Short Story Challenge
In the SHORT STORY CHALLENGE, participants start with a blank page and end with 1000 to 1500 words of polished prose over the course of one weekend.
Learn and apply the complete process from story seed to story tree.
*We’re teaching an approach—a repeatable process. How does a nervous writer take a story all the way from beginning to end?
Workshop Leader
Ann LM Kitching is the author of six books on writing (Pre-Writing, The Ultimate Plotter’s Gold, “Best” Writing Practices, Easy Universal Plot, How to Plot and Write a Story, Story Writing Basics). She teaches courses (The Novella Challenge and The Revision Challenge) at UNB Fredericton. Formerly a middle-school teacher in New Brunswick, she also taught in the United Arab Emirates. Her style is supportive yet pushy.
Details
Friday evening
The creation stage: We examine premises and a five-phase plot method. Participants generate one to three possible story ideas.
Saturday morning
The development stage: We focus on writing. Participants choose a main character, a setting, and a problem. Writing sprints intersperse with sharing and trouble-shooting.
Saturday afternoon
The crafting stage: After one more writing sprint and sharing opportunity, participants may do as they choose, including but not limited to:
- more writing (if they haven’t met their personally-chosen targets)
- artwork related to their story
- their premise and/or blurb and/or ad copy
- one-on-one discussion of story issues/ personalized instruction
- self-study to solve story problems
- relax / take a nap / go for a walk / exercise
Saturday evening
Revision tactics: What do you do when your story’s written? When do you check grammar? How do you know if the story’s any good? What do you fix first? Ann LM Kitching presents a step-by-step editing process that participants apply immediately.
Sunday morning
Participants wrap up their wonderful stories and receive final feedback. We will then go through all of the steps to publish our anthology of stories on amazon.ca.