Self-edit your manuscript, tighten up your language, and cut down on unnecessary words. Focus on the problems in your syntax—which words to delete, what words are weak, how to keep POV and tense consistent, where to use action beats or dialogue tags, and when your sentences are too sticky and need to be rewritten.

Guide writers through the nuances of subgenres and new age/ modern work. Focus on the nuances of music as words. Focus on characters musically adept, interested in music, have a sing-songy personality, express dynamism in action, and so on. Focus on writing climactic rise and fall in a plot line that feel like music.

Words, words, words. Most writers finish a manuscript with more than they need, and an unchecked word count can hold a story back. In this presentation, you’ll learn why word count matters and the most effective techniques for tightening both story and prose—whether you need to cut 50,000 words or 500.

Author style sheets are essential to ensure that you have consistency in your writing, from personal decisions on punctuation preferences to capitalization and spelling variations and everything in between. This class covers everything you need to know about style sheets, the benefits of them, and how to create your own.

Want to write a first chapter that instantly draws in your readers? You have exactly one chapter to leave your mark. Come learn the essential elements that will ground your reader into your scene, attach them to your character, and launch them into a story that makes your reader desperate to get their hands on chapter 2.

Great stories resonate when characters face the same inner battles readers do. Explore how to build powerful themes by taking characters on an emotional journey—from a deep-seated misbelief to hard-earned truth. Learn how to build character growth by layering lessons that culminate in a climactic moment of transformation.

Deepen your characterization, strengthen your prose, and craft immersive scenes using action beats and free indirect speech. Learn what they are, when to use them, and pitfalls to avoid. With clear examples and before-and-afters, you’ll master tools that enhance tension, interiority, and narrative distance.

Build a magic system you can actually use. This class guides you step-by-step through defining rules, costs, limits, and story impact so you leave with a clear, original magic system tailored to your world, genre, and characters—ready to write immediately.

Is your writing process letting you down? It's rare that someone else's plotting system will be the magic bullet to fix your writing problems. Come learn to build your own outlining system using bits and pieces from others.

We all feel like outsiders in one way or another. Found family is how an author can help their characters, and therefore readers, find a place to belong. Our character’s blood ties might not be healthy. The connections they make with people and communities along the way can replace the family they never liked or never had.

Wherever there's conflict, there is the potential for violence. For the writer who wants to improve their action sequences, "They Fight" will enhance the development of their fight scenes and understand their place in the world of storytelling.

Adding layers to our long and short stories, done well, makes a more moving and memorable experience for our readers. We'll look at layering in themes, settings, characters, plots, and emotions in two ways. We'll see how a master did it, in a very short story we'll read and analyze, and we'll practice doing it ourselves.

Principles and techniques for writing characters encountering their own and others’ faith; the potential for layered conflict and stakes; in seeing beyond dogma to how believers live their lives; how to write respectfully and avoid stereotypes; and how and why to ensure we’re telling stories, not preaching sermons.

Writing a story without a plan can lead to an unfinished manuscript and a frustrated writer. Sticking to your outline can make the story feel forced if your characters want to take a different path. Chelsey walks you through how to combine the two writing styles to create the best version of your story and characters.

World Building is an important part of writing a story. Planning the basic parts of your story's world before you write draft 1 will make the writing process much easier. Chelsey provides 9 questions to ask yourself when creating your world.

Whether you’re writing from a cat’s POV or creating a sidekick whose adventure kit includes a heartworm chewable, animal characters deserve the same level of development as human ones, but they often require a different approach. Get tips and strategies for creating relatable, loveable, engaging animals for your stories.

There are two sides to creating a written work: the writing itself and the storytelling. This presentation will define the elements to story that quickly enhance storytelling in your writing, the things that keep a reader turning pages, elicit emotional responses, and spark imagination.

Learn how to use linguistic tools to write believable narration and dialogue filled with dramatic irony—write the villain the reader hates but your character trusts, the romance the reader foresees while your character is still unsure, the friend your character hates but the reader understands.

The murky middle of a novel is simultaneously the hardest to write and the most important to write well. In this presentation, learn why this section of the book is so challenging to write and what to do about it, so you can navigate your murky middles with as little misery as possible.

Do you love plotting? Are you already familiar with beat sheets but want to use them at a deeper level? Come learn how to combine multiple plotting methods to create in-depth outlines that flesh out your plot, character arcs, and character relationships.

Strong plots move a story, but interiority makes readers care. In this session, learn to reveal a character’s thoughts and emotions through precise vocabulary, emotion-driven action beats, internal monologue, and free indirect speech. Gain tools to craft believable, compelling interior lives.

Find your way through the murky middle of your novel by discovering your character’s backstory before you start writing. What happened to your character before the book can be more important than what happens on the page. Learn how to create that background and use it to fuel conflict, action, and emotion in your novel.

A whirlwind survey of basic political theory and comparative government for nonspecialists, emphasizing many possible points of tension and conflict, and how to decide how much government your story needs and which parts.

Paranormal encounters make for great story fodder, and ghostly traditions extend far beyond our borders. Take a world tour of the concept of lingering after death and explore what “haunted” means across the globe while learning to incorporate non-Western lore into your fiction with authenticity, impact, and respect.

Where do ideas come from? What's the difference between an idea and a story, and how do you develop the former into the latter? Good news: All of this can be represented pseudo-mathematically. Better news: You'll walk out of this workshop with at least 5 new story concepts to fall in love with.

In this class, Angie will share (1) how to approach visual storytelling, (2) why this approach is different from prose-based fiction, (3) scriptwriting basics, (4) how to work with an artist, and (5) the pros and pitfalls of writing for hire in established worlds.