When: April 6 & 7, 2024 | 9AM – 4PM Pacific – (convert to your time zone)
Can’t make the live webinar? Register to get the recording after
Where: Online — Zoom Classroom
Price: $100 – $150
Scholarships Are Available!
Our mythologies shape and define us. Our myths and legends—our heroes and exempla, our tricksters, our gods, our ghosts, our monsters, our understanding of our past and of the world around us—inform our choices and perspectives, what we value, and what pressures we feel as we chart our course between our strongest fears and our deepest desires. This is true for our fictional characters, too! (Regardless of your genre or topic.)
In this webinar, discover the exciting things you can do in a story when you know the lore of your fictional world and its implications. Whether your fictional world is big as a galaxy or the size of a single family. Whether its heroes are interstellar entities or goddesses of thunder and storm or wise grandmothers or cowboys lassoing a tornado. Even better: something we’ve never encountered in a story before.
Author Stant Litore will explore techniques for designing the stories behind the story you’re telling–the stories that your characters either carry in their hearts or resist with all their capacity.
How deep does your lore go? And how fiercely does it press on your characters’ lives and actions? Let’s find out!
Who Should Take This Webinar?
Writers of ALL genres — Literary • Contemporary • Historical Fiction • Science Fiction • Fantasy • Horror • Mystery • Romance • Young Adult • Middle Grade • Children’s Books — and all narrative mediums — Prose • Film and TV Scripts • Comics • Graphic Novels • Games • Podcasts • Plays — from all backgrounds and any skill level. This webinar is for any writer who wants to take steps toward creating more inclusive, representational narratives.
Schedule and Content
The webinar will run from 9AM – 4PM Pacific Time (click here to convert to your time zone) on Saturday and Sunday with breaks throughout the day. There will be a hour long meal break around 12PM Pacific.
Day 1: Learn an approach to finding the lore behind your story–the traditions, memories, and tales that shape your fictional world and its characters–and consider how these traditions have been received by your character. What lore has the weight of power behind it, what lore is forbidden or concealed, and what storytelling possibilities does this present?
Day 2: Explore the implications of this lore for your character arc, your plot, and the thematic concerns of your story.
Recording
We use Zoom’s internal cloud recording tool to will record this webinar. All students who register will get a copy of this recording. If you can’t make the live webinar, you can register to get the recording afterwards.
This is a raw recording, meaning you’ll see the full webinar, including lectures, exercises, and questions from students in attendance. The recording will not be chapter marked or edited.
The video will be available for all students to download for a month after we send the link.
Required and Recommended Texts
Please acquire the following book ahead of the webinar:
- Write Worlds Your Readers Won’t Forget by Stant Litore [Paperback: Direct | Amazon | Bookshop.org or eBook: Direct | Kindle]
While not required texts, we recommend reading these books before the webinar:
- Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Cynthia Ward and Nisi Shawl
- Write Magic Systems Your Readers Won’t Forget by Stant Litore [Paperback: Direct | Amazon | Bookshop.org or eBook: Kindle]
They’ll deepen your understanding and provide a great foundation for what you’ll learn in the webinar.
Accessibility
Zoom meetings software is compatible with standard screen readers and has several other accessibility features that make it possible for writers who are Blind or vision impaired to participate in the webinar. Questions will be submitted via the chat function.
Live closed captions will be available, auto-generated by Rev.com. The final version of the recorded webinar will have auto-generated closed captions available. Note: the accuracy of these captions varies, and for live webinars we do not edit them.
Technical Requirements
Zoom video conferencing works on computers, tablets, and most smartphones. We suggest you access the live webinar via a computer for the best experience. Before enrolling in class, make sure your computer or mobile device is compatible with Zoom. Before class, load the app on your system and join this test meeting.
A webcam/video camera is not necessary for class because students won’t be on video. The Q&A will be text-only. You can call in via phone if audio isn’t working through your computer.
Scholarship Opportunities
We have full and partial Vonda N. McIntyre Sentient Squid Scholarships available for this webinar. If you do not have the financial means to pay for all or part of the registration cost, we encourage you to apply. We have a broad definition of financial need that ranges from writers who do not have the money at all to writers who have the funds but can’t afford to use them for a writing class.
We especially encourage writers who have been financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to apply. Wherever you exist on the financial needs spectrum, don’t self reject! (Still not sure whether you should apply? Read this post.)
Our scholarships are available to any writer regardless of background or identity. We set aside a portion of scholarships specifically for students who identify under the POC, BIPOC, or BAME umbrellas as well as for Palestinian writers/writers of Palestinian heritage, though we do not limit the number of scholarships we give to marginalized authors.
If you can afford to pay for part but not all of the registration fee, please apply for a partial scholarship. Under this financial aid plan you can let us know the amount you can afford. If you cannot afford to pay at all, please apply for a full scholarship.
To apply, please fill out this form by 11:59PM Pacific March 17th. You’ll be asked to provide:
- A brief (300 or fewer words) statement of financial need
- A brief (500 or fewer words) description of a work or works in progress that you hope the webinar will help you create.
- If you identify as POC, BIPOC, BAME, or Palestinian, you may indicate that if you wish.
Deadline: 11:59PM Pacific March 17th. We will notify all applicants of their standing two weeks before class begins. If you have any questions, please use our contact form to ask!
Refund Policy
We are not offering refunds for this webinar. If you purchase a ticket for the live session and are unable to make it, you will still get access to the recording and resources.
Register Below
If you have a promo or discount code, please choose your registration option first, click Enter Details, then add it to the Discount Code field on the next screen. If the whole box below gives you trouble, click here to register on our Humanitix page.