Retreat Format
We will have morning sessions daily from 10 to 1:00 devoted to the study of advanced fiction concepts, discussion of marketing and publishing issues, and the completion of in-class writing exercises. Afternoons are for writing, exploring Provence, eating steak frites, and meeting with Andy and Susan. Evenings from 5 to 7:30 are dedicated to feedback sessions during which writers will share their work.
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Curriculum
What narrative techniques will you study during this intensive?
- How to create a literary—as opposed to simply commercial—narrative by developing two interdependent plots, external and internal.
- How to create a charismatic point of view character whose complexity and quest keeps readers turning the page.
- How to build a dramatic scene in logical steps and layers using literary criteria.
- How to access an accessible narrative voice–witty, metaphysically perceptive, trustworthy, self-examining, verbally original, honest, and fearless.
- How to craft relevant and engaging three-part dialogue which forwards both external and internal plots and illustrates the theme
- How to create magical imagery which brings the reader—and writer—inside a setting.
- How to unify a writing project with narrative threads and a recurring leitmotif.
- How to access the most meaningful, complex, and original themes beating at the heart of your project.
And that’s before lunch!
Who are some of our models in this workshop?
How about the writer whose novel was voted the best novel of the 20th Century?
Why not the writer of a great French classic?
William Faulkner
What about the great American author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Then we have a living author who has who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.