Nancy has given writing workshops to students from university
level to grade school and to multi-genre and romance conferences
and workshops. She is passionate about the art and craft of writing
and enjoys helping other writers improve their stories. The following
is a selection of current topics. All workshops are approximately
60 minutes. For more information, email
Nancy.
A Very Good Place to Start
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single man
of good fortune must be in want of a wife…
There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw
it up forever. Joseph Morelli did this to me—not forever,
but periodically…
Beginnings are important. We all know how many books there are
out there and how little time consumers have to make their choice.
How many manuscripts hit an editor’s desk and how little
time she has to decide whether she wants to see more, or wants
to work with this author. The author’s job is to grab the
reader’s attention from the first line, first paragraph,
first page and hook them.
How do you do this? This hands-on workshop offers practical techniques
for discovering where your story really starts and for making
that beginning stand out. We’ll look at different ways to
open a story and how to make your writer’s voice emerge
on the first page. We’ll study a few wildly successful beginnings
and study them in depth, then we’ll work on our own. Participants
are invited to bring the first few pages of their work in progress.
Creating a Strong Female Character
Scarlett O’Hara, Elizabeth Bennett, Stephanie Plum, Jane
Eyre, Anna Karenina, Bridget Jones. Strong, memorable heroines
arouse our emotions and our sympathy, not by being perfect. Flawed,
passionate, driven, sometimes admirable, sometimes hateful, funny,
tragic and essentially human, a memorable heroine is larger than
life. We’ll study a few memorable female characters and
then, using a list of specific questions, each workshop participant
will work on a female character in their work in progress or create
a new one. At the end of the session, you’ll have the basis
of a unique, fleshed out character.
Sexual Tension—Every Romance (and Most Novels) Needs Some
Whether you are writing the sweetest of sweet romances or the
raunchiest erotic romance, sexual tension is going to play a big
part in the conflict between heroine and hero. Andrew Davies,
the screenwriter for the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice,
on first reading the novel, noticed the ‘blazing sexuality’
he found between Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy and yet
there isn’t so much as a kiss in the novel. But we feel
the pull of unwilling attraction, the dance of a courtship that
goes anything but smoothly. This is sexual tension at its best.
How does the author introduce sexual tension and make the reader
care about a hero and heroine and want so very badly for them
to end up together? Whether you are writing sweet or hot, sexual
tension is critical in a romance. One of the toughest tasks facing
the author of hotter romances is keeping the sexual tension alive
once the couple have slept together. How do you keep these two
apart once they’ve been so intimately together? What are
the techniques that will also keep the tension tight in a sweeter
romance? This workshop offers suggestions for keeping the reader
as keyed up as your characters.
Why Is She Laughing?
Women’s humor from Jane Austen to Helen Fielding. An informative
and humorous look at the female comedic novel from the late 18th
century to the early 21st.
Time Management for the Hopelessly Disorganized
The sad truth of the writing life is that books do not write
themselves. Time must be found, carved out, used wisely. When
a person is by nature disorganized, as many creative people are,
this can be a challenge. After writing close to thirty novels
and novellas in five years while raising two active children,
feeding a family, keeping a household more or less running, and
managing a husband and dog, Nancy has discovered some techniques
that actually work. The strategy to achieving a successful writing
career while still having a life is to play to your strengths
and learn to manage your weaknesses.
A disorganized person is unlikely to change no matter how many
time management books she reads. However, Nancy is willing to
prove that wise use of time does not necessarily require color
coded charts and fancy electronic devices. This is a practical
workshop for busy authors who want to enjoy a life while managing
to write the best books they can. Participants will discover their
own time wasters, share techniques for squeezing time out of a
busy schedule and tips on using found time wisely. Nancy faithfully
promises that multi-colored pens, charts, logs or Palm Pilots
will not be required. Bring an open mind and a willingness to
take inventory of your most precious resource—your time.
Screenwriting Methods for Crafting Great Dialogue
The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then
take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure
and natural movement. Raymond Chandler.
The best dialogue works on many levels. In movies and TV shows
it has to. Usually, there’s no internal monologue like there
is in a novel, no back story, no explanation to follow the dialogue
so the viewer knows what the character’s words really mean.
In order to get the correct message to the audience, the screenwriter
works with a variety of tools all of which are equally useful
to the novelist.
Studying scenes from movies and TV shows such as: The Thin
Man, Must Love Dogs, Casablanca, When Harry Met Sally, Four Weddings
and a Funeral and The Gilmore Girls, we’ll
analyze dialogue that works, look at why it works and how you
can use the same techniques in your novel.
