Making Your Characters Physically Present on the Page — Two-Hour Online Multigenre Craft Talk with Robert Anthony Siegel on Wednesday, April 28th, 2027
Making Your Characters Physically Present on the Page: Craft Talk | April 2027 Online
Making Your Characters Physically Present on the Page: A Two-Hour Multigenre Craft Talk with Robert Anthony Siegel
Live Seminar via Zoom on Wednesday, April 28, 2027
Class will meet 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM ET
🌍 Class Times by Time Zone:
- Los Angeles (PDT): 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
- Chicago (CDT): 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
- New York (EDT): 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Can't make it live? No problem. The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.
Now Enrolling!
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button to talk with us.
Instructor Robert Anthony Siegel is the author of a memoir, Criminals, and two novels, All Will Be Revealed and All the Money in the World. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Paris Review, The Drift, The Oxford American, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2023, O. Henry Stories 2014, and Pushcart Prize XXXVI. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop.
Who is this class for?
This online writing class is open to all levels of experience and all genres. Fiction writers, memoirists, essayists, and poets are all welcome. No preparation needed. Just come to class ready to write, explore, and share.
What to expect:
In real life, we observe the people around us to understand what they are thinking and feeling. Facial expression, body language, clothing and other forms of adornment all convey deep and meaningful information about the person in front of us.
But what comes naturally in real life can be maddeningly hard to reproduce on the page. How do you make your characters vividly, physically present in your writing? How do you use their looks to reveal their personalities? This two-hour craft talk is designed to help.
Through a mixture of lecture, discussion, and creative exercises, this multigenre craft talk will show you how to capture a character's physical presence on the page, using all aspects of appearance to convey the thought and emotion underneath. We will start by reading outstanding examples from published work and discussing the many ways people in real life reveal themselves through their looks. Afterwards, we will do a series of descriptive exercises that can be utilized in an ongoing project or can become the basis of a new one.
What are the writing goals?
In this two-hour Zoom writing class, students will draft a series of short character descriptions through guided in-class exercises, with time to share work and hear responses from Robert and the group. You will leave with a set of descriptive techniques you can apply immediately to a work in progress, and a handful of new character sketches that can seed a new piece.
COURSE OUTLINE
Part 1: Reading and discussion. We read outstanding examples of physical description from published work across genres and discuss the many ways people reveal themselves through their looks, from facial expression and body language to clothing and adornment.
Part 2: Descriptive exercises. A series of short, guided writing exercises that put those techniques to work, producing character descriptions you can fold into an ongoing project or use as the basis of a new one.
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Techniques for making your characters physically present on the page
- Strategies for using a character's appearance to reveal personality, thought, and emotion
- A series of short character descriptions that can be utilized in an ongoing project, or can become the basis of a new one
- A recording of the full session to revisit after the seminar concludes
TESTIMONIALS:
"Full of richly drawn characters and jolting plot twists—Glasser's time behind bars is especially chilling—Siegel's debut novel works both as a parable of how quickly the high and mighty can fall, and as gripping drama. 'Money' well spent." — New York Post on All the Money in the World
"Early in this novel, there is a wonderful scene—rich with embarrassment—in which Louis Glasser, the altogether unlikely hero, helps his Harvard-educated son buy a new suit. The son's fortunes founder, but that's nothing compared to the perils that overwhelm his father—a lawyer who operates on the margins and becomes the target of a criminal investigation. Siegel's … portraits (loving and otherwise) of the Glassers, New York prosecutors, and various lowlifes are right on the money." — The New Yorker on All the Money in the World
"...Well-turned and elegant...Gloriously complex..." — Atlanta Journal-Constitution on All Will Be Revealed
"...A richly detailed and seedily seductive narrative." — Publishers Weekly on All Will Be Revealed
"Robert's unique skill as a teacher comes from his enthusiasm not only for talking, which is present in many talented professors, but for listening... He has a reputation for being the best kind of teacher: generous, knowledgeable, demanding, and always at the ready with excellent advice." — Former Student
"The level of discourse was challenging and interesting and I think part of the reason for that was the casual atmosphere of discussion, fostered by Robert. When people are allowed to speak in an open, non-threatening environment, wonderful things happen." — Former Student
PAYMENT OPTIONS:
Tuition is $99 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.
ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:
- Instructor: Robert Anthony Siegel
- Live Seminar via Zoom on Wednesday, April 28, 2027
- Class will meet 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM ET
- Tuition is $99 USD.