Saturday, Oct. 16th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. San Francisco
$95 members/$110 non-members
Attention: This class is no longer available. Sorry.
In just about any writing class, you will hear these words: “Show don’t tell!” But how do you do that? “Ground your readers in their senses,” says Jane Underwood. “Run from abstractions, straight into the arms of all that is concrete — peaches, hurricanes, airplane roars, empty drawers, itching wounds.
During this day of sensory exploration, we’ll explore ways to come up with juicy images and details — descriptions that dance and breathe, scenes that taste and smell, characters that sing and shout, stories that are soft as the nape of a baby’s neck…or hard as a tack.
Whether you write fiction or poetry, screenplays or essays, memoirs or magazine pieces, you’ve got to master the craft of creating visceral scenes, palpable descriptions, and sensory worlds that seem so real, your readers will forget that they aren’t! This is BASIC creative writing 101 for beginners — and 1001 for pros who need a reminder. This is how you get your words not only into your readers’ minds but also into their hearts. The icing on the cake is that knowing how to do this makes the process of writing a whole lot more fun!
Jane Underwood, founder and director of the Writing Salon, has been a writer, editor and teacher for more than 30 years (and also leads the popular “Daily Write Round Robin” here at the Writing Salon). Her poetry, prose, erotica, articles and essays have appeared in numerous print and online periodicals (SF Chronicle, The Sun, babycenter.com, Five Fingers Review, Western Humanities Review, HOW(ever), Salon.com), anthologies (The Ecstatic Moment, Yellow Silk, Ripe Fruit, Best Women’s Erotica), as well as on stage (Lilith Theater). She has a masters in creative writing, and is also an avid photographer, with a special affection for urban trees, fallen leaves, and quirky San Francisco stairways.