Double What You Know About Storytelling with 5.5-hours of Intense Mentoring

Portland and Northwest Writers (and writers who like a road trip) take note.

This will be unlike any writing workshop you’ve ever attended.

Next week I’ll be teaching at the 50^th Annual Willamette Writers Conference, held at the airport Sheraton in Portland (August 1-4). This will be my tenth appearance at that conference over the last 12 years, and over that time I’ve become known as the structure guy, for reasons that make sense. I actually am the structure guy.

But there’s a downside to a focus on a specific facet of craft, as well as being a familiar commodity to the audience. Many of those folks will see my name on the agenda and think, “saw him before, got it, thanks, moving on.”

But this year is different. In addition to two regular conference workshop sessions, I’m presenting a 5.5-hour Master Class—”CRITERIA-DRIVEN STORYTELLING: USING BEST-IN-INDUSTRY STANDARDS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR NARRATIVE“—on the Thursday before the regular conference (August 1), one of several great Master Classes offered that day.

Here’s how my Master Class this year will be different.

While some structure stuff will be included, it’s actually a subset of a wider body of essential craft knowledge. Commanding the entire spectrum of story criteria can cut years off your learning curve and immediately escalate the efficacy of your current work-in-progress.

This craft knowledge is what experienced pros understand, and newer writers often struggle to learn (because it isn’t always obvious, and it is always multi-faceted). This workshop will explain why some stories get published and read, and why others fall short.

Here’s how and why that’s a true statement.

When was the last time someone at a writing conference heard your pitch, and instead of nodding and saying something polite, even if they took a pass on it, they actually gave you the feedback you need at the core idea level? Feedback, as in, the story isn’t strong enough. The idea isn’t original enough, or compelling enough.

So, feeding off that polite but empty response you received instead of that feedback, you go away and write the story—the one built around a less-than-compelling core idea—applying all those niche-skills you learned at that and other conferences. You sweated out a strong opening. The dialogue crackles. Your hero has an empathetic inner life. Your fight scenes are rendered with vivid realism. All the stuff you learned at the last conference.

And then, months or even years later, after you’ve finished (buckets of blood and sweat) and sent the book out into the world (lying awake at night second guessing yourself), you begin to get feedback that, while the writing is solid, the story at its core isn’t strong enough (self-published authors encounter this in the form of critical, even snarky reviews). Which was information available to you back at square one, if only you had known. If only someone who knew better had taken the time to tell you the truth, and shown you how, specifically, you could have elevated and enriched that core story idea.

You didn’t know, back there at square one, what you didn’t know.

That’s the essence of this workshop.

To fill in the gap between what you don’t know and the dramatic principles of storytelling that you need to know before the story will work… optimally. Which should always be your goal. Even if you believe you know what you need to know, or some of it, but you haven’t got it all down yet, that gap still remains… like someone who knows how to swing a golf club, chances are you aren’t yet ready to try for your tour card.

The core essence of your story’s idea is as much as half of the value proposition that readers, agents and publishers are looking for. Great stories don’t write themselves, and especially in genre fiction, greatness is seeded and imbued at the core idea and premise level.

Readers won’t show up for your beautiful writing. That’s just a fact. They’ll show up for a story that leaves them breathless and emotionally engaged.

Also, they (readers) couldn’t care less what your creative process is.

Here’s why this workshop may feel like something you’ve never encountered before.

Not only is the craft and skill and fundamental essence of landing on a rich and compelling story idea rarely touched upon within the writing conversation (the September issue of Writers Digest Magazine recognizes this; the central theme of it is, in fact, The Big Idea. Which is why, by the way, my new book, described below, has a full page ad on page 69), the notion of criteria applying to it is foreign to the discussion.

Instead, much of the teaching and mentoring about storytelling either focuses on, or is dependent upon, the process of the writing, delivered in a room full of writers that is quietly all over the place in that regard. Too often that leaves the nature and criteria of the end-product (including the core story idea itself) either under-served, or at least somewhat muddy. Hence, the need for multiple drafts before the story solidifies… if it ever actually does.

For all writers and all processes, the ultimate end-product is the sum of two things: what the writer knows (both about what a story requires as a matter of principle, and what the WIP requires as a matter of specificity), juxtaposed with what the writer doesn’t know (again, relative to the principles of storytelling and the WIP itself). Which leaves newer writers looking up at a very steep hill.

What they need to know are the criteria that apply to each and every part and element and essence of a story that works. Including that initial story idea that, hopefully, ends up as a viable dramatic premise (which has a separate set of criteria than those that apply to the idea… you get the idea of the nuanced understanding required).

To complicate matters, too often writers don’t actually know what they don’t know, which is precisely why writing a publishable story is so challenging, and why the percentage of rejection is so frighteningly high; 94 percent of stories submitted to publishers by agents are rejected at least once… even if the agent initially took on the project, which is another low percentage statistic.

This Master Class not only delivers the foundational core information that makes a story idea glow in the dark, it also explores what causes a completed manuscript to sizzle in the reader’s hands. Unlike most workshops that tell you how to find your story (the options are endless, including the inside-out advice that Story Trumps Structure, which is 100 percent a process-oriented context), this workshop is process neutral. Once you are in command of this criteria-based knowledge, how you go about finding your story isn’t the issue; knock yourself out, you’ll be a better pantser if that’s your thing, a better outliner if that’s you, and a better everything in between—as it breaks “story” down into component parts while assigning specific criteria to each part, as well as a mission-driven context relative to the whole of the story.

Because this is information rarely encountered within a holistic context, it is a learning experience unlike anything you’ve experienced. The workshop delivers the raw grist of my new writing book—GREAT STORIES DON’T WRITE THEMSELVES: CRITERIA-DRIVEN STRATEGIES FOR MORE EFFECTIVE FICTION—which will be published by Writers Digest Books in October. Too late for the WW Conference bookstore… but… those who attend this workshop will receive a digital advance reading copy, which contains definitions, context and examples of all of the 70-plus criteria involved.

Bestselling Northwest author Robert Dugoni, who wrote the Foreword to the book, says “this is the stuff you wish you’d learned early-on in your writing journey.” It is designed to make your learning go vertical, while putting the story on your desk, your WIP, on steroids.

Click HERE to view the WW Conference page for this workshop. From there you can navigate to information about how to sign up.

If you’re looking for a milestone moment in your writing journey and growth, this is an opportunity you should consider.

*****

I will also be teaching this Master Class at the Writers Digest Annual Novel Conference, held in Pasadena, CA, October 24-27 (this, too, will be a full day workshop held on the 24th, the day before regular conference, where I will also present two session workshops. CLICK HERE for more on this great event.