An intensive three-hour seminar exploring the hidden architectures that make stories compelling, memorable, and emotionally effective. 

For Memoir and Fiction

Live on Zoom | Saturday, November 28 | 2-5 pm Eastern

Discover a range of narrative structures used in contemporary fiction and memoir, including three-act design, lyric and fragmented forms, braided narratives, epistolary structures, frames, and modular storytelling. Rather than treating structure as a formula, we’ll examine how writers shape reader attention, tension, revelation, and emotional momentum via crucial structural decisions.

Examine key structural principles to determine whether a manuscript succeeds or stalls. We’ll discuss the difference between what writers want to communicate and what readers actually want to experience, what “showing” truly means on the sentence and scene level, and the most common pitfalls that weaken fiction and memoir projects. 

In this seminar, you’ll gain a solid sense of the basic principles for constructing your own fiction or memoir narratives that are vivid, dynamic, engaging, original, and structurally sound.

In this three-hour seminar, you will:

• DISCOVER the range of narrative frameworks that turn ideas and material into compelling stories
• LEARN TO CLOSE READ for the architecture behind stories that resonate and endure: Journey, Mystery, Braid, Mosaic
• MATCH the essential shape your particular story needs with the proven structural template that best supports your material
• TRANSFORM your initial inspiration into reader-friendly, memorable, complete narratives
• EXAMINE hidden mechanics of withholding, pace, and revelation.
• TRACE and strengthen the A-to-B change trajectory that gives stories both momentum and meaning.
• REPLACE simplistic “show, don’t tell” advice with a more powerful understanding of how narrative information and story momentum actually work for readers.

Whether you’re getting ready to write your first memoir or in the midst of revising your fifth novel, you’ll find a place in this course. The common denominator is not experience level but commitment: participants should be actively working on a project or wanting to do so and ready to engage deeply with questions of structure.

This course is ideal for ambitious beginners to seasoned writers …

• who want their fiction or memoir to find—and move—readers 
• with an idea (or 2 or 3) for a story or book project—but who are struggling to get the project off the ground
• whose project is up and running, but it has been difficult to bring to completion
• who have a project in mind or in the works and who have taken at least a few writing classes or seminars

Closed captioning is available. ✔
Think you might miss a class? No worries, replays will be available. ✔

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Heather Sellers has been teaching for over thirty years, and she doesn’t teach like anyone else. Her classes are innovative and groundbreaking, and students describe them as fun, lively, and warm—the kind of workshop where you laugh out loud and walk away having learned an enormous amount. 

She is the author of You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, a popular memoir about family and face blindness. An Oprah Book-of-the-Month Club selection and Editor’s Choice at the New York Times Book Review, the award-winning book was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Dick Gordon’s The Story, Dateline, The Today Show, and Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos. Her essays appear in The New York Times, The Sun, Reader’s Digest, Good Housekeeping, The Best American Essays, and numerous journals and anthologies. She is the author of four books on the craft of writing, including The Practice of Creative Writing.

Her fifth collection of poetry, Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators, is just out from Lynx House Press. Currently, she is a member of the MFA faculty at the University of South Florida, where she won the university’s highest teaching award. She also offers in-person workshops and private lessons for writers at all levels.

Testimonials from past students

“This was one of the most substantive classes I’ve taken. The craft insights were deep, but everything was presented in a clear, usable structure that made revision feel possible instead of overwhelming.” – Anon

“I loved how rigorous the content was without ever feeling dry. The pacing, humor, and energy kept me completely engaged—and I left with concrete tools I used immediately.” – Grace L, New York

“What stood out most was how intentional the teaching was.” –Kate S, NJ

“I expected inspiration, but I didn’t expect this level of craft depth. The class was smart, funny, and incredibly well organized.” – Constance, Holland, MI

“You can feel how much thought has gone into the structure of the presentation. Nothing felt random—everything connected, and Heather is so personable and smart and fun.” – BethAnn, Tampa, FL

THE FINE PRINT

We understand that life can get in the way of your plans. We want you to be able to get the most out of your course, and our refund policy is designed to balance your need for flexibility with our deadlines and obligations to our teachers.

Before the class, you may request a refund less a $10.00 processing fee.

Please keep in mind that no refunds or credits will be issued after class begins.

Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com

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