I’m getting this list out early as some classes close registration before the end of the preceding month. Another great list of classes available at low-cost prices. Sign up early if you’re interested.

Action Sequences: Writing Heart-Pounding Fight Scenes, Chases and Climaxes with Angela Knight – Learn how to create heroes and villains who are a good match for each other, how to choreograph fight scenes, and how to build a plotline that rises to a climax that makes readers eager for your next book. $15/CRW and HCRW members, $25/non-members

Scene CPR: Breathing Life into an Ailing Scene with Laurin Wittig – Discover a simple but powerful way to turn your ailing scene into a robust part of your story along with the power of the four stage sequel and how to combine it with your scenes to create a story that keeps your readers turning the pages long into the night. $10/CRW and HCRW members, $15/non-members

Goal Hunters: Revealing The Real Story Stakes And Motives with Raquel Rodriguez – Hook your reader by creating page-turning conflicts based in realism with a believable GMC, viable stakes, and a firm plot foundation. $15/Savvy Author members, $25/non-members

Foreshadowing with June Diehl – Explore the purpose of this technique and how to effectively use it in fiction. Free/Savvy Author members, $5/non-members

How, When and Why to Change Point Of View Mid-Scene with Laurie Saunders – Explore the many situations when changing viewpoint mid-scene is exactly what you need to do. Free/Savvy Author members, $5/non-members

Before Copy Editing with Claudia Suzanne – Discover how to Chart & restructure nonfiction, Map & characterize plots, Convert passive voice & static phrasing to active prose, Convert tell into show. Free/Savvy Author members, Free/non-members

How To Promote When You Don’t Know How with Jamieson Wolf – Learn how to promote your novel using new media to get yourself known and to establish a brand! Free/Savvy Author members, Free/non-members

Editing & Book Design: After the Writing Is Done with Jill Ronsley – Get answers to your questions about what happens after your manuscript is done. Free/Savvy Author members, $5/non-members

Crash Revisions with Holly Lisle – Learn how to do an editor’s revision in seven days. And how YOU become the pro who doesn’t blow deadlines. Free/Savvy Author members, $5/non-members

Promoting with Social Media with Theresa Meyers – Learn the ins and outs of how sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook work, how to maximize your followers and use social media as a relationship building method to create your own platform and national audience. Free/Savvy Author members, $5/non-members

The Power Of the Senses; Enhancing Author’s Voice, Characterization, and Conflict with Bill Haggart – Learn which senses you favor in experiencing the world and how that shapes your voice, characters, and conflicts. $9/Elements members, $15/non-members

Critiquing with Camy Tang – Learn common things to look for in your own manuscript, and learn tricks for critiquing others, as well. $10/FF&P members, $20/non-members

The Synopsis Queen Tells All with Kara Lennox – Uncover how to break down the synopsis-writing process into a foolproof formula that will have maximum impact for minimum words. $10/FF&P members, $20/non-members

The Ins and Outs of ePublishing with Dara Edmondson – Discover what to write, how to submit, the inevitable pitfalls to avoid and the resources available. $10/FF&P members, $20/non-members

What a Wicked Web We Weave: A Spider’s Approach to Subplots in Storytelling with Theresa Meyers – Learn how to write big by adding multiple layers to your stories. $10/FF&P members, $20/non-members

Get Grammar with Kat Duncan – Learn simple sentence patterns and how to blend different grammar constructions to make action, emotion and tension come through. $10/FF&P members, $20/non-members

Is that Hollywood Calling? with Cindy Carroll – Learn the differences between writing books and writing scripts. And how writing a screenplay can help improve your novel writing. $16

Beyond Fangs: Creating New and Interesting Paranormal Characters with Deborah Blake – Explore the alternatives to over-used supernatural stereotypes and help you to create your own unique paranormal character. $16

Prose And Contests: Everything You Wanted To Know About Writing Contests But Were Afraid To Ask with Amy Atwell – Get an overview of the contest process, sources for researching contests, help in identifying your motive for entering a contest and tips on preparing your contest entry. $16

