Muse & the Marketplace 2018

You've got 100 words, more or less, to engage someone—editor or reader. Most readers will (only) engage with a story if they feel grounded in some aspect of that story's world. Whether physically grounded in setting, emotionally grounded in character, or logistically grounded in the human situation, it's crucial to establish for readers early on a world they recognize, and to convey what matters in that world. In this advanced craft session, we'll discuss techniques for grounding your stories, analyze published examples, and get principles in practice with take-home application exercises. For writers of both short fiction and novels.