This is the in-person edition of this class. For the livestream, click here.
For writing to succeed, it must be both well-executed and original. But when we sit down to write, the first words, scenes, characters, conflicts, and settings we come up with are often the least original ones of which we're capable. Digging past the obvious, the stock (and even the products of the collective unconscious), we might finally arrive at stories that are strikingly new and memorable. In this workshop, we'll cover some key elements of originality—specificity, idiosyncrasy, complexity, repetition, and change—and talk about accessing them in both drafting and revision. While originality might seem intuitive or even a product of the writer's personality, it's in fact a skill that can be sharpened. That's what we'll be doing.
