Tuesday, January 1, 2013

March workshops for the writer in you!

HI everyone! I hope you had a great New Year's Eve. Hard to believe we are in another year. I hope 2013 is good to you and you are successful in all you do.

If you are a writer, then I have a few classes to tell you about that may help you achieve your goal of becoming a better writer or maybe you just need help finishing a book.

The workshops offered below are sponsored by Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. Celtic Hearts is affiliated with RWA and they specialize in ALL things Celtic. For more information about this group, please visit their web site. I am a member of this group and they have been very helpful to me in my writing career.

HERE ARE THE WORKSHOPS BEING OFFERED FOR MARCH!
Workshops are open to everyone. Cost is $15 for CHRW members and $20 for non-members. All CHRW members receive one free workshop a year.


March 2012 Class #1 (4 weeks March 5th thru 30th)
Creating the Perfect Predator
Instructor: LD Madison

Are all killers the same? Are all rapists motivated by the same things? Surprisingly, the answer is a resounding NO. Even though we'd like to think that all criminals are crazy or simply evil, they are complex creatures as varied and three-dimensional as the heroes we love.

Creating the Perfect Predator the perfect place to start your journey into the recesses of your villain's mind and psyche. Learn how they became the way they are, why they do thing heinous things they do – and what they get out of it.

The four-week workshop is for authors at all levels of writing experience. There are no specific 'prerequisites' other than an open-mind, and a desire to create spine-chilling, believable predators. The workshop is meant to be an overview of criminals and predators – not just killers. It will include the psychology of rapists, arsonists, cult leaders and pedophiles – as well as a strategy for the hero/heroine to find and catch the villain.

Workshop Schedule:
Introduction to Creating a Believable Predator
Profiling – What to look for
Killers – Are they all the same?
Arsonists – A Burning Obsession
Rapists – Who Rapes and Why They Do It
Pedophiles – Are They All the Same?
Mob Organizations and Gangs
Cult and Satanic Crimes – Fool Me Once
How Does Your Hero Catch Them?
Conclusion – Wrap Up and Q&A

Instructor Bio:
LD has been writing and researching criminal behavior and subcultures for the past ten years. In addition to publishing erotic romances, LD has a degree in organizational psychology, and is currently working on a graduate degree in criminology.

REGISTER TODAY



March 2012 Class #2 (2 weeks March 19th thru 30th)
Class #2: Navigating through the Mechanics of Writing Dialogue
Instructor: MM The Queen of English

Think about writing dialogue for a minute. Commas, periods, and quotation marks come to mind quickly, but these aren't the only marks you'll use.

Do you know how to decide if a question mark goes inside or outside the quotation marks? When do you use dashes and ellipses? Are they interchangeable?

Dialogue has other issues than just punctuation. Those tags –Should you use them at all? What if you put the person's name to whom the dialogue is directed at the beginning of each line of dialogue? Can you get rid of tags that way?

What about breaking up the dialogue? Your editor, your friend, or the book you're reading says that you shouldn't have large tracts of dialogue. How do you do that?

The Queen of English will answer these questions and many others related to good dialogue written correctly.

Each lesson will have an assignment. If you complete and return all to the Queen, she'll copy edit 1000 words of your writing.

Instructor Bio:
As an English teacher for fifteen years and as a line editor for Black Velvet Seductions for the past two years, MM the Queen of English has had the mission to find and correct ungrammatical grammar, misused usage, problematic punctuation, and poor writing in others' work.

MM has helped many writers improve their language and writing skills through her fun workshops. Yes, punctuation can be fun! She has presented or will present workshops on Writers Online Classes, Novelists at Work, Savvy Authors, Orange County RWA, and Passionate Ink, just to name a few. The Queen is sure she can help you, too, master the fundamentals of English composition.

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