short stories. It will meet every other Tuesday at the Bookshop, beginning with a free public session on September 21.
Writing a novel, memoir, play, or short story? The Writers’ Workshop is an in-depth series of professionally-led workshops that teaches the Craft of Writing. The group meets every other Tuesday at 6PM, leaving time to stroll and dine in quaint Frenchtown. The first workshop (“Get Writing, Get Published”) is free of charge.
The instructor is award-winning novelist and writing mentor Kathryn Craft. Kathryn is a longtime guide and teacher of aspiring writers. She is an adjunct faculty member in Drexel University’s MFA/Creative Writing program, the host of regular writers’ retreats, and served as the 2020 “Guiding Scribe” of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Her advice to writers also appears in the book Author in Progress: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What it Really Takes to Get Published and in her monthly column “Mad Skills” in the blog “Writer UnBoxed.”
The cost of the 6-session series is $175. Students may also attend individual sessions, space permitting, at a fee of $30 per class. Attendance is limited to 12 students. Books written by Writers’ Workshop subscribers will be favored for Local Author Spotlights at the Bookshop. Subscribers’ first pages will also be reviewed individually by Ms. Craft.
Each session will also be paired with a recommended book on the Craft of Writing, complementing each class topic.
Sessions and dates:
Sept. 21 (Free Introductory Session): GET WRITING, GET PUBLISHED
Establishing a writing practice, choosing the form of your writing (novel, memoir, story collection, poetry, etc.), transitioning from writer to author, ways your book can get published, roles of the various publishing professionals, what’s on you.
Oct. 5: ORCHESTRATING YOUR CAST OF CHARACTERS
Characters can feel very real to both author and reader, but thinking of them as perspectives rather than people will help you build a better novel. Here’s why—and how.
Oct. 12 DEFINING YOUR STORY (for long and short form fiction writers and memoirists)
What is a story, choosing a protagonist, honing your hook, what is the relationship between plot and inner arc, what are a story’s basic structures, premise/theme, why the synopsis should be your best friend.
Oct. 26: MAKE A SCENE
Scene as the building block of story, scene as a microcosm of story, author goals vs. character goals, point of view and perspective, intro to stakes.
Nov. 9: BACKSTORY MATTERS
How a character’s past informs her arc and the story’s stakes, how it extends the frame of story, methods for incorporating it, personal vs. societal stakes.
Nov. 25: RAIDER OF THE LOST ARCS
Your reader may not know what narrative arcs are, but here’s why they crave them, how turning points shape them, the numerous arcs that will keep your story moving, premise, emotional turning points your reader will never forget.
Dec. 7: SAY THIS AND MORE
The power of great dialogue, formatting considerations, and the many ways the pros deliver subtext.
Frenchtown Bookshop
28 Bridge Street, Frenchtown, NJ.
Phone : 908-628-9297
Email : frenchtownbookshop@gmail.com
Web : frenchtownbookshop.com
About Frenchtown Bookshop
Frenchtown Bookshop is a family-owned neighborhood independent book store located at 28 Bridge Street, Frenchtown, New Jersey. It sells worthwhile new books, carefully chosen to inspire curiosity, connection, and compassion. Find out more about us at frenchtownbookshop.com.
