ONLINE: Writing Day Workshops plans both in-person and virtual/online conferences. The 2024 CWW is an Online Conference, on March 8-9. Online events are easy and awesome, and the virtual events we’ve done thus far have received wonderful feedback. You do not have to be tech-savvy to do this, and understand we are keeping all aspects of a traditional in-person event, including one-on-one agent & editor pitching, which will now be done by Zoom or phone. Learn all details about what it means to have a writers conference online.)
The schedule below is on Mountain time.
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THIS YEAR’S SESSIONS & WORKSHOPS (MARCH 8-9, 2024):
Friday, March 8, 2024
9:30 – 10:30: How to Write the “Perfect” Query Letter.
10:45 – 11:45: The Show vs. Tell Solution, taught by Lorin Oberweger. Nearly every writer is admonished to “show don’t tell,” only to puzzle over the fact that of course you have to tell readers quite a bit of your story. First, we’ll define and look at passages of show—action, dialogue, and then tell—description and the rest of narration. To arrive at a publishable novel or memoir, you’ll need to learn two advanced techniques: Show-Tell and Tell Well. The skill of when and how to show/tell or tell well intersects with decisions you’ll make about pacing, dialogue, character development, imagery, genre and much more. In this workshop, you’ll learn the many criteria for how to successfully use these techniques, and have a chance to apply what you learn on your writing.
11:45 – 1:15: Break
1:15 – 2:30: Working with a Literary Agent, taught by Marlo Berliner.
2:45 – 3:45: Mapping Your Plot, taught by Bronwyn Scott. Plot is the spine of the story and all else radiates from there. This session introduces the key elements of a plot line and then techniques as to how to generate your own plot line through plot mapping.
4:00 – 5:00: What a Literary Agent Can Teach You About Editing and Revision, taught by Katie Reed.
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Saturday, March 9, 2024
9:30 – 10:30: Emotional Character Arcs: What Are They and How They Can Transform Your Novel, taught by Carey Blankenship. Characters and their emotional journeys are the bread and butter of our favorite stories and can make or break your success in the querying trenches. Whether you’re starting your story for the first time or are knee deep in revisions, you should be thinking through how every scene moves, or doesn’t move, your character forward in their emotional arc. If you’re not sure how to do that or how to outline your character arcs in the first place, that’s what this class is for!
10:45 – 11:45: Common Writing Mistakes Agents See.
1:15 – 2:30: “Writers Got Talent”—a Page 1 Critique Fest, with participating literary agents and editors. In the vein of “American Idol” or “America’s Got Talent,” this is a chance to get your first page read (anonymously — no bylines given) with attending agents commenting on what was liked or not liked about the submission. Get expert feedback on your incredibly important first page, and know if your writing has what it needs to keep readers’ attention. (All attendees are welcome to bring pages to the event for this session, and we will choose pages at random for the workshop for as long as time lasts. All submissions should be novels or memoir—no prescriptive nonfiction or picture books, please. Do not send your pages in advance. You will bring printed copies with you, and instructions will be sent out approximately one week before the event.)
2:45 – 3:45: Open Agent Q&A Panel. Several attending literary agents will open themselves up to open Q&A from CWW attendees. Bring your questions and get them answered in this popular session.
4:00 – 5:00: Learning to Adapt: The Key to a Writer’s Success, taught by Tiffany W. Killoren. If there’s anything that life has taught us over these last few years, it’s that learning to adapt to an ever-changing world is imperative to personal success and growth. Like life around it – the publishing world has been impacted by a changing economy, emerging technology and a marketplace that ebbs and flows. Authors needs to be just as flexible in this industry and adopt an evolving approach to publication based on their personal goals, opportunities and resources.
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BONUS CLASSES:
Classes are recorded (and this is amazing news)! With an in-person conference, attendees would miss snippets of classes because they leave the classroom to pitch, or make a phone call, or anything else. But the 10 classes happening March 8-9, 2024 are all recorded, which means we will send the days’ recording following the event. You can watch classes as many times as you want during the next six months. This is an exciting new element that we couldn’t include before. Also, we will be sending out all handouts for all classes to attendees in advance.
Lastly, having this new technology allows us WDW faculty members to pre-record sessions, too—meaning we will actually send attendees many extra FREE classes as part of their attendance. In addition to getting the weekend’s 10 classes sent to you to watch over and over again, we will also send you at least 10 more FREE classes on the side, for attending in 2024:
- “Legal Issues Writers Should Consider,” taught at our Chesapeake Writing Workshop
- “Writing and Selling Fiction vs. Nonfiction,” taught at our Boston Writing Workshop
- “How to Think Like a Developmental Editor,” taught at our Kansas City Writing Workshop
- “Standing Out in a Twitter/Online Pitch Event,” taught at our Florida Writing Workshop
- “Visual Thinking for Picture Book Writers,” taught at our Tennessee Writing Workshop
- “Your Novel Could Be a Movie: Adapting a Book to Film,” taught at our Writing Workshop of San Francisco
- “How to Sell Nonfiction: Demystifying the Nonfiction Book Proposal,” taught at our Carolina Writing Workshop
- “Creating Strong Compelling Female Characters,” taught at our Atlanta Writing Workshop
- “Writers Got Talent—a Page 1 Critique Fest,” an agent panel from our Florida Writing Workshop
- “Ask an Agent Anything: Open Agent Q&A Panel,” an agent panel from our Writing Workshop of San Francisco