Description
What does a story do, and how does it work? In this workshop, we take an in-depth look at the shape of a narrative, understanding the role of both plot and structure as the hidden design of any work of fiction. We’ll look at breaking down a story to its simplest components, then scaling it up, from short story to novel and back again.
We’ll examine:
- Paragraphs as the smallest building blocks of fiction: action, dialogue, description
- The Rule of Three
- The who, what, why, where and how of fiction
- The difference between short, novelette, novella and novel and how it affects the writing of each
- Characters and their goals
- Names and their significance
- The role of the narrator
- Writing the perfect shape short story
- Time and its relation to narrative
You’ll leave this workshop with a concrete understanding of structure and plot to employ in your short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels. Plus, you’ll have new tools in your kit for addressing problems with structure and plot in your work, including Lavie’s own checklist he uses, himself.
DATE: January 31, 2026 – Saturday
TIME: 1PM ET | 12PM CT | 11AM MT | 10AM PT | 18:00 UTC
RUNTIME: Approximately 90 minutes
About Your Instructor
William Alexander is the New York Times-bestselling author of Goblin Secrets and other unrealisms for young readers. His work has won the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, the Librarian Favorites Award, the Teacher Favorites Award, two Junior Library Guild Selections, and two CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year Awards. Most recently he wrote Sunward—his first novel for grownups—and co-edited the middle grade anthology Starstuff: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Celebrate New Possibilities. As a small child he honestly believed that his Cuban-American family came from the lost island of Atlantis.
