Description
When we say, “tell me a story,” what we really mean is transport me to another place and time where something interesting—maybe even captivating—is happening, and we want to experience it right along with the characters. We want to get to know the characters—what they look like, their voices—through their actions and behavior. We want to be grounded in a place, at a particular time. It isn’t just in novels and short stories we want all this. Readers these days expect these storytelling qualities in our memoirs as well.
In this workshop, we’ll learn how to apply techniques good fiction writers use to shape their stories and reveal their characters. We use storytelling techniques from fiction—character, plot, setting, description, dialogue, and scene—because we want to create a world a reader can enter and experience fully. John Gardner calls this “a dream.” The elements and techniques of fiction enable us to create this dream, including the characters who live in it. Author Adair Lara wrote: “We want experience, not explanation.”
