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March 2012 Workshop
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Where the Streets Have No Name: How Setting Shapes our Characters
Instructor: Sherry Peters
When: March 1-31, 2012
Cost: $20 for HCRW and Carolina Romance Writers Members, $25 for All Others
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
This workshop is designed to teach writers to use the physical and cultural environment of a novel, to influence the personality of the characters and add depth to the characters and their conflicts.
The lessons will cover:
Introduction of the class
Political culture, using Northern Ireland, U.S. and Canadian political systems as prime examples
Religious culture, discussing the essential traits of dominant religions and smaller sects and their influences upon a person's beliefs
Financial and economic circumstances, both economic status and personal financial beliefs
Cultural influences of music, sports, and cultural celebrations
Wrap-Up and Q & A
Supporting exercises will be used to reinforce the lessons, developing setting and character. I plan to give individual feedback on the exercises and on any questions submitted by the participants throughout the workshop. Three lessons will be posted each week with time allocated in between lessons for homework.
INSTRUCTOR BIO
Sherry Peters lives in Winnipeg, where she spends her days working at St John's College at the University of Manitoba, and her evenings and weekends writing. Sherry graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2005 and earned her M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in 2009. She credits the year she spent in Northern Ireland as not only being one of the best years of her life, but for being a daily inspiration and motivation in her writing. For more information on Sherry and her workshop, please visit her website at www.dwarvenamazon.com.
April 2012 Workshop
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Steamed Up: The Anatomy of Writing Steampunk
Instructor: Beth Daniels, aka Beth Henderson, J.B. Dane (and Nied Darnell)
When: April 1-30, 2012
Cost: $20 for HCRW and Carolina Romance Writers Members, $25 for All Others
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Toss another shovel full of coal on the fire, it’s time to get steamed up with steam punk, one of the newest “societies” around.
What qualifies it as a society? Let’s see, there are graphic novels, jewelry, apparel, home accessories, music, movies, video games, roll playing games, and, oh, yeah, novels all circling around the essence of steampunk. And if you loved the Robert Downey Jr. SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, enjoy Victorian settings or alternative history in your reading material, and a touch of the paranormal or magic, steampunk may be just up your alley…or mews. It could certainly intrigue your writing muse!
Now, while you may decide to reconfigure your computer to look like it was produced by a 19th century craftsman or want to don Victorian styled clothing when you sit down before it (in a comfy winged and tufted armchair, of course), if you are intrigued by steampunk’s growing popularity and are thinking of swinging aboard this particular locomotive, there are a few…well, quite a few, really…elements to take into consideration.
And that’s what this workshop aims to do.
We’ll look at the basic requirements for any steampunk tale. We’ll consider what’s been published, what’s been filmed, where to search out the historical data necessary, how to warp it into what we need it to be, and…well, get ourselves really steamed up over writing what looks to be a very promising land for new manuscripts.
There will be lists and lists and lists of books to read, be they the current crop of steampunk titles or the classics upon which the concept is founded – does the name Jules Verne ring a bell? Considering how “new” the genre appears to be, it’s been around in graphic novels, movies, and television series since before the 1980s. And in fantasy novels even longer. Steampunk is basically alternative history, taking inventions out of their time period and plunking them down in another, in time travel, the paranormal world, and in magic.
And because the setting is frequently (but not always) Victorian England, things can get shrouded in fog. But that’s what this workshop aims to do: clear the fog over the anatomy of a steampunk novel, and create a visual guideline on how to write steampunk fiction.
The workshop would run four weeks with two lectures per week. Assignments would revolve around feedback from participants as they read steampunk, watch steampunk, submerge themselves in steampunk. And there will be lists of research materials, novels, available videos, websites, magazines, all dealing with steampunk to aid writers as they dive into the genre.
Writing level for the workshop is varied, only enthusiasm for new market opportunities is required.
INSTRUCTOR BIO
Beth Daniels currently writes fiction as Beth Henderson and J.B. Dane, though she answered to Lisa Dane and Beth Cruise in the past as well. She has worked with editors at Berkley, Zebra, Leisure, Harlequin/Silhouette, and Simon and Schuster's Aladdin Paperbacks, done e-books for a now defunct company (not her fault, she says), and began her writing life with hardcover books slated for library use with a publisher that got out of the romance business (again, not her fault). More recently she’s had a number of articles about writing picked up by e-zines, saw a short story published in a mystery and suspense magazine that turned up its toes the next year (really, really not her fault), and has a story in the MOTHER GOOSE IS DEAD anthology from Damnation Books. She is also the author of WRITING STEAMPUNK, and co-author of LOVING TRIXIE FINE, a Babyboomer romantic fantasy comedic mystery adventure.
For over a dozen years Beth taught college level composition, both in the classroom and online, and a credit course on Novel Writing. Given a choice, she’d rather be talking about writing fiction.
Twenty-eight of Beth’s manuscripts have appeared in print or e-book format, and in 12 different languages in over 20 countries. At the moment she is working on various manuscripts, some fiction, some non-fiction but related to writing. AND attempting to finish a growing number of Steampunk tales that she hasn’t quite brought to a close yet. Doing research and dreaming up new fantastical, adventurous disasters is simply too much fun to let them go.
Websites: www.RomanceAndMystery.com and www.WRITINGSTEAMPUNK.vpweb.com Blog: www.2Write2Write2Write.blogspot.com and at the WRITING STEAMPUNK website
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