Writing Character: Overview

This is Part 2 of the “Writing Your Passion” workshops offered this fall (2017) at the Belleville Public Library. Writing Character follows Writing Place — each workshop facilitated over four weeks (scroll down for dates and prices). During both workshops our focus is on the important connection between place-character-action.

When characters come alive on the page, magic happens – characters become people brought to life by writers’ skills and their art. In “Writing Character,” participants will explore the link between place-character-action. With the help of literary techniques, participants will create characters that “fit” naturally into their stories’ settings. Whether you are a beginning writer or advanced, interested in memoir, fiction or another genre, this workshop will provide skills that will lift your stories – and the people who inhabit them – to the next level.

The overview:

Writing Character -Overview

If you’d like to get more out of the places of your stories. Think about joining me at the Belleville Public Library. Time is short: sign up now ((613-968-6731 Ext #2239) or drop in at 254 Pinnacle Street, Belleville, Ontario K8N 3B1.

Travel & Other Passions: A Room & A Reading Chair

Lucky me! I have a studio room, an atelier, a room of my own. It sits in the front of the house with tall north-facing windows and good light. Once it was the dining room, but rarely used. Now the dining table sits at the rear overlooking the small city backyard. It’s closer to the kitchen with an even better view. Why not?

With the dining table gone – replaced by a smaller more practical one in a place more convenient – the empty space quickly filled with a row of bookcases, a small collection of indigenous baskets, red-tailed hawk feathers (and others) from the fields, favourite photographs and paintings, a drop-leaf worktable, an old secretary topped with a computer (and more bookshelves), and a claw-footed piano stool for the desk. All this came together quite readily as I scrounged through the house and visited Funk & Gruven – all except for an oversize, elusive wing-back chair.

After weeks of peeking into antique and used-furniture stores, I was returning home from a workshop with a fellow writer in a neighbouring town. There, in an old church-cum-shop, stood my chair. It is big; I can curl up in it and be hidden by its high back and broad wings. It is plaid and in my favourite colours – rosy and green hues. It is the perfect chair. In it, I’ve been rereading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, again. Much has changed since c.1928, but travel, life experiences beyond the immediate family and social circle, and a room of one’s own – Woolf’s prerequisites for a literary life – remain paramount. They are more accessible, c.2017, than in Woolf’s day, but still….

I have now spent hours in the chair, lost in virtual travels through distant places and inside others’ lives (hence the book reviews), and I have sketched the chair (but that’s another passion for another day).

Reading Chair Sketch LR-1

Workshop: Writing Your Passion

A workshop in two parts

Part One: Writing Place

Part Two: Writing Character

In this workshop, facilitated by author Kathryn MacDonald, you will discover your place – the one outside that stirs the one inside – the place to set your story.

Explore ways of bringing readers inside your cityscape-landscape-seascape so they enter it;
Explore strategies that reveal the interconnectedness of people and place, creating “fit.”

Writing Place provides more than simple context for our stories. It provides an entry or portal for readers to engage in the world of each story’s action. Far more than adding simple colour, place adds depth to characters. Open the writers’ toolbox with Kathryn and discover strategies that will boost your skills – from literary techniques to structuring stories to learning to read as a writer in order to enhance self-editing. Gain the benefits of a fully-participatory workshop with individual feedback.

When: September 11, 18, 25, and October 2 (5-8 p.m.)

Where: Belleville Public Library (Ontario) Register by calling 613-968-6731 x2240

Writing Character opens the door to creating characters that come to life on the page. Participants will hone techniques and talents in specific areas in the development of their stories, including voice, tone, and mood, along with the creation of movement, structure, and tension. Modeled as Writing Place, these four weeks offer a fully participatory experience with individual feedback.

When: October 16, 23, 30, November 6 (5-8 p.m.)

Where: Belleville Public Library (Ontario) Register by calling 613-968-6731 x2240

Price: $140 per workshop or $250 for both

Cienfuegos Week 2 095

Need inspiration? Join Kathryn MacDonald for eight evenings this fall (2017) for a hands-on writing experience that will get you over the blank-page hurdle. (Participants are invited to bring a photo or painting of a place and/or character – along with imagination – as a jumping-off-into-words strategy.)

Your facilitator has published three books and has a fourth manuscript seeking a publisher. She taught writing through Loyalist College (16 years) and has been on the editorial staff of Harrowsmith, Equinox, and Key to Kingston magazines. Check out her WUC and QAC profiles (for links, please click on the “Welcome” page).

For more details, please complete and submit the comment form with your questions and/or request for a workshop outline.

← Back

Tag: Writing