Nancy Herkness
The Subtle Art of Pacing
Your plot is thrilling, but your story still drags. How can that be? Because there’s more to pacing than exciting action and high emotion. Learn subtle ways to keep your reader turning the pages at high speed. These techniques include seeding in backstory without info dumps, crafting chapter beginnings and endings that intrigue and satisfy the reader, and creating scenes that serve more than one purpose. In addition, we will discuss active dialogue tags, micro-conflict, subtext, word choice, and other ingenious stylistic methods that require only small adjustments to the work but have a big impact on pacing.
Call Me Ishmael: How to start writing and keep writing
Suffering from writer’s block? Don’t know where to start your book? Award-winning author Nancy Herkness’ workshop is going to help you change all that. She’ll discuss the use of character interviews, the pros and cons of outlining, and the dangers of research as a form of procrastination. Drawing on her own experience and that of other authors, she’ll get you past that first moment of staring at a blank page and freezing in terror. By the end of the workshop, you’ll be on your way to a finished manuscript. Bring pen and paper because you will be writing!
Nancy Herkness is the award-winning author of more than ten contemporary romance novels, including the Wager of Hearts and Whisper Horse series. Her work has been honored with the Book Buyers Best Top Pick Award, the New England Readers’ Choice Award, and the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, as well as many others. In addition, Nancy is a two-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® award. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English literature and creative writing. A native of West Virginia, Nancy now lives in suburban New Jersey with her husband and a goofy golden retriever.