Tri-Valley Writers will host a workshop, “The Magic of Bringing Characters to Life on the Page—Secrets for Memoir and Fiction,” presented by Linda Joy Myers, founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, and writing coach for fiction and memoir on March 16, 2024 from 1:00 – 4:30 p.m.
NOTE: This is a workshop and therefore will run longer than normal and the meeting fee will be higher. Attendees may begin registering for this event after February 17, 2024.
We’ve all read books where we stay up late at night or read under the covers with a flashlight because we’re so engrossed in a book. We keep turning the pages to find out what happened to the characters. We are bonded to them. We feel their pain, joy, and conflicts. As writers, we wonder, and struggle, how to create vivid and emotionally strong characters in our own work.
For memoirists, we may feel reluctant to write about people we loved and/or hated, and we also struggle with creating ourselves as protagonists—we know ourselves too well. Sometimes, we don’t know ourselves well enough. In fiction, we make people up out of whole cloth—almost. It’s an art and a science to create characters that keep readers engaged in our stories. In this workshop we’re going to look at the inside/outside methods of creating characters.
We will discuss the psychology of creating characters—the inside, and the ways characters present themselves that are observable. We’ll talk about portraits of characters that include attitude, movement, desire, and dialogue. For memoir, you need to feel free to present real people you once knew as characters. In fiction, you’re free to shape and create characters, but how do you decide who they are, what they want, and how can you bear to put them through the trials that are demanded by the story?
Join us on Saturday, March 16, 2024, at 1:00 p.m. at Tri-Valley Writers meeting location: Las Positas College in Livermore, Room 2470 in Building 2400 (Multi-Disciplinary Building). Park in Parking Lot E. Check-in begins at 12:30 p.m. There is a two-step RSVP & Payment process.
- An Email RSVP is REQUIRED at treasurer@trivalleywriters.org by Thursday, March 14, 2024
- Payment is REQUIRED
REGISTRATION DETAILS:
CWC adult members, $25; nonmembers, $30. CWC students $15.
Linda Joy was deliciously haunted by the power of the past to affect people in the stream of time and combines her passion for history and the understanding of intergenerational trauma into her work as a writer. The power of the truth to educate current generations about the past led her to explore the little-known history of WWII and the fall of France and write her first novel The Forger of Marseille. The author of two prize-winning memoirs, Don’t Call Me Mother and Song of the Plains, and four books on memoir writing, Linda Joy founded the National Association of Memoir Writers and teaches memoir writing with Brooke Warner and short courses on writing through the National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW).
You can find her on social media:
http://lindajoymyersauthor.com, https://www.namw.org, https://substack.com/@lindajoymyers.https://www.facebook.com/linda.j.myers, https://www.instagram.com/lindajoymyersauthor/