12 Stages of the Writer’s Adventure: You are the Hero of Your Book Writing Adventure with Beth Barany – Learn tips and tools for keeping an eye on your inner landscape so you can achieve your goal of writing a book. $16

Pitch Perfect with Kerri Nelson – Learn the secrets to nailing your pitch, how to score a home run with editors, and how not to stop short of getting the results you want. $20/RWA members, $25/non-members

May The Force Be With You (Adding Realistic Law Enforcement & Legal System Elements Into Your Novel) with Kerri Nelson – Learn “cop talk”, criminal evidence procedures, anatomy of a lawsuit, and more! $15/Yellow Rose members, $25/non-members

The Regency Woman with Nancy Mayer – Learn the roles, expectations, rights, and power of a Regency woman, including common myths and mistakes writers make in their stories. $20/OCC members, $30/non-members

Down, Dirty and Quick Plotting Bootcamp with Raquel Rodriguez – Discover this bare bones, no-frills plotting nitty-gritty approach to getting the story outline done takes a different look at how to accomplish the exact same objectives as other plotting courses without the extra details. Free/FTHRW members, $20/non-members

Mastering Point of View with Diane O’Connell – Learn how understanding and mastering point of view can fix an ailing manuscript and turn a decent but lackluster novel into a page-turner. $15/NEORWA members, $20/non-members

Paranormal Forensics with Katherine Ramsland – Explore the factual background of several crimes and their investigations, as well as the reports of paranormal events involved. $15/KOD members, $30/non-members

The 4 C’s: Building Characters and Plot with Sue Viders and Becky Martinez – Discover how the Four C’s help to define a character’s role in a book, even as it assists the writer in beginning to construct a fast-paced plot. $15/KOD members, $30/non-members

No Matter How Busy You Are, You Can Find TIME TO WRITE! with Kelly L. Stone – Discuss finding time to write, seven professional writing schedules, develop your writing action plan and learn how to deal with distractions and resistance to writing. $20/MWV members, $25/non-members

Once More with Feeling: Getting Your Book on Keeper Shelves with Cheryl St. John – Learn how to convey emotion in your stories that will connect so vividly with readers that your books will become favorites. $25

Taking a class and interacting with other writers can be a great way to improve your writing. Take a look at the following online writing classes being offered in February and see if one of them will help you take your writing to the next level.

Working the Muddle Out of Your Middle with Cheryl St. John – Discover the techniques that will carry you across the middle of your book without losing your energy and drive. $25

Druids: The Ancient Priesthood of the Celts with Sharon Gunn – Learn about the religion of the druids, their rituals and beliefs. $15/CHRW members, $20/non-members

Writing Evocative Fiction with Ann Schroeder – Study how basic emotions are expressed and hidden. Learn to probe your character’s motivation in ways that reveal her deepest emotional yearnings. $20/MWV members, $25/non-members

You Stab ‘Em, We Stab ‘Em with John Foxjohn – With the guidance of John Foxjohn, the students will go through all aspects of solving the homicides as if they were the actual homicide detectives. They’ll collect evidence, interview people, search for answers, and stay within legal guidelines.

Deep POV: Myths, Methods, and Madness with Alicia Rasley – Discuss the myths of Deep POV, the methods of getting into character and presenting the story, and the madness you might need to experience to truly get into someone else’s mind and body. $15/KoD members, $30/non-members

Discover How to Grow a Story Spine with Sylvie Kurtz – Learn the basic story arc and discuss why readers expect it, then walk through each of the seven story spines–the set-up, the meet, the first complication, the mid-point, the swivel, the dark moment and the joyful resolution–with examples along the way. $15/NEORWA members, $20/non-members

Fast Draft and Revision Hell with Candace Havens – Learn the secrets of Candace Haven’s step-by-step process to help you finish your work in progress in just two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, you’ll have your first draft. Then move on to Candace’s 2-week system to get you through the revision process and end with a polished manuscript that is ready to sell. $20/OCC members, $30/non-members

