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Top Four Craft Challenges Writers Face (and How to Fix Them)

Audience: Intermediate to advanced writers in fiction and nonfiction.

• Week One (note that for class #1 only, class will meet for two hours from 1pm to 3pm):

Language: We'll begin with a mini-lecture about challenges that writers face at the line-level (ex. word choice, lyricism) and at the content-level (ex. feedback from others), including specific, text-based examples of what each of these things looks like—and how craft skills might help writers avoid these challenges. Participants will be invited to reflect on their own drafts and where their writing might benefit from addressing these issues.

• Week Two:

Structure: We'll explore two core approaches to structurally analyzing your work (ex. thematically or via reverse outlining) and talk about the methodologies and benefits of applying this wider view to our pages. What can structure teach us about what's working, what isn't, and why? How can structure help us determine what our draft is really trying to say?

• Week Three:

Practice: We'll discuss different approaches to the practice of writing (ex. writing daily, time-blocking, redefining success) and get honest and practical about what “the writing life” looks like for each of us. How do we work through literary restlessness and writer's block? How do we stop setting unrealistic goals and start experimenting with maintaining our practice of writing amidst the ebb and flow of life?

• Week Four:

Completion: We'll study effective strategies for becoming our own best editors, alongside best practices for seeking and mitigating feedback from others (ex. beta readers, writers groups, workshop). How do we know if a piece is “finished” or “good enough”? How can we tell if we're procrastinating, improving a draft, or muddling it up? Participants will be invited and coached toward creating their own personalized checklists (so to speak) that they can use again and again as they guide themselves through the final stages of a piece or project.

KATEY SCHULTZ is the author of Flashes of War(stories) which the Daily Beast praised as an “ambitious and fearless” collection, and Still Come Home, a novel, both published by Loyola University Maryland. Honors for her work include the Linda Flowers Literary Award, Doris Betts Fiction Prize, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year for both titles, gold and silver medals from the Military Writers Society of America, five Pushcart nominations, a nomination to Best American Short Stories, National Indies Excellence Finalist recognition, and writing fellowships in eight states. She lives in Celo, North Carolina, and is the founder of Maximum Impact, a transformative mentoring service for creative writers that has been recognized by both CNBC and the What Works Network. Learn more at www.kateyschultz.com.