Join the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America at our library for writing workshops to improve your skills and encourage creativity. The Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America presents the third annual All Write event at Nova Southeastern University’s Alvin Sherman Library. The event will be comprised of four mini-workshops designed to help novice and seasoned authors hone their writing skills. The event is free and open to the public.

The Plot Clock

Joyce Sweeney was born plot-challenged. As a result, about four books into her career, she had to take drastic action and find a way to fix this! Studying screenwriting was one piece of the puzzle. Book reviewing and analyzing plots helped. Partnering with Jamie Morris in Next Level Workshops polished it up and finally The Plot Clock was born. The Plot Clock is a flexible template that can really serve as a great roadmap for whatever type of story you’re working on. Joyce will take you for a spin around the clock with your own WIP and show you that all you have to do is follow the yellow brick road and your ‘quiet’ story will turn up the volume, raise the stakes and deliver the emotions your readers want.

Joyce Sweeney is the author of fourteen novels for young adults and two chapbooks of poetry. Her books have won many awards and honors. Joyce has recently switched to writing adult fiction and is represented by Nicole Resciniti of the Seymour agency. Joyce has also been a writing teacher and coach for 25 years. In 2019, she, Jamie Morris and Tia Levings released PLOTTING YOUR NOVEL WITH THE PLOT CLOCK (Giantess Press).  At this writing, 62 of Joyce’s students have successfully obtained traditional publishing contracts. She offers online classes at www.sweeneywritingcoach.com.

Writing Fitness

The Writing Fitness Workshop will encourage you to “trim the fat” of extra words from your writing and “tone” your sentences through balanced placement of phrases. After learning about the central role of verb “cardio,” participants will launch into many “reps” of revision and editing exercises. Get ready to “sweat” over your writing, in a good way!

For thirty years, Chris Jackson has taught American Literature and Creative Writing at Nova Southeastern University. She is the author of three non-fiction studies about detective fiction, including The Tell-Tale Art: Poe in Modern Popular Culture (2012). She served for many years on the SleuthFest planning board. Now retired from NSU, Chris sits at a still too-cluttered desk filled with stacks of writing projects, including a novel based on the actual Lizzie Borden case from the 1880s and Murder is Not Sustainable: Ecocriticism Examines Detective Fiction.  For more about Chris, please go to https://cahss.nova.edu/faculty/christine_jackson.html.

Understanding the Scene

Scenes are the building blocks of a novel, but they don’t always unfold the way we want them to. In this workshop, you’ll learn the mechanics of scene and its troublesome partner, the sequel, and how to use this pairing to drive your story. You’ll also learn how to develop scenes and weave them together to build strong and focused plots, as well as what to do when you story grinds to a halt and you don’t know why.

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She also writes the Grace Harper series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she’s not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.

Dos and Don’ts of Dialogue

Good dialogue can make your characters jump off the page and into your reader’s life. Not-so-good dialogue can make your reader put down your story and never pick it back up again. In this workshop, you will learn to write engaging dialogue and practice what you’ve learned through exercises that will help you hone your skills.

Miriam Auerbach is the author of the multiple award-winning DIRTY HARRIET satirical mystery series, in which the protagonist most frequently engages in dialogue with … an alligator. Visit her website at miriamauerbach.com.