The 3 Things You Must Learn to Write Killer Stories: Feb 20 @ BYU

Mark your calendars!!

The free, 2009 Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium at BYU will run Thursday – Saturday, February 19 – 21.

The speical guests are Tracy & Laura Hickman (Dragonlance authors) and James C. Christensen (yes, the amazing fantasy artist). But there will be more than a dozen other authors there, including: L.E. Modesitt, Brandon Mull, James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, David Farland, Mette Ivie Harrison, Eric James Stone, Howard Tayler, and a number of others.
 
Here’s what I’ll be doing:

1. Panel: The Principles of Suspense. Fri, Feb 20, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
2. Workshop: The 3 Things You Must Learn to Write Killer Stories. Fri, Feb 20, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
3. Panel: Myth and Mythology in SF&F. Sat, Feb 21, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
4. Reading: from the forthcoming novel and a few of my other published works, Sat, Feb 21, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

If you want to write fiction, you’ll want to attend the workshop. And if you’ve attended the workshop before, know that I’ve made some significant updates to the workshop content for 2009. I’m always learning, and so each time I teach this I’m able to provide more insight.

You’ll also want to carefully review the whole schedule. There are tons of panels with professional authors on them that are going to be both useful and interesting to writers.

My workshop focuses on three incredibly important things.  In the beginning, I didn’t know these key things, and that ignorance stymied all my writing efforts for years. Once I learned them, the way was opened. There was still a lot of work involved. But these principles increased my output of quality material 1000% (literally). The principles allowed me to write the story that got me my current three-book contract from Tor.

I’ve taught it now more than a dozen times to all sorts of fiction writers and they’re telling me they’re finding it very useful. You’re going to love this stuff, and I always enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with other writers. The three things are:

1. What a story really is. We’re not talking narrative taxonomy, although that’s included. It’s focused on the story effect upon the reader. And why this is one of the most important things you need to understand when writing fiction.
2. Parts & principles. Key principles of character, problem, plot, setting, and text as they relate to #1.
3. The creative process. The simple but powerful principles of how to get ideas. How to develop them into story. Why writer’s block is a gift and how to use it to produce MORE. Plus a number of other creative principles I wished I’d known.

It’s a highly interactive workshop. Again, the whole symposium, including the workshop, is free. I don’t know another place where you can learn from so many professionals for such a great price.

Hope to see you there!!