Creating Characters that Walk Off the Page with Karen Sandler – Learn how to talk to your hero and heroine, then be ready to listen for their answers. Use “trigger questions” to spark creativity, and fill-in forms and character interviews will assist you in creating dynamic, likable characters. $15/Yellow Rose members, $25/non-members

The Plotting Wheel: Ten Elements that Move Your Story Forward with Becky Martinez and Sue Viders – Discover a step-by-step method that can help everyone from beginners to published authors develop their ideas into novel form. $20/RWA members, $25/non-members

Fishing In: Hooks that Grab the Reader with Kristin Hardy – Learn how to craft a hook – that irresistible lure that makes an agent, editor and reader want more of your book. $16

Yummy Heroes with Jackie Ivie and Teresa Bodwell – This workshop looks beyond the Alpha/Beta debate to: 1) What makes a hero satisfying for his heroine? and 2) How can the author best portray those heroic traits? $16

Goal, Motivation, Conflict and Disaster with Misa Ramirez – This online course will take you through the process of understanding the elements of a scene and will introduce the concept of sequel. You will use your favorite fiction to identify how authors use Goal, Motivation, Conflict, and Disaster, as well as write your own scene(s) using these crucial 4 elements. $16

Dirty Little Secrets of Character Development with Keena Kinkaid – Use fun, inventive exercises that to root out your characters’ deep, dark secrets and desires, as well as learn how to use these secrets to further plot, conflict and—of course—the romance. $16

Mythic Elements with Marcy Weydemuller – mythic elements can add an extra layer of depth to a novel, whether contemporary, historical, paranormal or fantasy. Examine some metaphoric functions that help build emotional resonance and memory. $15/FFnP members, $25/non-members

The Art of Rewriting with Martha Engber – Learn about adopting the right expectations; estimating the time necessary for completion; understanding the three levels of editing; breaking the job into manageable pieces; and seeking feedback as part of the process. $10/FFnP members, $20/non-members

Writing Action Scenes the WWE Way with Matt and Natalie Duvall – Learn to apply the principles of WWE™-style to any scene that describes physical action. Discuss four of the key components of WWE™ entertainment, along with examples from a variety of fictional works, to show that these concepts can (and have) been used in wildly successful novels. $10/FFnP members, $20/non-members

Discovering Your Author Brand with Theresa Meyers – Uncover the basics of author branding, what it is, why it works and what advantages it offers; the three phases of brand building and the roles of author, publisher, publicist and agent; why brand building and brand awareness are different and how you can shoot your career in the foot if you aren’t careful; what roles producing books, advertising, marketing and publicity play in creating an author brand; what brand equity is and how it works to your advantage; seven steps to building a strong author brand for yourself; and how to use your author brand as a map for your career. $12/Elements members, $20/non-members

The new year is upon us and with it, some fabulous new writing classes. Take a look at these workshops being offered around the web.

Getting Rid of the Junk That Holds You Back by Cheryl St. John – Take an honest, in-depth look at your behaviors, your thought processes and the things that are holding you back on your writing goals.

Edit Your Book In a Month by Eliza Knight – Get information on how to fix the most common mistakes made in manuscripts and learn what editors and judges are looking for in a manuscript.

Personal Brand Express: An Action Plan for Authors by Jenn Stark – Get the tools you need to create and refine an ideal Writing and Industry Brand for you and your work, and learn tips and techniques to effectively showcase these Brands in your marketing, publicity and promotional efforts.

The Truth about Psychic Research: What It Is, Who Does It, and How to Use Psychic Research to Build Your Fictional Worlds and Distract Your Readers with Red Herrings by Mary O’Gara – Learn about astrological research, scientific research organizations, psychic research organizations, special research-in-action projects and magical societies.

Breaking Rules to Break In or Break Out by Allison Brennan – A class for serious writers who want to take their writing to the next level by learning how to shuck the rules that don’t work and focus on strengthening their voice with a special focus on the suspense genres–romantic suspense, thrillers, mysteries, and paranormal suspense.

New Year, New You by Laurie Schnebly Campbell – Learn practical and psychological techniques for dealing with rejection, writer’s block, frustration, motivation, and other issues that keep writers from loving their craft.

