The 2nd Weekend Writers' Fiction (& more) Workshop

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Part 1: Capturing a Sense of Place – The Nova Scotian Landscape as Inspiration

• Focus: Grounding your reader using sensory details and regional atmosphere.

• Session Details: We begin our journey by looking at the city (or province) where we reside. Using examples from the instructor’s multi-generational family saga (Unconventional Daughters, Uncommon Sons, and Undeniable Relations), we discuss how to make a historical or coastal setting function as a living character.

• Exercise: Writing a 200-word description of a coastal landscape using four of the five senses (excluding sight).

Part 2: The Travel Journalist’s Lens – Framing Stories in Words and Photos

• Focus: Developing editorial observational skills and blending text with visual imagery.

• Session Details: Drawing from over a decade as a freelance travel journalist and photographer, the instructor reveals how to look past the tourist veneer. Learn how to take field notes, capture the hidden narrative of a destination, and use photography to inspire      compelling prose. Why writing in "first person singular" is more important now for travel journalism.

• Exercise: The "Visual Snapshot" challenge: writing a 150-word narrative vignette based entirely on a photograph you’ve taken in the past 12 months.

Part 3: Character Evolution and the Element of Surprise  (co-presented with Michelle Helliwell)

• Focus: Creating layers, subtext, and shattering reader expectations.

• Session Details: Centered on the philosophy that people are never who you expect them to be, we analyze how to build      complex, unpredictable characters. We study techniques for dropping subtle clues that hint at a character's true, hidden nature without giving the game away too early. 

• Exercise: Crafting a brief character sketch of someone whose outward appearance completely contradicts their internal reality. Write in 3rd person singular – e.g. “She was petite but a quiet force of nature.”

Part 4: Managing Time and Timelines – The Standalone Family Saga

• Focus: Structuring narrative arcs across decades without losing the reader.

• Session Details: The instructor's first three  novels span from 1883 to 1958. In this session, we demystify how to write interconnected stories that can be read out of sequence. Learn how to drop characters seamlessly in and out of different timelines while keeping each book a distinct, self-contained story.

• Exercise: Mapping out a 30-year timeline for a single character in three major, distinct life events.

Part 5: The Interlinked (or Interconnected) Series (co-presented with Anne Louise O'Connell)

• Focus: Pacing, transitioning eras, and shifting geographic backdrops.

• Session Details: Moving from a historical family saga to a duology requires a shift in style. Using Grow Up, Rory Rafferty as a case study, we examine how to bridge different cultural eras (such as a transition from 1979 Toronto to Nova Scotia) while      maintaining narrative momentum.

• Exercise Option: Writing a transition scene that establishes a radical shift in time or location using only environmental cues. (e.g. “Six months later, a heatwave enveloped the village’s inhabitants; fresh water became liquid gold, and…”)

Part 6: The Novella vs. The Novel – Reimagining Extracted Characters (co-presented with JM Campbell)

• Focus: Compression, tight pacing, and checking back in on aged characters.

• Session Details: In the instructor's latest novella, Stephanie Makes a Scene, we revisit Stephanie (whom we first met in 1979) as a 67-year-old playwright in the present day. We discuss the unique structural boundaries of the novella and how to compress a character’s rich backstory into a shorter, high-impact format.

Guest presenter JM Campbell will discuss how and why he chose to write a female FBI protagonist in two of his novels and what research was involved.

• Exercise Option: Drafting a "Character Flash-Forward": taking a character from an earlier exercise and writing a snapshot of him or her 40 years later.

Part 7: The Editing Deck – Polishing and Trimming Your Prose  (co-presented with Anne Louise O'Connell)

• Focus: Line editing, removing filler words, and tightening dialogue pacing.

• Session Details: The best writing happens in the rewriting stage. We practice practical self-editing techniques to eliminate clichés, fix passive voice, and ensure your prose flows with the rhythm of the ocean. The use of “Pro Writing Aid” or similar software is discussed.

• Exercise Option: A collaborative workshop exercise where we aggressively cut 30% of the words from a sample paragraph without losing its meaning.

Part 8: The Modern Publishing Roadmap – From First Draft to Bookstores and Online Sales  (a panel discussion)

• Focus: How to navigate the world of literary agents, traditional publishers, building a multi-book career, and  what to do about AI!

• Session Details: We demystify the industry. Learn how a 5-book author builds a recognizable brand, how travel editors commission pieces, and what it takes to get your manuscript noticed in the competitive modern market.  This is also a chance for memoir writers (or those aspiring) to ask questions of Ms. McConnell who wrote  'Swimming with the Elephants and Other Adventures'

• Q&A: Open-floor session for specific questions regarding attendees' projects.

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