In her craft book The Art of Time, Joan Silber writes, “All fiction has to contend with the experience of time passing.” Okay, sure, that’s true, but how do we make time pass on the page, and how do we do it artfully, and how does the timeframe we choose build meaning in our text? In this two-day seminar, we will define and interrogate basic terms such as scene, summary, and pacing, and we will read and discuss published fiction, looking closely at how authors compress and dilate time to deepen character and create drama. We will also do a number of writing exercises to practice different storytelling methods. After two days of reading, writing, and thinking, you will have a clearer understanding of how to capture the passage of time on the page with an eye toward characterization, theme, tone, and/or suspense.
This two-day intensive will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and quick writing prompts meant to inform and inspire. Occasionally, students will be divided into small groups–called Houses–to get to know one another and to work on in-class writing in companionable silence. You will have the option to send your writing to the members of your House for positive feedback using Slack, but it won’t be required. All creative work completed in this course will be considered practice and play. Please note, the instructor will not be reading or providing feedback on student writing.
Edan Lepucki
Photo by Ralph Palumbo
Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels California, Woman No. 17, and Time’s Mouth. She is also the editor of Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them. Her nonfiction has been published in Esquire Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The Cut, among other publications, and her short story “People in Hell Want Ice Water” is available as an Audible Original. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Dates & Times
This course will have two three-hour sessions on two Saturdays:
Saturday, April 6 from 9AM to Noon*
Saturday, April 13 from 9AM to Noon*
*All times are in the Pacific Time Zone
Limited Registration
Tuition and Financial Aid:
Tuition for this course is $200
We have three (3) scholarships available:
One (1) full tuition remission scholarship in the amount of $200
Two (2) half tuition scholarships in the amount of $100 each
To apply for a scholarship, please email hunter@communityofwriters.org with a brief breakdown (1-2 paragraphs) of your financial circumstances and how this course would benefit your writing life.
More Information
To learn more, send us an email!