Join the official Moore/Norman National Novel Writing Month group for two months of planning, plotting, and novel writing! Bring your notebooks, laptops, typewriters, or clay tablets and come prepared to write. Join us every Sunday in October to learn and practice everything you need for a successful November: plotting, characterization, worldbuilding, and other pre-NaNoWriMo essentials. Starting in November, you’ll be putting words on the page and gaining the tools to write your first draft.
Workshops are open to all ages, so please keep everything PG-13. (Children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult.)
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October 2: Guest Author Collette Carmon’s Making Character and Conflict with Tarot
Join guest author Collette Carmon as she teaches us to use the Major Arcana to create compelling characters and establish relationships, all with the flip of a few cards.
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October 9: Worldbuilding
Come and learn the basics of creating a consistent and believable world that will make your stories come alive. Practice creating geography, ecology, and culture that serves your plot, and learn how to weave these elements together in believable ways. (And perhaps most importantly, learn when to stop worldbuilding and start writing!)
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October 16: Guest Author Vickey Malone Kennedy’s The ABCs of Outlining: Outlining in 5 or 15 easy steps
Join guest author Vickey Malone Kennedy to learn how to outline your story and how to use story structure as a support, not a prison.
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October 23: Main Characters/POV
What does your character want, and what do they need? This week, we will learn how to create a unique main character with an engaging voice. We will also discuss how to determine which point of view (first person, third person, etc) is best for your story.
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October 30: Defeating Writer’s Block and Overcoming First Draft Fears
November is almost here! This week, join us to learn strategies for breaking through writer’s block and finishing your first draft!
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November 6: How to increase your writing speed
Bring your laptop, notebook, typewriter, or clay tablet, and be prepared to write! This week, we will practice improving your writing speed and developing strategies for increasing your hourly wordcount.
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November 13: Writing stimulus/response units
Bring your laptop, notebook, typewriter, or clay tablet, and be prepared to write! In this week’s workshop, we will practice writing the basic unit of scene structure, the stimulus/response unit. Learn how to move your characters through a scene and keep your story going!
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November 20: Scene/sequel structure
Bring your laptop, notebook, typewriter, or clay tablet, and be prepared to write! This week we will be learning how to organize our stories into scenes and sequels. This structure will let our characters clearly communicate their goals to the reader and express their emotions in ways that move the story forward.
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November 27: Climax structures
Bring your laptop, notebook, typewriter, or clay tablet, and be prepared to write! November is almost over, and it’s time to learn about endings. Join us to learn how to write exciting and satisfying conclusions to your stories.