Anatomy of a Hook by Natalie J. Damschroder – Learn how to craft The Hook, the importance of continually barbed pacing, the anatomy of a hook, and how to pay it off, all with the goal of making the reader never want to put that book down.

Purpose Driven Scene by Lynn Kerstan – This workshop focuses on how to develop a scene that is chock-full of character development, conflict, emotion, and—for the reader—a vivid sense of “being there.”

Do you know of any other low-cost online writing classes being held in January? Please give details in the comments!

If you’re not signed up for Candace Haven’s Yahoo group Write_Workshop yet, you need to sign up today.

Candy provides writing classes through the group, as well as writing games to help you write more. She brings in top name authors, agents and editors to share their knowledge with you.

And she does it all for free.

That’s right, totally free. If you had to locate and sign up for information like this, you’d spend hours and a lot of dollars. Instead, you can get it delivered right to your inbox.

Recent classes include:

• Write Naked by Wendy Watson on how to define your voice, develop it and make sure it shines through in your story.
• A class by Nikki Duncan on how to balance romance and suspense in your novel.
• Notes from Deborah Blake’s class about writing witches in paranormals. (Deborah was teaching on another loop but shared info from her class for Candy’s group.)

There’s a new class starting on Dec. 1. Sasha White will be presenting material on Writing Dynamic Scenes.

Do you ever worry that your story is boring? That the pacing is off, or things might be dragging a bit. The sagging middle so to speak?

In this three day workshop National Bestselling author Sasha White will share some tips and tricks for making every scene count.

Joining Candy’s Yahoo group is free and the information is super valuable. The only thing she asks in return is that you support her and the authors she brings to the group by buying their books.

You won’t find better writing instruction offered anywhere at this great price, so join the group today.

(The Write_Workshop group is where Candy and the guest workshop leaders post their material. The students of the class chat about the material on this group – Write_WorkshopChat. You’ll want to join both.)

And if you like paranormal romance, check out Candy’s books – Dragons Prefer Blondes, The Demon King and I, the Charmed & Dangerous series, and Like A Charm.

The holidays are right around the corner and that’s usually a busy time for most folks. If you have a smidge of time to spare, get yourself a gift of a writing class to keep your writing moving forward.

Scottish Castles of the 12th and 13th Centuries – Learn about the castles, king and court, the nobility, and calendar feasts and pastimes.

Pitch Perfect (A Two Week Practice Workshop) – Learn the secrets to nailing your pitch, how to score a home run with editors, and how not to stop short of getting the results you want!

Muse Therapy – Discover what makes your muses tick, what ticks them off, and what makes them dance like nobody’s watching.

Rule of Six – Six Steps to Better Plots – Capitalize on this technique that marketing gurus have used for years to find the “thought not thought of yet” and avoid duplicating a plot line, character quirk or other idea already out there (that you may have seen subconsciously).

Geeky Stuff for Writers – This two-week course is for writers of all stripes who want to make their work more efficient, save time, and save money. Get hardware and software recommendations, outliners, organizers, some free, some cheap. Some not so cheap, but well worth it.

Introduction to Screenwriting – This 9-week course is free. You can bookmark it and work through the lessons at your own pace.

And finally, as an added resource, check out this article with tips on how to get the most out of a workshop. How to Succeed in an Online Writing Workshop

Time once again for our round up of online writing classes and workshops happening in November. If you’re not participating in NaNoWriMo, sign up for one of these low-cost classes and learn something about writing this month.

Surviving Trauma – Learn the characteristics of resiliency and the secrets of survival from numerous case studies of individuals who have survived violent trauma including concentration camps in Germany, genocide in Rwanda, violent crime, spinal injury, childhood abuse, etc.

Ignite Your Fiction – Learn how to examine and write succinct, vivid examples of Exposition, Description, Narration/Summary, and Action-Dialogue. The concept of pacing in character and plot will be stressed as well as development of the writer’s own “voice.”

Mastering Point of View – How truly understanding and mastering point of view can fix an ailing manuscript, and turn a decent but lackluster novel into a page-turner.

