Creating and Working Off Outlines in Fiction (Holly Day)

This seminar will meet online for one session on June 14 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM.

Description:

Have you ever had a great idea for a short story but had no idea how to get started or how to reach the end? In this workshop, we’ll cover:

• Creating outlines for your stories, and how outlining can banish writer’s block
• How to use an outline to guide your writing and not constrain it
• How character and setting change a story
• Following outlines from beginning to end
• Staying organized and motivated

We’ll also do a couple of writing exercises in class using basic short story structure and some of the outlining practices we’ll cover in class and share what we’ve written to see how each unique writer has interpreted the outline presented.

About the Instructor:

Holly Day has worked as a freelance writer for over 35 years, with over 7,000 published articles, poems, and short stories and 40 books and chapbooks—most recently, the nonfiction books, Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Tattoo FAQ, and History Lover’s Guide to Minneapolis; and the poetry books, A Book of Beasts (Weasel Press), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Press), Bound in Ice (Shanti Arts Publishing), and Cross-Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing). Her writing has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, a 49th Parallel Prize, an Isaac Asimov Award, multiple Pushcart awards, and a Rhysling Award, and she has received two Midwest Writer’s Grants, a Plainsongs Award, the Sam Ragan Prize for Poetry, and the Dwarf Star Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She currently works as a freelance content writer for Hunter & Bard and as a writing instructor at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and the Richard Hugo House in Seattle.