High tension is probably the No. 1 reason readers keep reading.

Whether you’re writing fiction, memoir or narrative nonfiction, if you can keep your reader on the edge of his or her seat by creating and maintaining tension throughout scene after scene, that reader will stay up way too late reading your book and tell all his friends to go out and buy it. In this workshop, we’ll delve into the interplay of all the elements that raise tension and create conflict and explore how to craft your story to capitalize on each within scenes as well as across your entire plot line. The workshop will include short readings, craft discussion and lots of writing prompts.

The workshop will take place at the Red Brick Center for the Arts (110 E. Hallam St., Aspen). 

Special price for Aspen Writers Network members: $40. Non-members: $95.

Join Aspen Writers Network today (annual membership $135) and get access to members-only events and special discounts on Aspen Words programs.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Rachel Weaver is the author of the novel “Point of Direction,” which Oprah Magazine named a Top 10 Book to Pick Up Now. “Point of Direction” was chosen by the American Booksellers Association as a Top 10 Debut for Spring 2014, by IndieBound as an Indie Next List Pick, by Yoga Journal as one of their Top Five Suggested Summer Reads, and won the 2015 Willa Cather Award for Fiction. Prior to earning her MFA in writing and poetics from Naropa University, Rachel worked for the Forest Service in Alaska studying bears, raptors and songbirds. She is on faculty at Regis University’s low-residency MFA program, and at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, where she won the Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Gettysburg Review, Blue Mesa Review, Alaska Women Speak and Fly Fishing New England.