Scottish Castles of the 12th and 13th Centuries – Learn about the castles, king and court, the nobility, and calendar feasts and pastimes.

The “W” Plot…or The Other White Meat for Plotters – Learn how to use the “W” plotting technique tol uncover the skeleton of your own novel. Whatever your genre, not only will you have the tools you need to finish plotting your story using the “W”, you’ll know how to use it to write the synopsis we all love to hate…all without writing one word of the novel.

Breaking Procedural Rules – Learn the facts about legal procedures and how they can go awry, including how to stir in entrapment, illegal searches, tainted evidence, tampered juries, and badgered witnesses.

Inner Drives: Create Characters Using the Centers of Motivation (Chakras) – Each physical-psychological-philosophical Chakra has unique hopes, fears, strengths, weakness, actions, speech styles, and more that you can use to define and explore your characters.

Fiction to Freelance Writing – Discover how writing articles can boost their writing career regardless of their publishing status. Get insider tips on how to research a publication’s slant, learn the secrets of twisting a topic to generate great article ideas, where to find the perfect markets for those ideas and the easy (and painless, honest!) way to create the perfect query letter.

Day in the Life: Archaeologists – Learn about the difference between contract work, academia, and wwashbuckling; the basic steps in what to do if you want to dig something; the importance of permission and ethics (no Indiana Jones-style looting); how to interpret archaeological sites from the ground up.

Heightening Conflict Through the Fatal Flaw & Shadow – Learn how the “triangle” technique can unveil your character’s suppressed or shadow traits, which will emerge as the character struggles to overcome a deeply hidden flaw.

Online Critique Group – Receive feedback on six crucial components (concept, character development, plot, narrative, dialogue and research) of whatever you’re currently writing with the goal of helping you continue the development/rewrite process independently.

October’s almost here. If you’re looking for a low-cost writing workshop, I’ve got several for you:

• Conducting Historical Research
• Urban Fantasy
• Airing Dirty Laundry – Use Family Stories, Eavesdropping and Cable TV to Create Writing Income
• The Artist’s Way Workshop
• Discovering Story Magic Master Class
• Setting is More Than a Backdrop
• May The Force Be With You (Adding Realistic Law Enforcement & Legal System Elements Into Your Novel)
• Turn up the Heat! Heightening Sexual Tension and Sensuality in Your Manuscript
• Making History Come Alive in Your Work
• Evil People
• Conquering the Dreaded Synopsis
• Story Telling Craft: More Than Writing Technique
• You’ve Got Style: How to Have Effortless Sophistication in Your Prose
• Muse Therapy

And a special treat – The Poisoned Pen Web Con (PPWebCon) – a one-day virtual mystery conference. There will be video, audio and text-based presentations by mystery and crime authors from all over the world. There’s a mix of pre-recorded material available and live events. The guests of honor are Dana Stabenow and Lee Child. The cost is only $25 and it’s being held on Oct. 24. Sign up today.

September has several workshops being offered. Check each link for specific costs ($30 or under) and details on how to register.

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• Creativity Journal
• Introduction to Discovering Story Magic
• The Language of Liars: How to Make Your Characters Authentic Liars and Sure-Fire Lie Catchers
• A PR Primer: Promoting Yourself Before–and Just After–the “Call”
• Cybercrimes
• Cozy Is As Cozy Does
• Discover How to Revise Without Getting Sick of Your Manuscript
• Infusing The Romance Novel With Emotional And Sexual Tension
• Plot That Novel YOUR Way

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The Fall Harvest Workshop presented by Midwest Fiction Writers is hosting a workshop on Story Mastery with Michael Hauge on Saturday, September 26.

Best-selling author of Writing Screenplays That Sell and Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds: The Guaranteed Way to Get Your Screenplay or Novel Read, Michael Hauge will present his unique approach to creating compelling fiction, and to eliciting emotion in your readers through story concept, plot structure, love stories, character development and theme.

Workshop Fee:
MFW and Screenwriters’ Workshop members – $99
Non-members – $109
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Bloomington, MN

As mentioned previously, I’m taking a 6-month class on writing from Holly Lisle. I’ve been working through it at a slower pace, since I’m still dealing with the day job and running the website. That’s the beauty of this type of class. The lessons come out once a week, but I can work on them at my own speed, taking as long as needed before moving on to the next.

