Pushing Characters to the Edge
Workshops with a Character Focus
As I stare into the long months of summer—which will absolutely disrupt my carefully managed schedule of juggling multiple projects at once thanks to school being over and vacations and travel looming—I’m reminded of how being a creature of habit can sometimes mask your true personality. It’s one reason why travelling with a partner is considered such a test of a relationship; if you can like them without the comfort of routine making things easy, then there’s a good chance you actually really like them.
These concepts are at the heart of the online workshop I’ve prepared for you this month—how to push your characters into truly dire situations.
Perhaps your character will be experiencing something a little more dire than a summer with a feral child, but if you find that you struggle with making things truly bad for your characters, or if you’re getting feedback about the pacing or the motivation of your charcaters, hopefully this workshop will help!
As a reminder, workshops are $5 each, or you can subscribe for $5 a month here to get the full archives included.
June Word Lab & Camp Wordsmith
If you’d like to join our online office hours, where we check in as a community and develop our stories in a focused setting, join us for Word Lab! A full month of Word Lab is four hours—two on Sunday afternoon and two on Wednesday evening, but remember that there is a coupon code (at the link) that will enable you to pick and choose any combination of half the time—two weeks of both days, all Sundays or all Wednesdays, or mix and match!
Last month, some our alumni gathered together for a mini #CampWordsmith to try to get some important writing goals done before the summer started. Along the way, I made some fun badges for milestones, including, perhaps my favorite:
Which, frankly, I feel we all deserve at some point!
Choose Your Own Path Stories!
StoryLoom is a fun online reading program that enables you to read (and write!) interactive fiction. In each episode, you will have options to choose certain paths for the character you’re reading—who they trust, who they don’t, what questions to ask, and far more. If you’ve ever loved reading the classic Choose Your Own Adventure stories or if you really love the RPG aspect of playing video games, you absolutely shout give these a try!
We have four Wordsmither stories over at StoryLoom if you’re looking for a place to start!
Horror Fans, check out Jess Capelle’s Bound by Blood, which shows one woman’s connection to an abandoned detention center is darker than you’d think, or Beth Revis’s Ghost in the Machine, where a friend break-up goes viral online and attracts a poltergeist. If you like your mysteries a little less dark and with 100% more puns, read Rosiee Thor’s Growing Pains, where a women inherits her grandmother’s estate after her untimely death, which she’s certain was murder. And fans of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Inheritence Games should read The Global Quest, Beth’s second game. The main character is given an unlikely inheritence…but she has to find it in an epic, around-the-world hunt where she’s not the only one competing to solve clues and win the prize. And finally, check out Ellen Rozak’s The List of Lasts, a romance that features a duo checking off the last places to visit before senior year is up.
StoryLoom is still technically in beta, which means you may spot a few bugs, but it also means that it’s still currently free to play and read these and lots more awesome stories. And writers—keep an eye on this program as it’s open for future writers to use. Think of this as Wattpad 2.0, a potential place to try new skills or draw readers to future books with choose-your-own path novellas set in your novel or world.
2022 Kirkus Best Teen & YA Novel About Family: Congratulations, Cassie!
Join us in celebrating almuna Cassie Gustafson in winning the 2022 Kirkus Best Teen & YA Novel About Family award! This book is a must read, gorgeous and heart-breaking story, and it so deserves this accolade. Congrats, Cassie!
Next month, we’re coming at you with a huge list of books to read for the summer, plus some more to pre-order and gift yourself the joy of stories in the future, all from our fabulous alumni. Wordsmith Workshops has been going strong for over eight years, and our past attendees and current buds are killing it in the industry. We’re so proud!
And please—keep in touch! Beth is making new workshops online every month, so if there’s a topic you want to see, let her know! We have sold out of one fall retreat already, but we’ll be announcing the next one soon, and we’re always open to new ideas and bringing resources that will help you on your publishing path. As always, thanks for joining us!