Live Seminar Via Zoom Tuesday, July 8th, 2025

The class will meet 7PM - 9:00PM EST

Taught by Karen E. Bender, author of two collections: Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and Longlisted for the Story prize, and The New Order, which was Longlisted for the Story prize. A new collection is forthcoming. Her novels are Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Story, Guernica, and others, have been reprinted in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery stories and won three Pushcart prizes.

Get to know Karen in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

You hear it often in a workshop--show, don't tell! Effective narratives use both showing (using scene) and summary (telling, using exposition) to tell a story.

In this class, we will go over ways that writers use scene in a story. We will spend the first 45 minutes going over stories that use scene effectively, showing how writers use dialogue, gesture, and thought in a scene, how to create a scenic moment, and how summary and scene work together.

The next hour we will do generative exercises trying out different ways of using summary and exposition for fiction or memoir.

We will be examining works by writers including Ernest Hemingway, JD Salinger, Edward P. Jones, Octavia Butler, Raymond Carver, and Shirley Jackson. Get ready to create some effective, vivid scenes for your work. 

You'll leave class with a better understanding of how to construct scenes in your stories.

Can't Make It Live?

No problem! The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.

• Master the Balance Between Scene and Summary: Learn how to strategically use both scenic elements (showing) and exposition (telling) to create compelling narratives that engage readers and advance your story.
  
• Develop Essential Scene-Building Techniques: Acquire practical skills for crafting effective scenes through dialogue, gesture, and thought, with guidance from award-winning author Karen E. Bender and examples from masters like Hemingway, Butler, and Jackson.
  
• Apply Scene-Crafting Methods to Your Work: Through guided generative exercises, practice different approaches to scene construction that you can immediately implement in your fiction or memoir writing.
  
• Analyze Scene Construction in Literary Works: Gain insights by examining how acclaimed authors construct memorable scenes, helping you develop a critical eye that will enhance your own writing process and revision skills.

COURSE EXPECTATIONS: 

We'll review the different ways authors use scenes to build stories and then write generative exercises to practice these methods. Students should come to class ready to write and will have opportunities to share work if they would like. Students will leave the class with various techniques to convey scenes through these new craft techniques.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Karen E. Bender
  
• Live Seminar Via Zoom on Tuesday, July 8th, 2025
• 7PM - 9PM EST

• Can't Make It Live? No problem! The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.

• Tuition is $75.

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this seminar.