Character is the foundation of most of the finest stories, novels and memoirs. Even in developing other elements of prose – point of view, dialogue, plot, setting, theme – all roads run through character. In this workshop we’ll create characters from the ground up, sketching out their particular habits, guises, desires, fears, and impediments, reading examples by established writers. We’ll close-read scenes and follow the arc of character development and also workshop our own stories, both short and long. Come ready to build your own character-driven stories, and bring along examples of a few of your favorite characters in literature to share with the group.
Building Characters, Building Fiction:
A Fiction Workshop
Dates: 8 Mondays, September 11-October 30
Time: 7-9 pm
Instructor: Porter Shreve
Ages: Adult
Maximum Enrollment: 9
Genre: Fiction
Price: $495
Porter Shreve is the author of four novels. The Obituary Writer was a New York Times Notable Book. Drives Like a Dream and When the White House Was Ours were Chicago Tribune Books of the Year. And his latest, The End of the Book, published in 2014, was a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Shreve has coedited six anthologies and published fiction, nonfiction, Op-Eds, and book reviews in many magazines and newspapers. He has been interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition and the Diane Rehm Show, among other programs, and has taught at a number of universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon, Purdue, St. Mary’s, and the University of San Francisco.
More about Porter: www.portershreve.com