Saturday, Dec 2, 10am-2:30pm CST (with 30-minute lunch), Hybrid (via Zoom and in-person at Gemini Ink)
Instructor: Desiree Kannel
Nonmember: $105; Member: $90; Student/Vet/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. 

Great novels and short stories use scenes to gain momentum, escalate conflict, and reveal character. But how do writers decide which scenes push the action forward and which ones stagnate the story with unnecessary details?

In this 4-hour workshop, writers will analyze scenes from their own work and learn how to decide what to cut and what to revise. We will discuss scene structure, effective transitions, and how to let character motivation drive the plot instead of the author’s agenda. Writers will leave with a better sense of what may be missing from their work in progress and tips on how to move forward.

This workshop will include exercises on dialogue and setting. Each student will be asked to bring a scene from their own work to be revised in class.

This course is open to fiction writers of all skill levels, 18+. Writers who have written the first draft are encouraged to attend.

You will leave this workshop with:

• A new approach to scene writing with purpose and movement
• Ideas of what details can be cut and what to keep for revision
• Knowledge of how to transition in and out of a scene
• An edited piece of previously written work

Read Desiree’s Writer’s Desk Q&A!

Desiree Kannel is a writer and teacher from Southern California. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and a post-grad certificate in Rhetoric & Composition from California State University Dominguez Hills. Desiree’s fiction has appeared in the Running Wild Anthology of Short Stories (2019), Fourth & Sycamore, and others. Her novel, Lucky John (2020), was a finalist in the African American Fiction category in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her second novel, The Delany Bennets, was published in October 2023. Desiree leads creative writing workshops online and locally and is a Gemini Ink teaching artist.