In the second month of Think Sideways, we’re doing our Project Planning.

Week 5 – Define Your Project’s Needs

Holly teaches the Dot and Line technique in this week’s lesson. The Dot helps you to focus on the most interesting, extraordinary or significant details of your character, setting, conflict, etc. The Line marks off the differences between things.

How do you use them? Well, the Dot helps you focus on the details that are pertinent. For example, your heroine has long, blond hair. Who cares? Lots of people have long, blond hair. That’s an ordinary detail. The Dot helps you make that into an extraordinary detail. Not just long, blond hair, but hair that is twenty feet long (ala Rapunzel) and strong enough to support the weight of an adult. Now that’s an extraordinary detail about your heroine that deserves to get mentioned in your story. You focus on the Dot details to make your characters, settings, and conflicts unique and extraordinary.

The Line helps you figure out potential conflicts for your story. For example, Rapunzel is on one side of the line, the Witch is on the other. Rapunzel is young, beautiful and yearns to get out of the tower. The Witch is old, ugly and thinks Rapunzel should stay in the tower forever. Pitting them against each other via the Line, you have young vs. old, beautiful vs. ugly, and escape dreams vs. long-term imprisonment. Lots to argue about there and plenty of material for sarcastic or angry dialogue, or sneaky acts against each other. In other words, plenty of conflict between those two characters. You can apply the Line to characters, settings, motivations… almost any part of your story.

The Dot and Line technique were a real eye-opener for me in how to enrich my story with extraordinary details and conflicts that I might have overlooked before.

Week 6 – Discover Your Project’s Markets

In this week we learned three things:

1. How to identify the market that our project fits into.
3. How to change genres with a technqiue called Book Mapping.
4. How to create our own genre (if one doesn’t currently exist to fit our work).

This is an extremely useful lesson for writers planning a long career of writing. Genres don’t stay static. They grow, change, wither, sometimes die, and morph into other genres altogether. If you can’t flex with the changing markets, you’ll have a hard time staying successful in the publishing world.

Week 7 – Develop Your Project-Creation System

Holly gives an excellent example of how she spent way too much time world-building on her first few novels, only to find that nobody wanted to publish those stories set in her heavily-detailed, fascinating worlds. Over time she learned to build only enough world to get her story started and then add pertinent details along the way. This saved her a bunch of time by eliminating all the hours she spent building worlds, characters, and plot details for stories that were never used, i.e. published.

She walks you through the eight core planning modules that allow you to build just enough details to get your story started. Five of the modules are mandatory for every story – Character, Conflict, Time & Place, Scenes and Math. Three are optional, based on the type of story you’re writing – Maps & World, Culture, Language.

Week 8 – Plan Your Project

In this week, you’re almost ready to start writing. Holly walks you through creating an effective and efficient outline. No, not the scary roman-numeral outline that you learned in school. This is a fluid, easy-to-use outline that provides a high-level summary of each scene in your story. The techniques she teaches in this week are how to use Plot cards and The Sentence Lite. The combination of the two helps you create active scenes with conflict to keep your story moving.

Recap

I’m really enjoying this course. Holly is presenting many techniques that have proven to be super useful already in planning my story. I’m adding interesting nuances to my characters and plot that I doubt I could have come up with on my own. I’m very eager to see how the final story turns out when it is all done. Feels like it could be a breakout novel for me.

If you’re interested in signing up for How to Think Sideways, you can check it out here. And check back here in a month for the next report on Month 3.

I’m taking an online class this year, How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers from Holly Lisle. It’s a six-month class with a lesson each week. Since this is turning out to be a terrific class (like all of Holly’s stuff, really) I’m going to give you a review each month of the material we’ve covered and how it worked for me.

