Creating and Developing Believable Characters (Holly Day)

This seminar will meet online for one session on Saturday, June 28 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM.

Description:

Having strong and believable characters is the difference between writing a story that stays flat on the page and one that comes alive in your readers’ heads. In this fun- fast-paced workshop, we’ll cover:

• How to generate random characters when you’re blocked
• How to build a believable setting around your character
• How genre and setting influence character development
• How to introduce a character’s background and priorities seamlessly
• Staying organized and motivated

We’ll also do some in-class writing exercises using the techniques we’ll cover and share what we’ve written in class. There will be time for questions and discussion throughout and again at the end. Post-seminar, the instructor will also take up to 5 single-spaced emailed pages per student for in-depth feedback and critique. 

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.