Begins Wednesday, January 29th, 2025

The class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 5:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Scott O'Connor is the author of three novels—Untouchable, Half World, and Zero Zone—as well as the short story collection A Perfect Universe: Ten Stories. Untouchable won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and Scott has been shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Story Prize. Their nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The Paris Review. As a screenwriter, Scott has written for Universal Studios and FOX network. They are also currently serving as a judge for this year's LA Times Book Prizes.

Every story happens somewhere, and that somewhere matters. Setting is a seed that generates story, reveals character, and creates meaning.

In this generative workshop, we'll read and discuss powerful uses of setting and engage with sensory writing exercises, cultivating that seed to bloom throughout your work.

Whether you're looking at a blank page for the first time, or trying desperately to revise your third novel, this generative workshop is designed for writers at every level of experience.

We'll start with close reading and discussion of setting examples that help generate worlds (real and imagined), characters, and plot. We'll look at what these writers do well and talk about ways to incorporate those techniques into our own writing. Then we'll put those techniques into play.

Through a series of exercises, we'll create settings to help discover and enrich our characters, reveal conflicts and motivations, and move our stories forward.

Scott will provide pieces from: "The Cutting Season" by Attica Locke, "South and West" by Joan Didion, "Divisadero" by Michael Ondaatje, "The Flamethrowers" by Rachel Kushner, and others.

COURSE OUTLINE:

• Week 1: Focus on close reading and how setting can create character. We'll start by reading and discussing work from Rachel Kushner, Michael Ondaatje, Attica Locke, and Joan Didion. In what ways does their writing about setting create a strong sense of place while also revealing character and furthering the story? Then we'll have two generative writing exercises, putting some of those techniques into action for ourselves, focusing on how setting can reveal some of our characters' deepest secrets and strongest motivations.
• Week 2: Focus on how setting leads to story and plot. We'll discuss last week's exercises: what excited us about this kind of writing, and where we want to take it further. Then we'll dive into more exercises building on last week's work, focusing on how setting combined with character can generate story and plot possibilities.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• A clear sense of how writing about place generates other story elements.
• A new toolkit of techniques to help use setting to create and deepen those elements.
• At least three or four new pieces of writing they can incorporate into your existing work or use as the basis for new work.
• Experience in how to look for the ways other writers use setting as the seed that blooms throughout a novel or story.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $150 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

• Instructor: Scott O'Connor
  
• Class begins Wednesday, January 29th, 2025  
• The class will meet weekly via Zoom on Wednesdays, 5:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific 
  
• Tuition is $150 USD
  

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