Digging Deep: A Fiction Workshop

VF01Beginning Tuesday, January 20, I’m teaching an 8-week fiction workshop at WriterHouse in Charlottesville that I call Digging Deep.

My thinking is that writers–if they’re like me–tend to be lazy. They probably realize that a first draft isn’t good enough, but they aren’t willing to do the really hard work, the digging, when it comes to revision. That first sentence? Is it really doing all the work that it could be doing? That second sentence? Do you really need that dangling modifier? Is that the word you really want there? Does your setting add to the plot or theme? What do these characters do for the story?

We’re going to read some classic stories, starting with “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” which is outstanding on so many levels, and we’ll move on to contemporary stories from Best American Short Stories 2014. Plus, it’s a workshop, so we’ll take out our magnifying glasses to examine student work.

Should be fun.

 

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