Brandon Sanderson was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his lecture, Brandon talks about story progress, promise, and payoff. Brandon was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. By junior high he had lost interest in the novels suggested to him, and he never cracked Read more
JG Faherty was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his question-and-answer session, JG answers questions about his biggest career break and his biggest dislike about the writing life. A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG is the author of seven novels, Read more
JG Faherty was a guest lecturer at the 2020 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from his question-and-answer session, JG answers questions about writing advice and beta readers. A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG is the author of seven novels, ten novellas, and more than seventy-five short Read more
In Winter 2018, award-winning novelist Barbara Ashford taught the Odyssey Online course One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes, and she’ll be teaching the class again this winter. In this excerpt from the first class, Barbara talks about techniques writers can use to evaluate the effectiveness of their scenes. Read more
In Winter 2019, Scott H. Andrews, editor and publisher of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, taught the Odyssey Online course Emotional Truth: Making Character Emotions Real, Powerful, and Immediate to Readers, and he’ll be teaching an expanded version of the class this winter. In this excerpt from the first class, Scott shares an Read more
E. C. Ambrose was a guest lecturer at Odyssey 2020. In this excerpt from her lecture on generating plot from the heart of your story, Elaine talks about “How to Middle,” how to use plot turns to avoid getting mired in the muddy middle. Many writers get stuck after the Read more
Holly Black was a guest lecturer at the 2019 Odyssey Writing Workshop. In this excerpt from her question-and-answer session, Holly answers questions about writing young adult and middle grade fiction. One student points out that some people think fantastic creatures must be a certain way. How do you deal with Read more
Nisi Shawl, the Jeff Pert Memorial Lecturer at Odyssey 2019, lectured on dialect and representation. In this excerpt, the second of two parts, Nisi explains techniques to reveal that a character speaks in dialect without using phoneticization. Word omission and word order (syntax) can show non-standard speech patterns and evoke Read more
Nisi Shawl was the Jeff Pert Memorial Guest Lecturer at Odyssey 2019 and spoke about dialect and representation. In this excerpt, the first of two parts, Nisi discusses dialogue, what dialogue can reveal, and the special concerns and challenges that arise when using dialect. Nisi explains that dialogue is idealized Read more
An excerpt from Barbara Ashford’s question and answer session at Odyssey in the summer of 2012 in which she discussed using her theater experience to enrich her fiction writing.