Story Openings That Engage

Intense. Revelatory. Transformative. When it comes to emotions in fiction, Scott Andrews is a forensic scientist. Get ready to learn skills that will forever change the way you think of portraying emotion in your work. This is money well spent; probably the best writing class I’ve ever taken. And I’ve taken a lot.

        –ROBERT STAHL

It’s hard to be a successful writer unless you can get readers to care about what you write. That’s what this class is all about, and I think it will level up my ability to tell a good story.

I especially appreciated how this class focused on what’s useful to writers, not just theoretical concepts. I learned specific sentence-level, paragraph-level, scene-level, and story-level techniques to make my stories more emotionally resonant. I practiced these techniques and got feedback on them so that I can effectively layer them into the stories I write.

I doubt I would have learned these techniques anywhere else, because I’ve never seen a book, lecture, class, or seminar that covers the same material, even though such material is foundational to storytelling. Scott was a phenomenal teacher who gave me a new framework for writing, and I found this class inspiring.

        –PETER ZUCKERMAN

Emotional Truth offered the most thorough, concentrated education on the craft of portraying (and invoking!) emotion that I’ve found to date. As with many Odyssey courses, the class was not easy, but was 100% worth it. Scott was an accessible and responsive instructor, and the homework he assigned deepened my understanding of the course content and pushed me as a writer. I would recommend this class to anyone seeking to improve their skill with emotion in fiction (which, given emotion’s importance to effective storytelling, should be everyone).

        –JESSICA PLUMBLEY

This class was an eye-opening experience for me. Eliciting emotions in my readers was always this mysterious thing that just happened from time to time. With the tools I learned in the course it is no longer a mystery. I loved how concrete all the techniques were and how thorough Scott H. Andrew’s instruction was. His command of the material was evident from the start and he was very engaging. His critiques were generous, insightful, and helped me better understand the tools I was trying to use.

        –JULIAN GABRIEL COSMA

This course realigned my approach to writing fiction. Instead of relying solely on tools such as setting, description, and plot points, which always resulted in static characters and vague stories, I can now work from the inside out: what is this character’s emotional makeup and how will this story shake him up? How best to make the reader feel that change of heart?

        –JENNY GREEN

I’ve taken two online courses with Scott Andrews, and both were excellent, eye-opening experiences. Taken from the award-winning editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, the courses are an in-depth study of how to write fiction. The courses are made up of four things: Reading (both fiction to be analyzed and articles on writing fiction); Scott’s lectures (where he welcomes questions); Homework (which involve both analysis of the assigned readings and assigned writing); and Critiques of each other’s writings, within the subject matter of the course being taught. But there’s also a fifth element—Scott’s critiques, both of our assigned writing and of our critiques. When I described the courses as “in-depth,” this in particular is what I had in mind as Scott does an almost line-by-line analysis of your work—and fear not, he praises the good (so you know what’s good) as well as commenting on the not-so-good, and how it could be made better. Plus, it’s fun to spend a few weeks with other writers in such a literary atmosphere!

        –LARRY HODGES

I loved everything about Odyssey’s Emotional Truth class taught by Scott Andrews. From the instructor to the way that Odyssey administered the course, the entire experience was excellent. Scott is a knowledgeable and insightful instructor, but he is also a kind and considerate teacher who creates a safe and supportive environment for learning. I always felt that I was in good hands as I learned and practiced the material. The course was delivered smoothly, and I credit the structure that Odyssey has set up for its instructional delivery. Expectations were clear, and Jeanne was responsive and helpful. I finished the course with a wealth of new information and the feeling that I had grown as a writer. This course was well worth the tuition and time that I invested. I hope to take more classes from Odyssey in the future.

        –SAM PISCIOTTA

I write things, short stories and novels, and I really want to sell these novels of mine, but getting the vision in my head onto the page so readers FEEL what the characters are going through is hard, okay? For me anyway. If it’s hard for you too, take this class. I emerge from it and Scott’s amazing, detailed critiques fairly battered, but so excited and energized. It’s the perfect amount of content for a month-long class, broken into sentence & paragraph level, scene level and entire story arc level techniques for leveling up your story’s emotional impact. Like way way up. Plus, and I’m not kidding, this class is fun! The class readings are fun period, full of juicy emotions, and even more fun to read with these techniques in mind. And the writing exercises are so so fun (even as they kick your butt)! I’ll bet your readers read for the emotional experience. After this class, you’ll be so much more conscious of how to imbue your stories with the intense emotional experience they want.

