SECOND CHANCES: “The Narrative Arc” with Chaitali Sen – RECORDINGS ONLY
May 29, 2024 9:00 AM - June 10, 2024 1:00 PM CDT
$59.00 – $119.00
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This Event is for Members only.
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NOTE: This is not a live class registration. When you register, you’ll be receiving access to previously recorded classes taught for a live audience. Registration includes access to any handouts and slides the instructor originally shared with students. These classes included group work that took place within breakout rooms. These breakout rooms were not recorded and are not included with the class recordings. The videos will be available for viewing immediately upon purchase (attached to your purchase receipt), and will expire on July 31, 2024.
Learn how to craft your story’s narrative arc from the beginning to the end.
This class package will help long-form writers — in both fiction and memoir — craft and hone the arc of their story over the course of this season. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. These classes will help you focus on and perfect each of these elements in your manuscript, so that your novel or memoir hooks your readers, keeps them invested, and leaves them longing for your next book.
Whether you’re looking to bring a new idea to the page, you’re partway through a project, or you’ve completed a manuscript that needs revising, these classes will help you develop and refine your narrative’s arc. Each class is led by Chaitali Sen.
What students had to say about the package:
“Beginnings Bootcamp: Start Your Story, Hook Your Reader”
The first third of any narrative is an on-ramp and road map to a new world – for both the writer and the reader.
Every story has to start somewhere, but where you start can lead you right to the end of your manuscript. In this three-hour class, we will discuss the beginnings of narrative arcs – their purpose, elements, and possibilities. Some of the work you put into your beginnings won’t even make it onto the page, and in most cases, beginnings change from draft to draft as you learn more about your story, so how do you navigate the process of beginning your story so that even your missteps are productive? Participants will examine the various choices that go into beginning a manuscript, identify common pitfalls, and use their vision of the story they want to write to find the right beginning.
“Messy Middles: Raising the Stakes and Finding the Heart of Your Story”
Saturday, March 23, 2024, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM CDT
The middle of your novel or memoir is where you really get to tell a great story.
Getting your characters into trouble is part of what makes stories compelling, but it’s up to the author to guide the reader (and characters) through those messes without the middle of your manuscript becoming muddy or confusing. On the flip side is a flat, sluggish middle where too little happens. In this three-hour class, we will concentrate on the longest part of the narrative arc – the middle, where our initial enthusiasm for our project can often deflate. The source of energy, for the writer and the reader, lies in the strength of the story, the stakes of the problems our characters face, and action (plot). Participants will discuss the elements of a strong middle, look at different structures that can hold up a long manuscript, identify common problems, and brainstorm ideas for escalation.
“Destinations and Resolutions: The End and How to Get There”
Saturday, May 25, 2024, 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM CDT
The right ending of a novel or memoir should satisfy and haunt the reader.
The ending of your novel or memoir brings the action to a close, resolves the major conflicts and questions, and gives the reader a lingering “feeling” about the book. If you can nail the ending of your novel or memoir, you have solved one of the hardest problems of storytelling. This three-hour class will cover the last part of the narrative arc: the end. Participants will examine story structures and outlines to see how effective endings are linked to what has come before, discuss what should happen in final chapters and final pages, and brainstorm and evaluate ending ideas for their own projects.
Instructor
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Chaitali Sen is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Her second novel, Girlhood, is forthcoming from Grove, Atlantic. Stories and essays have been published by Catapult, Colorado Review, Copper Nickel, Ecotone, LitHub, New England Review, Texas Observer, and other print and online journals. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at University of Houston, and a recipient of the Inprint J. A. and Isabel M. Elkins Foundation Fellowship.
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Harassment includes, but is not limited to:
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Accessibility Policy
Closed captioning is available for all online classes and special events.
The WLT is committed to making its programs & services accessible to all writers. Please contact us at wlt@writersleague.org or at 512-499-8914 for more information or to discuss accommodations you may need.
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Writers’ League of Texas classes and workshops are also funded in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts – Investing in a Creative Texas. For more information, go to www.arts.texas.gov.