Fiction Essentials with Rich Marcello. Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9 PM starting September 13th, 2023. Online.

Description

This three-hour introductory class will be divided into two sections. In the first half, we’ll explore different aspects of the craft of fiction, as detailed below. In the second half, we’ll focus on scenes written by the students and provide positive, constructive feedback on how each author might develop their work.

Week One: The Anatomy of a Scene
Week Two: The Fictive Dream
Week Three: Point of View, Voice, and Time
Week Four: Plot, Tension, and Raising the Stakes
Week Five: Characters
Week Six: The First and Last Chapter
Week Seven: Dialogue versus Narrative Summary
Week Eight: How to Build a World
Week Nine: Common Issues
Week Ten: Putting It All Together Prerequisites:
This class will be taught on Zoom or at the Lancaster Library.

This class is designed for active, beginning writers who want to hone their craft. Each student must be prepared to write, share work, and provide feedback to fellow participants.

This class will be taught on Zoom.

Rich Marcello is the author of five novels, The Color of Home, The Big Wide Calm, The Beauty of the Fall, The Latecomers, and Cenotaphs, and the poetry collection, The Long Body That Connects Us All. He also teaches creative writing at Seven Bridge Writers’ Collaborative. Previously, he enjoyed a successful career as a technology executive, managing several multi-billion dollar businesses for Fortune 500 companies. As anyone who has read Rich’s work can tell you, his books deal with life’s big questions: love, loss, creativity, community, self-discovery, and forgiveness. His novels are rich with characters and ideas, crafted by a natural storyteller with the eye and the ear of a poet. For Rich, writing and art-making is about connection, or as he says, about making a difference to a least one other person in the world, something he has achieved many times over, both as an artist, a mentor, and a teacher. Rich lives in Massachusetts with his wife and Newfoundland Shaman. He is working on his sixth and seventh novels, The Means of Keeping and In the Seat of the Eddas, a follow-on to The Latecomers.