There’s this scene you’ve been working on: Jack walks into a room. Diane’s already there. She’s drinking a mimosa and reading a travel guide for a place you haven’t decided on yet–maybe Barbados, maybe Detroit. Jack crosses the room. He tries to sit with her, but you forgot to include a chair, so he’s now hovering in an improvised yoga pose. Diane’s not even at a table, so when she releases the mimosa, it falls to the floor and shatters. This confuses the library staff because you’re not allowed to have mimosas in the library. Jack doesn’t even like to read, so he’s surprised to find himself in a library. He says, “When did I get to a library?” This echoes in the endless expanse of the void. When a librarian tells Diane about the no-mimosa rule, Diane says, “No dessert for me, thanks,” and then asks for the check. You suddenly remember that they’re at a tiki bar, but now the librarian feels overdressed. When the librarian tries to return to the Library Call Center, he trips over a bear rug on the floor and falls into a big pit—you know, like the one from the movie 300. Jack tries to reach out and help him, but the librarian seems miles away now. Diane leaves a tip on the floor and escapes, somehow, but you don’t remember there being any doors in the room. Maybe she climbs out a window or a skylight. Jack cries, lives the rest of his life alone, gets eaten by a lion floating in the void.

Sound familiar? No? Read more. It’s good for you, puts hair on your chest. Regardless, the point (there is one) is that place is often an underdeveloped and untapped resource in scene development. Where a conversation takes place can have just as much an impact on a scene as what your characters say. How your characters move, position themselves within that space, negotiate obstacles (bear rugs, bottomless pits, lions, etc.) can also flesh out the scene and present a more dynamic and engaging narrative. The Dancing in the Dark workshop will explore and discuss these concepts, Patrick Swayze, whether or not you can (in fact) put Baby in a corner, and The Boss.

• What & Who: “Dancing in the Dark: Using Place & Choreography in Scene Development” will be conducted by Jeff Baker, English Faculty at GCC.
• When: Saturday, September 10^th from 9:30 to 11:30AM.
• Where: GCC Main Campus, LA-141.
• Why: Why not, tough guy?

This will be the first Saturday Workshop of the academic year, so we hope to see bright, happy, creative faces before Finals and The Nothing consume Fantasia, making everybody sad.

So, you’ve built a character. You gave it cool clothes (turtle-neck, yoga pants) and a favorite whiskey (Wild Turkey) and deep, soulful eyes anyone could drown in (blue, naturally). You gave it a history too, filled with pain, regret, shame, and other abstractions. Oh, and maybe it used to fold clothes for Old Navy or bartend at that one Applebee’s–you remember, the one that nearly burned down because of poor deep-fryer maintenance. You gave your character a complex intellect and a deep appreciation for philosophical thought because, you know, that’s useful. But, see, now all the character does is wallow in a bathtub, breaking down the chemical structure of Pantene Pro-V and debating the authenticity of modern marketing’s practice of assigning gender to body washes and anti-aging cream. Who doesn’t want to feel the gentle caress of shea butter? Bask in the scent of champagne mango and white ginger?

Probably no one, but that’s beside the point. The point, if you’ve made it this far, is that narratives need characters that do things. In this workshop, we’ll dive into that further. We’ll talk about how terms like plot and conflict interconnect, discuss how you can affect the pace of a story by generating conflict in a variety of ways, and look at different strategies for injecting conflict into your narratives.

The Out of the Bathtub workshop will be conducted by Jeff Baker, one of the English Faculty at GCC.

• When: Saturday, April 9th at 10:00AM (the workshop will run between 90 and 120 minutes)
• Where: GCC Main Campus, LA-141
• Why: Because Jeff Really Needs This

This will be the final Saturday Workshop for the Spring semester, so we hope to see you there. Bring your friends, your aunts and uncles, your neighbors, your fitness instructors, and any random people you meet on Saturday mornings.

What do your characters sound like? What would they say in situations you haven’t anticipated them encountering? The answer might surprise you. Come to the dialogue workshop and find out what your characters really want to say. Learn how cultivating each character’s unique voice can help you uncover hidden personality traits. Discuss examples of effective dialogue from various genres and explore how you can use dialogue to create compelling plot moves and authentic character development.

• When: Saturday, March 5th from 10:00AM to Noon
• Where: GCC Main Campus, LA-141
• Why: Because We Said So

The He Said, She Said workshop will be conducted by Jeff Sanger. Jeff studied writing at the University of Pittsburgh, but learned what he knows about dialogue from his work in community mental health. His play “Crazy” was based on some of those experiences and produced for the stage as part of the 2011 Pittsburgh New Works Festival. His work has also been published by Akashic Books, The Compleat Mother, Mt. Lebanon Magazine, and Souf Oaklin’ Fo’ Life. When he’s not teaching English composition for GCC main and north campuses he enjoys playing Minecraft with his three children and cooking with his wife. He’s been married for over 14 years, proof he knows how to listen to what people say!

The first Saturday Workshop of the spring semester comes your way on February 13th. David Nelson, one of our English and creative writing instructors at GCC, will cover concepts related to point of view in writing.

Where: GCC Main Campus, LA-141

When: 10:00AM to 11:30AM (the start time has changed from previous workshops)