Lynne Golodner is the author of nine books and thousands of articles as well as a marketing entrepreneur, writing coach and host of the Make Meaning Podcast. After working as a journalist in New York and Washington, D.C., Lynne returned to Detroit. She helps authors create writing careers, book marketing strategies and finish book projects. In 2023, Lynne founded Scotia Road Books, an independent publishing imprint for women over 40. Lynne’s writing has appeared in 45^th Parallel, Moment Magazine, Great Lakes Review, Saveur, the Chicago Tribune, Better Homes and Gardens, Midwest Living, the Detroit Free Press, Porridge Magazine, the Jewish Literary Journal, The Good Life Review, Hadassah Magazine, The Forward, Valiant Scribe, Story Unlikely, The Dillydoun Review, QuibbleLit, bioStories and YourTango, among many more publications. Plus, one of her essays was a finalist in the Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction contest at Bellingham Review.

In this six-week class for beginning writers, or writers returning after a long time away from the creative page, we’ll look at where to start, how to build confidence, understanding voice, and embracing genre. Writing is a patience-game and demands perseverance. Plus, if you don’t believe you’ve got what it takes to build a compelling story, you’ll never do it. This class weaves exercises in self-belief with practical writing exercises along with lessons in structure, narrative arc and the elements and details that make good writing.

Class sessions will include writing to prompt and the option to share work. Participants will be able to submit work for feedback twice during the course.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week One: In this session we will begin with introductions and build a class community, engage in brainstorming/free-writing exercises & discuss cultivating topics to write about from our own lives. We’ll look at genre and writing goals as well as explore what commonly stops beginning writers from expanding their skills and creating new material.

Week Two: In this session, we will talk about the importance of a writing practice and support from a writing community and explore how each participant can build that for accountability. We’ll talk about how to generate material first and then focus it into form and genre second, and how to approach revision, which is 80% of writing. We’ll write to prompt to generate new material.

Week Three: Halfway through the course, we’ll look at the building blocks of good writing: solid scenes, made up of details, dialogue and action. We’ll practice cultivating the details that build scenes and read compelling scenes by other writers as examples to inspire us. We’ll write to prompt to generate new material and practice what we learn in the lesson.

Week Four: In this session, we’ll go expand on what we learned in week three, going deeper into details, dialogue and action and building more complex and compelling scenes. We will again read examples and deconstruct how the writer succeeds in creating compelling passages, and we’ll write to prompte to practice what we learn.

Week Five: This session will focus on narrative arc and structure along with the importance of either transformation or a common thread unifying a piece of writing. We will read examples that do this exceptionally well and assess what the writer did to achieve cohesion – with the understanding that this is a learned and practiced skill. We will practice what we learn by writing to prompt.

Week Six: In our final session, we will discuss the purpose of writing, how to gather the courage to consider publishing pieces, and how to know when a piece of writing is ready to go out into the world. Participants will have an opportunity to share something they have written during the course and ask final questions about where to go next to continue their momentum.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Build courage and confidence to write creatively and consider publishing
• Generate new work from writing prompts
• Learn how to build scenes to create compelling writing using details, dialogue and action
• Experiment with structure and theme to learn about narrative arc
• Gain insight into what it takes to create cohesive, compelling writing
• Embrace the idea that writing is 80% revision and learn how to revise with a keen eye
• Submit up to 2 pieces for instructor feedback
• Share writing during class
• Grow a repertoire of writing habits and a written body of work