How to Build a Strong Book Foundation, with Susanne Dunlap
Writing a book-length work—of fiction, nonfiction, or memoir—is a truly daunting feat of intellect and imagination. Even if you’ve done it before, every book you write is a new challenge. So where do you start? How can you face the blank page without overwhelm and confusion? Even if you think of yourself as a ‘discovery writer,’ it helps to have a few building blocks—a foundational idea of where you are going and how you’ll get there. This workshop is designed to help you discover and develop the foundation of your story–whatever your genre. We will go through a series of exercises that focus on creating a believable world and rounded characters (or bringing real people to life on the page), developing enough propulsion to sustain a narrative, and much more! You’ll leave the workshop with a framework for your story, flexible enough to allow for the inevitable discovery of drafting.
Saturday, February 4th, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST ($75)
Susanne Dunlap is the author of nine historical novels for adults and teens. Her young adult novel The Musician’s Daughter was a Junior Library Guild selection and a Bankstreet Children’s Book of the Year, and it was nominated for the Missouri Gateway Readers Prize and the Utah Book Award. Her latest novel, Listen to the Wind and The Spirit of Fire are the first volumes of a medieval trilogy for adults, The Orphans of Tolosa. Listen to the Wind is a semi-finalist for the Chaucer Awards for Pre-1750 Historical Fiction and a Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Awards. Susanne has a PhD in music history from Yale University.
