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1-P THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS
The course consists of weekly lessons and writing exercises, where students will learn the intricacies of hooking the reader, building reader empathy, and how to use emotion to your story's best advantage. You will use the beginning of your novel in the exercises.

• Understanding emotion and bonding
• Purpose
• Beginnings, Middles and Endings

2-P DEEPENING CHARACTERIZATION
How your character acts in any given situation is based on multiple variables. Here you'll learn what they are and how to use them to make your characters leap off the page.

• Character Arcs
• Values and beliefs
• Deep Point of View

3-P ESCALATING CONSEQUENCES
Have you ever been so excited about a story that it almost seems to write itself...and then somewhere after the third chapter it stops dead? If so it's probably because your conflict is static. This workshop examines what makes your conflict dynamic...and what to do to make your story move along naturally...with high drama.

• External situations and internal conflict
• Static conflicts vs dynamic conflicts
• High Drama

4P INFUSING STORIES WITH EMOTION
Learning how to infuse your story with emotion is one of the most important techniques, yet many writers don't think about it until they realize something is missing. In this class you'll learn not only how to build emotion in your stories, but also how to build emotion to engage the reader.

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• Infusing your story with emotion — Overview
• Emotions— All the angles. Natural vs Forced
• Techniques
• Emotional Checklist

5-P BUILDING STRONG PLOTS AND SUBPLOTS
Do you ever wonder what makes a good story great? Why we remember some stories and not others? In this workshop we examine layering and subplot development and their use in taking a story from okay to outstanding.

• High concept plots vs character driven plots
• Subplots
• Weaving in subplots

6P SCENE & SEQUEL DYNAMICS
     Variations in Structure
Whether using a mini-sequel within an action scene, or inserting a flashback to convey emotion, it's important to know how and when to use such techniques. Using variations incorrectly can take a reader out of the story, disrupt the pacing and kill emotion. Experienced writers know when and how to vary structure to make their stories stronger. In this class you'll learn all that and more. You'll learn the five major ways to vary your scene structure and you'll and get hands-on experience in doing it. Some things you’ll learn in this class:

• The five major variations in structure
• 11 specialized techniques
• Motivation reaction units review

7P ART OF PACING
We all want readers to keep flipping pages, anxious to see what happens next, but to do that, we need to understand the art of pacing. Pacing isn’t all about speed. It’s about moving readers along through a series of techniques that create a need to know more. Pacing has many facets that involve everything from the tone of your book to the language you use. In this class you'll learn the ins and outs of pacing from story to scene to paragraph to sentence and how to use pacing to benefit your story. Some of the techniques you’ll learn include:

• Pacing to create tension on every page
• Crisis pacing, action scenes
• Pacing in sequels

8P THE BIG BLACK MOMENT
Dramatic, powerful storytelling doesn't just happen. The Big Black Moment is only one piece of the story, but it's one of the most important and many writers fail to get it right. Most writers understand that this is the moment when all seems lost, but they don't understand why or what goes into making it that way. In order for TBB to have an emotional impact, certain components must be there. In this class you'll learn what TBB is really about and how you can make it the most powerful, emotionally charged point in your story. Some of the areas we’ll study are:

• The character arc and transcending character flaws
• Conflict to build to the BBM
• Making the Big Black Moment payoff

A 6-WEEK CLINIC . . . LS1 SECRETS TO A KILLER SYNOPSIS

Plus Query Letter and First Three Chapters

The best story in the world won't sell if the editor can't get past the query letter and the synopsis. Most publishers give very specific guidelines on what they want in a submission, but they don't tell you how to make your submission stand out among those hundreds of submissions they receive daily. In this class, you'll learn how to do just that, and you'll get direct feedback on your query letter and your synopsis. It is recommended that you have completed at least half of your manuscript in order to get the most from the class.




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