The most powerful characters on the page are complex and multi-layered, and they both surprise and convince readers with (and within!) their reality.

for Fiction and Memoir

Novelists create characters from nothing, who must feel as real as anyone we’ve met. Memoirists must pack a lifetime of knowledge into selected details to show readers the people they engaged with, as those people truly are. But too often, writers default to physical description—characters pausing in front of conveniently reflective surfaces—or narrating our own judgements of the people we know, rather than allowing readers to make those discoveries themselves. As an actor, playwright, and director, Allison K Williams has explored character creation inside and out.

In this special 2-hour (Saturday) webinar, you’ll learn how to use tools from theatre to analyze your own text and create stronger characters on the page. With examples from fiction and memoir, we’ll examine how objectives, passions, and foibles drive characters and deepen their dramatic impact; how qualities of movement are expressed in verbs and adverbs; the difference between high-context dialogue and “stuff I needed the reader to know so I made a character say it”; and even dive into how punctuation can shape a character’s emotion in a scene.

You’ll raise your craft level and gain a tool kit to help you present all your characters, real or fictional, as fully rounded beings, regardless of their word count, and make each one memorable and worthy of their time on the page.

In-class writing time and live editing will give you a chance to apply this to your writing right away.

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This is a TWO-HOUR class, with 20 minutes of writing time in the middle.

• 45 minutes – Learn the tools of character analysis, and key writing techniques to show character on the page
• 10 minutes – Q&A to fully understand and apply the information.
• 20 minutes – Revise a scene that introduces one of your key characters to heighten the character’s impact on the page and more skillfully show who they are, what they want and why they matter. Allison will continue taking questions in the chat. 
• OPTIONAL: volunteer for live-editing and upload your scene as a Word doc or docx to a Google Drive (link will be provided in class, no pages will be accepted before they are called for).
• 40 minutes – Allison will live-edit pages shared on screen, noting where the writer is succeeding and what revisions could make the prose even more effective. During live edits, she’ll call out specific techniques and tips for everyone to apply to their own work, right away. 
• 10 minutes – Q&A and planning your writing from here.

This webinar will cover

• HOW the interplay of passion and foible creates conflict and tension within and between characters
• The “CHARACTER ZERO” of Commedia Dell’ Arte and how it relates to modern prose
• SHOWING villainous, abusive, narcissistic and harmful behavior in ways that allow the reader to judge—and why moments of “good” give evil more impact
• WORLDBUILDING through character action and dialogue
• WHEN, HOW, and WHY to use adverbs (hint: “in a _____ tone” is needlessly verbose! Bring on the adverbs!)
• The ACTOR’S TECHNIQUE for bringing to life the most minor of characters—and how to use it in writing.
• OBJECTIVES and OBSTACLES, and how they make characters active in every scene.

This webinar is ideal for

• Novelists with a large cast of characters who need distinction; or only a few characters who must hold the reader’s attention throughout the book
• Memoirists who want to write vivid characters without getting lost in their own emotional past experience
• Creative writing students and graduates of MFA programs who want to expand their writing craft with conscious practice.
• Developmental editors who want to grow their knowledge of characterization in prose and better communicate that knowledge to their author clients.
• “Plotters” struggling with bringing a character dossier to life on the page 
• “Pantsers” who need to fill in background and personality without info-dumping
• Writers hearing feedback that their characters blend together, or are too “black-and-white” and need more depth

All registrants receive the recording. ✔

Closed captioning is available. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to Big Five and literary/university publishing deals and the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. She’s guided essayists and humorists to publication in media including the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Refinery29, Hippocampus, the Belladonna and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with weekly blogs on craft and the writing life.

Before turning to writing and editing fulltime, Allison was a classically-trained actor. With a BA in Theatre and an MFA in Playwriting, she has acted and directed with American Stage, The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Eckerd College, Western Michigan University, and many more. Her plays for young actors have been noted by Dramatics Magazine as top-ten most produced worldwide, and her multi-character solo show TRUE STORY won Best of Fringe at the London Fringe Festival and toured the USA and Canada.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

FULL REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.

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