Month: October 2013

David Corbett Workshop

My local chapter of RWA and Sisters in Crime are presenting one day workshop next Saturday in the Des Moines area. If you are close, you don’t want to miss this one.

Join Iowa Romance Novelists for a one day workshop with Edgar-nominated author, David Corbett as he presents: The Art Of Character.

Date: Saturday, November 2, 2013 from 10am – 4pm

Place: Des Moines Area Community College, Building 7, Ankeny, Iowa.

Cost: $40 – College Students, IRN members, SINC-Iowa members

$60 – groups of 10+

$75 – All Others

         (LUNCH IS INCLUDED!!)

Description:  In this workshop, David Corbett will guide students through the five stages of characterization he details in his critically acclaimed new book,The Art of Character. With the goal of helping students apply these techniques specifically to their own works in progress, he will lead the class through exercises that:

* Explore unique and compelling ways to conceive the character from the outset.

* Enrich the character through examination of one’s own personal experience.

* Deepen the portrayal by exploring the five essential qualities of compelling
characterization.

* Create character biographies that rely on dramatic scenes, not descriptive
information.

* Explore the interaction of the character and her role in the story, especially the

protagonist.

* Develop techniques for rendering the character on the page: point of view, voice,

dialog.

Register:  http://iowaromancenovelists.org/workshops or, for more information, email: iowaromnovel@yahoo.com

“Corbett has been quietly crafting some of the best novels of the new millennium. Human characters and tragic consequences. Corbett is one of the giants of tomorrow.”

   —Bookspot Central

For more information about David Corbett, check out his website at:
http://www.davidcorbett.com/

What can I say?

Have to apologize. This summer got away from me. I have been dealing with some health issues and have let my blog and my writing slide. I haven’t totally quit writing. I have been trying to develop a new story. I got no where with it.

I am feeling better and now I am getting that old desire to sit in front of my computer for hours and make up things. My idea I have been struggling with doesn’t seem to want to come together but I do have one of my stories that I abandoned that seems to be calling me. It has some characters that I love and when I shared them with my critique group in the past, they seemed to like them too.

Take the Sweet Home Alabama premise, toss in a couple little old ladies from Keokuk Iowa who like to play the slots, a female impersonator named Merci and set it in Vegas. That is what I will be working on for the next few months. I managed to outline the story from beginning to end and have started writing. I have only a couple scenes that I will use from when I worked on it before. One where the heroine meets Agnes and Frieda on the plane to Vegas. Their seats get mixed up and the two old women are sitting on either side of the heroine. She offers to switch seats but one of them says that they couldn’t do that. If the plane crashed they wouldn’t be able to identify them. Freida is shorter and has a matronly figure. Agnes is thin and was once a looker. Agnes has outlived three husbands so far. Each one left her a little better off financially.

I had a chance to pitch this story to a couple agents a few years ago and got some positive feedback.

Plan to blog at least once a week. I won’t be doing Nano this year but I am part of a closed online group with an author friend so will be participating in our own November Writing Camp. I have already decided what my goal is. We just post our progress and chat. It’s fun and less stress.

If you are planning to do Nano, I wish you luck and happy writing.

Until next time.

Virginia

%d bloggers like this: