Creating The Romantic Couple with Cassandra Carr

2023 January | Craft | Month

WHEN: January 1, 2023 – January 31, 2023 via Groups.io

Course Description:

Have you ever read a romance novel and thought, “I really liked the book, but…” Something about the characterization of the hero or heroine left you cold? Didn’t make sense? Wasn’t fleshed out enough? This course will walk you through the process of creating memorable characters, including avoiding those “gotchas” that make readers wince. Most writers have a preference for writing the hero or the heroine. If you feel you have this tendency, this is the course for you! If you’re not sure how to start or how to set up the couple for chemistry and love, this course will help! Creating the Romantic Couple is geared toward beginning and advanced authors alike.

The Art of Editing

2023 January | Craft

WHEN: January 14, 2023 – 1PM PT|2PM MT|3PM CT|4PM ET via Zoom

Course Description:

You’ve just typed The End. Sigh! You’re done… 

Not so fast. You can be sure that somewhere in that manuscript are:

• Embarrassing plot holes
• Limp love scenes
• Sentences that clank instead of ring
• Conflicts that go nowhere
• Colorless cardboard characters
• Fight scenes with absolutely no punch

But don’t despair. That, my dear romance novelists, is why God made rewrites. In this 90-minute presentation, New York Times bestselling author Angela Knight will demonstrate how to excavate the outstanding book buried under layers of dreck. She’ll cover everything from what readers really want to finding and plugging logic holes. She’ll also discuss how to smooth out your writing’s speed bumps until your reader is left with a delicious flight through your fantasy. The end result: the kind of book that makes you an autobuy.

Writing to Market

2023 January | Advanced Track

WHEN: January 21, 2023 – 1PM PT|2PM MT|3PM CT|4PM ET via Zoom

Course Description:

What is writing to market, and how are authors using this to make six and seven figures? In this class, we’ll talk about what writing to market is and how to use this to create fiction that sells. There are many misconceptions about writing to market, and we’ll dispel those as well as give tricks on how you can write to market while still writing what you love.

Organization and Productivity

2023 January | Business

WHEN: January 28, 2023 – 4 PM ET | 3 PM CT | 2 PM MT | 1 PM PT via Zoom

Lynda Rees will explain how to manage day-to-day business chores and make time for writing while juggling the business side of an author’s work by staying organized.

Members Only: Writing the Cozy Mystery

2023 January | Members Only

WHEN: January 2, 2023 – January 31, 2023 via Groups.io

Course Description:

If there is one type of mystery story that continues to draw readers in, it’s the Cozy Mystery. The reasons are likely that the setting is frequently a small community like a small town or a small community of like-minded people (same profession or group like a book club) or who live in a particular neighborhood within a larger city and the story lines don’t leave that neighborhood for the most part.
It also offers sleuths who are amateurs, folks who use their brains and knowledge of the people involved in a crime. And that crime is frequently murder.

But this is murder without the gruesome forensics. Those belong in a different mystery world.

Another element of the traditional cozy is frequently comedy.
In four weeks, we’ll look at all the elements that go into a cozy mystery series (because they are nearly all series), then create our own cast, our own stages, and dream up a couple murders to solve, as well as the twists the solution could take.

End result? A lot of fun and possibly a route to something different from what you have been writing!