March 29, 2024

The Glass Castle

41qFdmnyvxL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_The Glass Castle will be the third class in our bestselling memoir series, following Wild and Eat, Pray, Love.

Tuesdays, April 22-May 13, 2014, from 4-5pm PT/7-8pm ET.

1-Month Intro Course (Regular registration—$89)

 

Are you an NAMW or WOW member? You get a discount! ($75)

 

Class 1. April 22
Memory & Writing Dark Truths
Writing scene as memories.
How to write trauma, and through trauma and difficult memories.
• What it means to write dispassionately, and why it’s important.
• An exploration of truth and how the reader perceives the truth.

Class 2. April 29
Structure & Takeaway
• The difference between scene and vignette.
• How Jeannette Walls got away with writing a book of vignettes—the secret is in the narrative arc.
How takeaway is handled through another person’s insights—in this case Jeannette’s mother
• The consequences of pulling the reader out of the fictive dream.

Class 3. May 6
Voice of Innocence vs. Voice of Experience
• How Jeannette Walls handles both voices.
• Showing the issues of the family through different narrative voices.
• “Showing” versus “telling,” and how it’s especially important when dealing with trauma and hard or negative memories.
• The power of showing through the child’s perspective—and how to make this work.

Class 4. May 13
Themes
• Why Jeannette Walls’s themes made her book a bestseller.
• The power of metaphor to drive a theme home.
• Why universal themes strike a nerve and how to pay attention to your themes.
• Why “through-threads” are part of the equation, and how to integrate through-threads into your own memoir.

SIGN UP TODAY—$75