        –K.A. ROCHNIK

I found Odyssey’s Emotional Truth course taught by Scott Andrews to be very enlightening. The lectures gave us dozens of great tools for enhancing the emotional impact of stories, and the assignments have helped me approach character-development from new angles. I’ll be thinking about and applying what I learned for years to come. The online format worked seamlessly, and I also enjoyed reading work by my classmates and receiving their feedback. While the focus of the class is on speculative writing, these tools would be equally helpful in writing literary fiction or other genres.

        –IVY GRIMES

This class completely ruined the act of reading for me. I know now what these authors are doing to me whenever I feel something from their work, can put to words exactly how they are doing it too. Just the other day I reread my favorite short story, “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu, and found pretty much every technique we covered in this class within its words. It’s like getting to see how the sausage is made, only instead of being grossed out, I feel quite enlightened. Confident now. Lightyears ahead of where I was before I took the class. Thank you, Jeanne and the Scotts, for making this happen and for giving us writers the opportunity to grow like this.

        –ERNESTO FUENTES

Previously I felt that an emotionally rich story just came out that way, more attributable to inspiration than to technique. But Scott’s detailed breakdown made it clear to me that one can write in an emotionally rich way with an eye to craft, not just “moved by the spirit,” so to speak. Which was immensely valuable to me and has changed the way I approach my writing.

I found Scott Andrew’s enthusiasm and interest in the topic to be contagious. His (meticulous!) feedback was invaluable.

        –ELLE VAN HENSBERGEN

Scott’s class on Emotional Truth helped me to see new potential in my writing. I was amazed at how the techniques we learned can transform a scene, giving it emotional depth and drawing readers into the emotion. The exercises as well as Scott’s extensive and detailed feedback helped me work with the techniques and make them my own, and I know they will stay with me as I go forward with my writing. Thank you Scott and Odyssey!

        –REGINA WILSON

When I first started writing, I got a lot of, “very pretty prose! where is the story?” and it took me until I got to Odyssey workshop to learn 3-act plot and causal chains, at which point—while many other criticisms ensued, that particular one did not. The next bottleneck for me is, and has been for some time, emotion. I used bodily sensations (clenched stomach and burning cheeks, etc.) as a crutch; often wasn’t clear on what emotions I even intended to evoke (and didn’t really think about it); and just wasn’t giving readers the emotional experience the they signed up for. Last year, I got together with some other writers to learn the basics of emotional craft. Shortly afterward, I made my first pro sale. Encouraged, I took this class. It’s well organized into sentence-level techniques, paragraph-level techniques, scene-level techniques, and story-level techniques. A lot of the material was entirely new to me. One of the things I liked best about critiquing others’ work is that I could see just how well the techniques were working—something I find hard to do when I’m just looking at my own work. A lot of them—especially using unexpected emotions—were surprisingly powerful and emotionally engaging. The homework is lengthy but really gives you the opportunity to engage with all of the techniques enough to understand them. It’s a lot of information and will take me some time to integrate, but for me my only regret is that I didn’t do this years ago. It really took a lot of mystery out of the question that plagued me: why is this story so moving? why isn’t my story moving?

        –SAMANTHA WEISS

In Emotional Truth, Scott H. Andrews distilled the labyrinth that is human emotion and its expression into a logical methodology that is already informing my writing. The selected readings were strong examples of the techniques he illuminated in his lectures, and the abundant exercises focused on practicing each technique first in isolation and then together. I found this course to be unexpectedly challenging but also equally rich in content. I’ll be drawing on Scott’s lessons for years as I work to add emotional depth to my writing.

        –CHIP HOUSER

I took this class because I wanted to improve what I thought was one small facet of writing. Instead, the material covered in the Emotional Truth course turned out to be the very ground on which good stories are built—it’s the start, the source, and the heart of fiction. My approach to writing is both broader and more focused, all thanks to the practical tools, brilliant schematics, and crucial emotional concepts covered in this course. More than just good information, Scott H. Andrews’ expertise as an editor steers the material towards its real-world applications. If the class is offered again, I’ll take it a second time.

        –JASON RYKIEL