Our workshops are one-hour sessions covering a single topic. These run $15 a workshop. Here is a list for 2012. Keep checking back as we add more details for each workshop.
Our workshops fall into one of three Series. Click on a link to take you to a list of workshops in each Series.
Workshop Series:
NEW WORKSHOPS! Plotting Your Novel
NEW WORKSHOPS! What’s in a Genre?
NEW WORKSHOPS! Topics in Writing
Check out our calendar of events for a listing of dates, times, and locations.
Payment Options:
Cash: At a workshop.
Check: At a workshop or by mail. Make checks payable to “The Milwaukee Writers Workshop” (or “MWW”).
The Milwaukee Writers Workshop
c/o J Boone Dryden
4244 N Wilson Dr., #1
Shorewood, WI 53211
PayPal:
| Price Options |
Plotting Your Novel Series
- Outlining:Novels are a lengthy undertaking, and sometimes it can help the planning process by having a framework of plot. Learn some good outlining techniques, ways to organize your thoughts, and prepare for writing and keeping on track.
- Where to Begin: From Stephanie Meyer to John Grisham, the American culture loves runaway success stories when it comes to authors. If you’ve got an idea — vaguely-constructed or well-manicured — this workshop is great to help you finally put that first sentence to paper.
- Researching Your Writing: This is a one-hour workshop on how to research for your next piece, when is too much, and when fiction is just fiction.
Check out our calendar of events for a listing of dates, times, and locations.
What’s In A Genre? Series
- Aliens & Off-worlders:Speculative Fiction is rife with aliens of all varieties — foreigners, extraterrestrials, faerie creatures, and everything in between — and this workshop is designed to help you craft believable and lovable “Other” races in your world.
- Reasons for Categorization:People like to say that their work “defies categorization,” but it becomes very useful when discussing literature when we have basic criteria by which to have that discussion. This workshop helps identify some of the larger categories within genre fiction, as well as the theory behind genres.
- Steampunk:Steampunk is one of the fastest-growing fashion and film trends, but it has been around in fiction for much, much longer. Learn some of the classics of the genre, its history, and some of what makes it so appealing to readers and writers alike.
- Tropes & Cliches: A High Fantasy story wouldn’t be as recognizable without a quest. A Post-Apocalyptic piece wouldn’t draw us in without a tale of survival. So what makes these standards welcome when we are always told to avoid cliches? This workshops siphons the tropes from the cliches and teaches how to avoid the latter while embracing the former.
- Envisioning the Future: This is a one-hour workshop on imaging what might become of our present self. Will we have flying cars? Will be colonize Mars? Taking headlines and news stories and turning them into stories of the future can be fun and interesting.
Check out our calendar of events for a listing of dates, times, and locations.
Topics In Writing Series
- Realism in Fiction:
- Reliable Narration: This is a one-hour workshop on creating reliable narrators that pull readers into the story while weaving a good tale.
- Point-of-View & Perspective:
- Building Suspense:
- Maximalism vs. Minimalism:
- Memoir Writing:
- Infodumps: This is a one-hour workshop on how to avoid divulging too much, too fast to the reader.
- End on a High Note:
- Writing from Experience: This is a one-hour workshop about how to tie in your own experience as a writer into your fiction, non-fiction, or other pieces of writing.
- Historic vs. Historical Fiction:
- Script Writing:
- Outlining vs. Organic Writing: This is a one-hour workshop about the benefits and downsides of outlining before writing or writing organically.
- How to Start as a Writer: This is a one-hour workshop on how to step forward from being a writer with a hobby to someone dedicated to pursuing something more.
Check out our calendar of events for a listing of dates, times, and locations.