Cat Rambo is Rambo Cat!

I’ve still got room in this weekend’s classes, Beginnings & Endings (Saturday morning) and the Character Building workshop (Sunday morning). In the first, I’m going to talk about a number of things, including how to use your beginning to create your ending and vice versa, what your beginning sets up for your reader, what your beginning and ending must contain, how to most effectively use title + beginning + ending, and various other tips and tricks. There will be 3-4 quick writing exercises over the course of the class designed to help you apply what we’re talking about in order to effectively add it to your writerly toolbox.

The Character Building Workshop is familiar to some of you, and I always love teaching it because I come away with at least a couple of wordlumps that end up being part of the current WIP as well as better insight into the characters I’m working with. Come join us if you want a little inspiration for your current project.
Register by mailing me at catrambo@gmail.com or cat@catrambo.com with the name and date of the class you’re interested in. And please feel free to pass this newsletter along to friends and fellow writers you think might be interested!

April Classes
April 16 (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Beginnings and Endings
April 17 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Character Building Workshop
April 23 (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Creating an Online Presence for Writers
April 24 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Description and Delivering Information
April 30 (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Flash Fiction Workshop

May Classes
May 1 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) First Pages with Caren Gussoff
May 14, (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Moving from Idea to Finished Draft
May 15 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Literary Techniques for Genre Writers
May 21 (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Retelling and Retaleing with Rachel Swirsky
May 22 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Literary Techniques for Genre Writers II

June Classes
June 3 (Sat, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Writing Your Way Into Your Novel
June 4 (Sun, 9:30-11:30 AM PST) Moving from Idea to Finished Draft

#sfwapro
Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.

We talked last week about story shapes and arcs as well as what gets set up in the beginning of a story. This week we talked about characters and dialogue, and how the first shapes the story. One of the points made was that a character is not something you stick in a slot of a story – the character shapes the entire story. For example, the story of someone encountering a werewolf is very different if your protagonist is a little old lady who hates dogs because they’re messy than if that protagonist is an emo-teen determined to become a werewolf in order to get revenge on someone that wronged them.

The main character usually changes in some way over the course of the story, but that change must feel organic and natural. You can set up a big change of mind with foreshadowing and having them change on some smaller matter, showing that such change is possible, so it doesn’t throw the reader out of the story when it occurs.

We discussed approaches to learning more about your characters. I recommended the book Writing The Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, which talks about writing characters who are a different sex, race, or class background than yourself. I also recommended people-watching and reading pop psychology (or even more sciencey stuff, which will provide all sorts of story ideas.

One of the quickest ways to turn an editor off is with improperly punctuated dialogue, so learn the rules and use them. We went over things like speech tags, how to punctuate internal dialogue, why you don’t need to come up with a bunch of synonyms for “said,” and how to make voices distinctive. I suggested that people watch the wonderful adaptation of Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” – here is the original text, and here is the film made from it.

If you really want to focus on dialogue, read good plays, which are pure dialogue. If you want to write in a particular historical voice, one of the best ways is to read deeply in that period so you absorb it. Doing so may make you aware how much what we read and watch creeps into our writing – that’s one very good reason to read some high quality stuff now and again.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.