Each session includes recommended reading, a written lecture, and a writing assignment to turn in for personalized feedback from your instructor.
Session One: Strategies From the Start
Session Two: The Starting Point: Exposing Exposition
Session Three: Beginning the Climb: Discovering Your Novelâs Tension
Session Four: Continuing the Climb: The Layering Effect In Character, Plot and Setting
Session Five: Clamping In: Moving Forward By Standing Still, A Lesson in Style
Session Six: Taking a Breather: The Novelâs Caesura
Session Seven: The Phantom Precipice: From Flat Line to Spike
Session Eight: Reaching Over the Ledge: The Art of Set-Up
Session Nine: The View From the Top: Image as Resonance
Session Ten: Peering Down From the Mountain: Unraveling Plot
Session Eleven: The Controlled Fall: Dialogue as Parachute
Session Twelve: The Return to Ground Level: Graceful Exits
What will you learn?
Who should attend?
Required Reading
Student Testimonials
Meet the instructors
Mark Spencer
Mark Spencer is the author of the novels An Untimely Frost, Ghost Walking, The Masked Demon, The Weary Motel (Omaha Prize for the Novel, Faulkner Award for the Novel), and Love and Reruns in Adams County; the best-selling nonfiction novel A Haunted Love Story: the Ghosts of the Allen House; as well as the short-story collections Wedlock, Spying on Lovers (Bradshaw Book Award), and Trespassers.
His short stories and articles have appeared in a wide variety of national and international magazines. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize eight times and has received four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. He also won the St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Prize. Trespassers, Markâs most recent short-story collection, was a finalist in four national book competitions: the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award, the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, the A.E. Coppard Long Fiction Prize, and the Quarterly West Novella Competition.
After earning his B.A. in English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, Mark earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Bowling Green State University and did Ph.D. work at Oklahoma State University.
Mark is a professor of English and Creative Writing in the MFA program and Associate Vice Chancellor in Academic Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Several times, Mark has been named to Whoâs Who Among Americaâs Teachers.
View WebsiteTerri Valentine
The writing career of romance novelist Terri Valentine is truly a Cinderella story. An avid reader all of her life, she began writing her first historical romance in the summer of 1985 on an old Smith-Corona manual typewriter. Of course it had several keys that stuck, and invariably every time she made even minor changes the entire manuscript had to be completely retyped. In spite of such adversities, she believed in herself and finished that first valiant effort, and then went on to revise her manuscript several times before satisfied.
One year later, Terri submitted Sea Dream to publishers. After several rejections, good ones she was later to learn by the standards of the industry, she went on to sell her book. Since then, she has been under steady contract. To date, she has ten romance novels and a Christmas short story in publication. Sweet Paradise was nominated for Best Romance Adventure by Romantic Times in 1992. Louisiana Caress received a coveted K.I.S.S (Knight in Shining Silver) Award from Romantic Times in 1993. Sands of Time (1993), her first time travel romance, is set in the Middle East. In 1995, Storm Dancer was a single release title from Zebra, followed in 1997 by the release of Paradise Promised. At present she is under contract for two more historicals, and she is currently working on a high-concept romantic novel that her agent anxiously awaits. She has also written a screenplay that is in production rewrites.
Terri Valentine is WDUâs critique editor for childrenâs picture books. Customers have been extremely pleased with the feedback provided by Terri. Terri said, âGood fiction writing is good fiction writing. Through my experience, Iâm able to âseeâ what works in a novel as well as a picture book.â
âMost valuable to me is the unstinted assistance and shared knowledge given to me by other writers throughout my career. I would never published if it had not been for the help of one such writer who offered support and encouragement from start to finish of that first manuscript.â Following in her mentor footsteps, she has eagerly critiqued manuscripts and helped other beginning novelists learn the taxing craft of writing, many of whom have gone on to publish.
