How DO YOUR CHARACTERS LIVE AND BREATHE Will Help You
Think about the characters you never forget, the ones you’d happily read about again and again. Now, think about the books you stopped reading because you didn’t connect with the main character. You didn’t care what happened to them. As a writer, is there a magic formula to creating characters (and plots) that will keep readers turning pages?
Honestly, I don’t believe in magic formulas, nor in rules that writers must follow, but let’s look for patterns in the books we like or don’t like. We can learn to see how great writers create PEOPLE instead of cardboard cutouts. We can see how they infuse their characters with complex personalities and emotions. And we can learn from them.
This seminar is NOT just for fiction writers. If you’re writing a memoir, versions of YOU are the main characters. Maybe the younger you, or the Older and Wiser You, but you are a character. If you don’t make YOU feel real, the reader won’t care what happened to you.
We’ll do writing prompts, and you’ll be surprised at your abilities. No experience is required. Just bring enthusiasm and pen/paper/computer. We all write at our own levels.
What You’ll Learn
- How great writers use the tools of fiction to make characters come alive
- How to add complexity to characters and avoid one-dimensional stereotypes
- How dialog, description, and setting can reveal characters
- See how plot and character are two sides of the same coin
- How plot complications bring out the best/worst in characters
What You’ll Do in the Workshop
- Work your writing muscles with short writing prompts
- Look at examples of how writers create unique characters
- Identify the qualities of a compelling character
- Practice adding depth and complexity to a character
Who Should Attend
- New writers are always welcome—we all work at our own level
- Writers with works-in-progress that might need deeper characters
- Experienced writers looking for a fresh look at familiar topics and ideas.
BONUS OFFER
- You can email a writing prompt to Myra for personal feedback (free, of course)
About Myra
Myra Levine is on a mission: To make sure that nobody dies with their story still inside them. She shows writers how to turn their lives, experiences, and areas of expertise into memoirs and novels, and teaches writing techniques not taught in school. And her classes are FUN.
Writing isn’t about knowing where to put the commas; it’s about capturing a moment and bringing it to life. As a writing coach, Myra challenges her clients to master the tools of fiction, like point of view, dialog, setting, and character development to bring their fiction to a higher level AND to write unforgettable memoirs. The germ of an idea can become a great story, or a dozen great stories, or a terrific novel—and a coach can cut years of frustration from the job of writing a great book.
Before turning to fiction and publishing two novels, Myra spent decades writing television and radio scripts, instructional videos, and corporate marketing programs. She won many local and regional advertising awards before leaving corporate life to become a wife and mother of two adopted kids. Stay-at-home motherhood rekindled her ambition to write fiction. Her new life in the suburbs of Indianapolis gave her plenty of inspiration–and she has fun twisting and exaggerating real events and real people.
As Myra puts it, “If you turn the truth into fiction,
you’re less likely to get sued.”
Her live seminars attract writers from all over the world.
Written under the name M.E. Levine, Myra’s novels, Revenge of the Soccer Moms and The Dead Mothers’ Club, are available on Amazon.com (print and E-book) and Audible.com (audiobook).