Week 1 – How to Break the Thinking Barriers to Your Success

In this lesson Holly addresses four areas of thinking that will hold you back from achieving the success you want as a writer. We all know that a lot of our success is built on our attitude. If you have a negative attitude and give up easily, you aren’t going to achieve much. Holly zeroes in on four specific thinking problems that writers face – Safe, Perfect, Victim, Feel.

Perfect is my barrier. I think I need to make my stories perfect from the very first word to the end. Even though I consciously know that isn’t possible, there is a small, nagging voice in the back of my head that says, “You could do this better. You should do this better. If you aren’t going to make it perfect, why are you writing?” And before you know it, I’ve stopped writing, or never really started on a project, because I’m convinced I can’t make it perfect. I’m defeated before I even begin.

Holly gives practical exercises for each of the four barriers to help you break through them. For Perfect, she advises using a ten-minute timer and practicing just writing–no corrections, no rethinking, just keep writing the entire ten minutes. Tell the Editor in your head to shut up and let your fingers fly. Over time you train the Editor to be quiet during your first draft and let you get it written.

Week 2 – How to Discover Your Writing “Sweet Spot”

I loved this lesson, but it was HARD. The basis for this lesson is on how you define yourself as a writer. If you defined yourself as a writer of Westerns, what did you do when the Western genre dried up and rolled away like a tumbleweed? Same thing for the horror genre, unless your name was Stephen King.

Holly advises that instead of defining yourself in terms of a specific genre, you uncover your “Sweet Spot” material. This is the material that resonates with you, that is unique to you as a person. It can be objects, themes, sounds, sights, tastes–anything.

Here’s an example. Holly provides six prompts to get you started. One is “I am drawn to”. On my Sweet Spot diagram, I have listed outer space, sparkly things, sad songs, sacrifice, tragedy, rain, and blank journals. If the science fiction genre dried up tomorrow, I could still write stories about outer space by using that Sweet Spot element in a different way. Maybe my contemporary romance character is an astronomer, or maybe my cozy mystery detective is a head-in-the-clouds stargazer.

What Holly is doing here is giving you the key to being able to continue writing material that means something to you, no matter what genres are popular, no matter what the publishing world does. This week was priceless, in my opinion.

Week 3 – How to Generate Ideas on a Deadline

For this week, we got to practice listening to our Muse to get ideas. We “seed” our minds with our Sweet Spot material, not picking anything deliberately, but just reading over the diagrams to plant the items in our head. Then she recommends you walk away and do something else. Anything else that is NOT writing. Don’t deliberately try to come up with ideas for a story. Just let your Muse throw up ideas to you as it decides to.

It might seem a little hocus-pocus, new agey, but haven’t we all experienced that moment when you’re busy working on something else not related to writing and out of the blue you get an idea for a story? What Holly is trying to do here is to train your mind to be receptive to those ideas that your mind comes up with, instead of shutting them down immediately with “That idea’s no good” or “I hate Westerns. Why would I want to write about a cowboy?” Negative thoughts shut down the Muse, so Holly shows you how to work with your Muse to keep the ideas coming.

Week 4 – How to Recognize and Build on Good Ideas

In this lesson we learned about the Sentence. I’m sure you’ve heard other writers talk about how you need to be able to state your story idea or premise in one sentence–the 10-second elevator pitch, if you will. Holly shows you how to construct your Sentence first, before you start creating background and doing worldbuilding for your story. If you don’t have the Sentence, all the worldbuilding you do is for nothing. Holly learned this by personal experience with her Korre series (Talyn and Hawkspar).

If you want to be able to “sell” your novel to an agent or an editor, you need to be able to capture the essence of the story in the Sentence, so they “get it”. If you can’t boil it down to one great Sentence, then you’ll have trouble selling your story, no matter how finely detailed and crafted it might be.

Recap

Holly is teaching from the standpoint of starting a brand-new novel, but all of the material is applicable to a current work-in-progress. I find this especially helpful as I’m currently rethinking the science fiction novel I’m working on. I’m a bit lost in a muddle and I think it is because I don’t have the Sentence worked out for it. Give me another month of lessons and I’ll be well on my way.

If you’re interested in signing up for How to Think Sideways, you can check it out here. And check back in a month for the next report on Month 2.