Glen Eyrie Fiction Writer's Retreat

• Why do people behave the way they do? Just as important as those character sheets are with external detail (eye color, hair color, family background, etc.), it’s even more important to ask “why” our characters make choices and how their fears control their behavior.

• There’s a Secret Sauce that Agents Look for…Even Though They May Not Tell You: Agents are like talent scouts. They look for authors and book projects that they feel they can sell to a publisher. There are three key areas that agents focus on that you may not hear up front, but it’s typically in the minds of agents. It encompasses not just the author’s book idea but who the author is and how they present themselves and their content. In this workshop, we’ll look at how you can navigate approaching an agent with what will help you gain their attention and hopefully their partnership!

How to Engage Young Readers—Studies show you have less than 15 seconds to grab a young reader’s attention. A creative introduction could also be the difference between publication and rejection. This workshop will discuss different ways to begin a story . . . and then how to keep a reader’s attention, using key elements of good storytelling. Also, a quick look will be taken at the editorial needs and different types of stories that appear in Focus on the Family’s youth magazines: Clubhouse, Clubhouse Jr. and Brio.

• Some say we need conflict on every page of our novel. But if we want to hold our readers, we need more than conflict. We need tension. We’ll show you why tension is the key … and how to build it in your novel.

Every hero must have an anti-hero, someone who keeps them from completing their task. To that end, we will explore how to construct a villain that complicates, obfuscates, and sometimes denies the hero what they want. We want the tension to rise on each page and that can only happen when the author creates a “symbiotic” relationship between hero and villain that dark and stormy night.

• This class will teach students how to be aware of body language differences in culture, age, special needs, and personal quirks to create rich, robust characters. It will also delve into body language techniques used in romance and mystery to take stories from average to unforgettable.

• You’ve got the amazing beginning and the beautiful ending to your novel, but as you’re writing, you end up in the swamp of the muddy middle. No worries! This workshop will help you attack those slumping characters, boring side trips, nagging loose ends, and the dreaded exposition blues.

• This session allows the author to look at their weak spots, their holes in their story, the mediocre conflicts and consider how to raise the stakes to create the book that the reader just can’t put down. Raising the stakes eliminates muddy middles and dry chapters. We will look at how to up the tension on each page, without taking things too far, yet creating opportunities for heroes to up their game. “Conflict drives, mystery intensifies” is our theme in this session. It’s a surefire way to create the memorable book.

Writers ask: “Should I go ahead and self-publish or wait to see if a traditional publisher is interested in my book?” The answer really depends on your goals. In this workshop, we’ll look at both publishing avenues and talk about the similarities and differences. We’ll also look at how to make the leap from self-publishing to traditional publishing. We’ll focus on what’s in an author’s best interest for each and show a cost and time analysis that may help you decide what’s best for you.

• Descriptions … we’ll look at two techniques that may change how you approach descriptions from now on. And with Show-Don’t-Tell and Deep POV … we won’t just tell you how to strengthen your stories with these. We’ll show you. I love this workshop! Practical and clear … if you’ve struggled with any of these before, that’s all about to change.

Any question is fair game. Queries. Proposals. Story pitch. Editing. And I’ll share some things I look for as an agent—and feedback I get from fiction editors looking at manuscripts. Often, we’re not seeing enough showing in the story, and sometimes the story start is backstory heavy. Let’s talk about all that in this session.

We all know the importance of your story start—and ending. But sometimes we forget how critical the middle is to our book. We’ll look at secrets to stronger starts and satisfying endings, for sure. Tim will also share some techniques to build a middle that pulls it all together. Put these into practice in your novel and you’ll likely have readers saying something like this: “There’s nothing halfway about that middle.”

Understanding body language, micro-expressions, and posture is the ultimate way to ‘show and not tell’. Body language adds tremendous depth to dialogue, sets tone, and shows readers how a character’s emotions reflect in their behavior.

This workshop will teach writers how to use universal body language to give their characters rich emotion, as well as teach how to spot deception and bumps in verbal language that reveal inner motive.

This class will also use examples from real life, including transcripts and videos from confessed serial killers and public figures.

Writing can be scary, even dark and scary. But if God has called you to be a writer, He’ll give you the courage and perseverance to be obedient in using His gifts. This workshop will explore ways you can be courageous with your characters, your storylines and your self-editing.