Reviews can be written by anyone - fans for fans, pros for pros, fans for pros. This workshop will start with the basics, including how to condense a plot without spoilers, grabbing interest with quotes, how to be fair and honest (even if you don't like what you're reviewing), and what warnings reviewers owe readers. From there we will move to how to for different kinds of reviews - fanfic, professional fiction, nonfiction, TV/movies, audio, and books. We'll finish with a discussion of finding markets for these reviews, fannish or professional. Attendees are highly encouraged to bring short stories or plot synopsis of something they want to review for the hands-on portion of the workshop.

A talk/question and answer session on writing as a career and the basics that people starting out as writers need to know. How to submit stories for publication, how agents work, what the publishing process should be like, scams to avoid, publishing myths and misconceptions, and anything else the participants would like to discuss.
Limit: 40

How to keep your baseline arc steady while writing episodic stories.

Writing action has unusual challenges – how to convey movement through a static medium, how to describe without bogging the action down in endless accounts of fists and fury. Together we’ll learn the rules for writing fights – and when to break them like a cheap stoolie. Let’s get ready to rumble!

In this workshop, we'll do some brief guided-ideation/writing exercises designed to help you learn about the characters you're writing about -- whether in fanfic or original fiction -- by acts of guided imagination with particular attention to sensory details. This is a material-generating workshop, which works well whether you have established characters, or just the merest sense of a person you'd like to explore through writing. Please come prepared with writing materials of your choice, and at least some idea of what character you'd like to work with during the 90 minute session. Between exercises there will be some opportunity to read aloud and hear (positive) feedback about your results.
Limit: Nine participants in each session

Sex seems so omnipresent in fic that it can sometimes overwhelm storytelling. This workshop will show you how to write relationships that don’t require sex to move the narrative along – not just between romantically-involved couples, but including friendships, sibling rivalries, parent-child dynamics, and other non-romantic attachments.

If you've ever submitted your story to a beta, you know that the critique process can turn a good story into a great one. The Writers' Salon is like a face-to-face beta session, in which your story will be discussed by a small group of people who are passionate about writing. We'll give your story an honest critique, and you'll do the same for our stories, and then we'll all go home energized and ready to rewrite. We'll also discuss how to set up your own writing critique groups, whether online or face-to-face.
Limit: Six participants

To quote myself (in "Kansas Burning," a Supernatural meta post I made some time back on LiveJournal): "Let's begin with a position statement: Supernatural isn't just horror/fantasy; it's deeply and specifically American horror/fantasy." As such, some of its most effective monsters-of-the-week have been drawn from regional history and legend; nor have fanfic writers neglected this rich vein of source material. Not every writer, though, has the advantage of physical proximity to all this local color; the workshop, accordingly, will also explore alternate means -- the internet, library research, asking questions of your friends and relatives and the occasional helpful stranger -- of digging it up and transforming it into story."
Limit: 13 participants

In this workshop, we'll do some brief guided-ideation/writing exercises designed to help you learn about the characters you're writing about -- whether in fanfic or original fiction -- by acts of guided imagination with particular attention to sensory details. This is a material-generating workshop, which works well whether you have established characters, or just the merest sense of a person you'd like to explore through writing. Please come prepared with writing materials of your choice, and at least some idea of what character you'd like to work with during the 90 minute session. Between exercises there will be some opportunity to read aloud and hear (positive) feedback about your results.
Limit: Nine participants in each session