Video/Audio/Text

Video/Audio/Text

Plot

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Weekly newsletters

Text lesson

Is this really a good idea?

Text lesson

On what Tolkien does not explain

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Frodo doesn't want to leave!

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A mix of tension and release

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Just go ahead and rescue them!

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Newsletters for The Age of Innocence

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How quickly can you bring in plot threads?

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Is your protagonist facing away from the story?

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Learn scene structure from chapter five of this novel

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On raising the stakes, and why a good plot is like a cone

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Can you make your protagonist WORSE?

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On the danger of side character led plotting

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Ah!!! It's so powerful!

Newsletters

Text lesson

What do you think about the opening of this novel? (Reminder to keep the conversation mostly positive)

Text lesson

How to design an admirable character

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The power of keeping care going

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Use this technique to prep your reader!

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How to make your exposition fly by the reader...

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Could you use a "state-level" POV in your novel?

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The challenges of the "staggered enterprise"

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What did you think of the surprises in the final chapter?

Video lessons

Video lesson

The exuberant style of AGIM

Newsletters

Text lesson

The dragon's toe!

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Hint more, explain less

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The power of layered, gradual description -- and a comment about accents.

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On ambivalence

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On combining two plot-lines -- its explosive power

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Steps to the impossible and the power of myth making

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On the amazing style of the final battle

Audio Lessons

2 Chapters

Newsletters

Text lesson

Making bad things bad -- in three steps

Text lesson

The amazing shift in David's fortunes and how Stevenson makes it work

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Varieties of tension

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How music can deepen a scene

Audio Lessons

Audio lesson

Newsletters

Text lesson

The benefit of "storytelling highways"

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The four-beat clue

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The power of deepening scenes

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The beats of suspicion and the wheel of emotion

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On "earning your pages" with flashbacks

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How Feeney sequences the ending of this novel

Discussion

Newsletters

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Text lesson

All about the power of repetition

Audio lesson
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On "relationship oxygen"

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The "hidden reveal" and its dangers

Newsletters

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The value of a talkative narrator

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Omniscient narrators and reticent characters

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Don't believe all the craft advice you hear!

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The power of simple chapter jumps

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Can your story shift at the halfway point?

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Repetition and variation

Zoom Recordings

Video lesson

Newsletters

Text lesson

Three questions about RWD so far...

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How many questions does your opening page introduce?

Text lesson

How does the style of the opening of CF prepare us for the kind of narrator we are listening to?

Text lesson

How to design a protagonist who is both clever but also missing the point?

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When you have a first person protagonist, you should really go for it!

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What is "bad" mystery and why should you be careful about it?

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How to write a good argument scene

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The ending of the novel seems to suggest: themes and big picture stuff should happen at the end of your novel, not the start.

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Several members of the group wanted to talk more about unreliable narrators in CF. Let's discuss!

Introductions and Resources

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Newsletters

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Let's talk about the book! (I have guidelines)

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What strikes you about the setting?

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The real plot and the fake real plot

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The other uses of the "little plot"

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On foreshadowing and "prior scenes"

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How did you react to…??

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How to rescue a stuck protagonist, two ways.

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How to entice readers to read book two of your series

Zoom recordings and audio files

Audio lesson

My response to a question from members of RWD: it seems like Jade City has a lot of "plot." Do all novels need a plot? Does my novel need to have a plot like this?

Audio lesson

The biggest concern many of us have had with Jade City -- the characters don't seem to be very "relatable." Don't novels need to provide us with fictional people we can connect to?

Text lesson

A code of content for this experience

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Say hello by answering these three questions

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Time to get a copy of Jade City, by Fonda Lee

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How I'm planning to handle content that readers may find upsetting or offensive.

Newsletters

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This is why I don't think writers should worry about "theme."

Text lesson

Read the story. Then re-read the first page.

About the Teacher

Daniel

Daniel is the host of this reading club. Welcome!

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