Class Description
You’ve sent your character on a journey. You’ve built up your antagonist. The crowd is chanting: Fight! Fight! Fight! But how can one scene possibly live up to all that hype? In this session, we’ll tackle tips for writing action scenes and set pieces within the specific lens of speculative fiction. In addition to considering how your prose can support your action, we’ll examine how your action can support and build your characters and world, from scene purposes to cultural context. We’ll discover the why of each action scene, not just from the perspective of character motivation, but through examining the written and unwritten rules of society those characters are navigating. What does fighting look like in this world? What sanctioned avenues exist for resolving tensions (and who sanctions them)? What might push a character to act outside of those limits? Through exercises and discussion of the work of writers like Martha Wells, Annalee Newitz, Sabaa Tahir, Arkady Martine, Traci Chee, and Manuel Gonzales, we’ll consider how to develop our characters’ powers and imperfections in ways that support the structural, emotional, and thematic tensions of our stories.
Class Format
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Scholarship Information
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.