What's the Worst That Could Happen? with Jacqueline Sheehan
They say that what doesn’t kill your character makes her, well, more interesting, but it’s hard to see your characters suffer. In order to create a compelling story, though, you have to let your characters fail. You have to let them get hurt. You may even have to take away the things or people they care about… Not just because conflict reveals characters’ true nature, but because if the stakes in your novel (or short story, or memoir) aren’t high enough, readers won’t turn the page. But there are ways to test the people in your story that reveal their inner strength. Spend the morning with a best-selling novelist and master plotter, learning a myriad of tools for getting your characters into the kind of trouble that feels inevitable, but not gratuitous.
Sunday, April 23rd, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. ($75)
Jacqueline Sheehan, PhD is the New York Times bestselling author of The Comet’s Tale, Lost & Found, Now & Then, Picture This, The Center of the World, and The Tiger in the House. She writes NPR commentaries, travel articles, and essays including the New York Times column, “Modern Love.” She edited the anthology, Women Writing in Prison. Jacqueline teaches workshops at Grub Street in Boston and around the world. Find out more at http://www.jacquelinesheehan.com/
