Scenes are the heart of your fiction. They bring your characters to life and demand your reader’s attention. Having said that, summary and flashback are useful, sometimes essential tools in the writer’s toolbox. This workshop explores the elements of a scene -- complex characters, POV, sense details, action, dialogue, new plot information, conflict, and setting – and allows the writer to practice writing vivid scene openings. In addition, we’ll explore how summary and flashbacks are used and what they can accomplish. Suitable for both emerging and established writers, the workshop will be a combination of lecture and writing exercises, designed to develop your understanding of scene vs. summary and get the creative fires blazing.

Lauren B. Davis's latest novel is EVEN SO (Dundurn Press 2021). Her other works include THE GRIMOIRE OF KENSINGTON MARKET, named “One of the Best Books of the Year” by the Globe & Mail; AGAINST A DARKENING SKY, a novel set in 7th c. Northumbria, which Pulitzer-prize winning author Robert Olen Butler called, “the ideal for a historical novel,” and the bestselling novel, THE EMPTY ROOM, named one of the “Best Books of the Year” by The National Post, and the Winnipeg Free Press. Her previous novel, OUR DAILY BREAD, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and named as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by The Globe & Mail and The Boston Globe. She is also the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, THE RADIANT CITY, a finalist for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize; and THE STUBBORN SEASON, a named as one of the Top 15 Bestselling First Novels by Amazon.ca and Books in Canada. She was born in Montreal, lived in France for ten years and now lives with her husband, Ron, and their dog, Bailey-the-Rescuepoo, in Princeton, New Jersey. For more information, please visit her website at: www.laurenbdavis.com