Creating Fictional Worlds: A Three-day Creative Writing Workshop for Teen Writers (ages 13-18)

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Creating Fictional Worlds: A Three-day Creative Writing Workshop for Teen Writers (ages 13-18)

 

3-day workshop on July 8, 10, and 12 (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) from 6-8 pm at ACW

$75 – $150 Pay-what-you-can sliding scale

Do you love reading about magical kingdoms, lands, or alternate worlds? Do you ever find yourself dreaming up or sketching out your own? Are you a teen writer inspired by fairytales, mythology, fantasy, science fiction, ghost stories, or dreams? If yes, then this three-day workshop is for you! 

Over the course of three class meetings, we’ll dive into an exploration of how to create a compelling fictional world (and all the moving parts it contains), with a goal of creating our own worlds by the end of the workshop and beginning a story set in that world. You do not need to have a world or story in mind before the class begins; rather, we will begin with some imaginative writing exercises and group brainstorming, and move into exercises that guide writers through map-sketching (think Tolkien!), writing origin stories, character creation, and more! We’ll spend time looking at short excerpts from the masters, learning about new tools of worldbuilding and storytelling, writing in response to short in-class prompts and exercises, and working on our own worldbuilding projects, which we will share with the group on the last day of class. You’ll leave with a number of “beginnings” that can be continued, as well as tools and techniques that will help you continue to build your magical worlds and tell their stories.

Rough Schedule
:
July 8: Intro to worldbuilding & storytelling; map-sketching; begin worldbuilding project
July 10: Writing origin stories, mythology; continue work on worldbuilding project 
July 12: Creating characters; choosing a protagonist; work on projects; presentations; next steps