Description
Eight Tuesdays, Oct 6–Nov 24, 8:00–10:00 p.m.
Open to all
Limited to 12 participants
Hybrid workshop*
Getting Elemental: Fundamentals of Short Fiction is a two-month-long, two-hour weekly workshop that focuses on a different element of style each week. These topics include; setting, character development, dialogue, description, voice, theme, point of view, and structure.
In a satisfying short story, all the elements of fiction listed above are working in concert to create an immersive world populated with complex characters. Of course, all of these elements are overlapping and influencing each other. However, by focusing on one element per week, we can try to understand how to make sure each element is in harmony with the others.
Over the course of the workshop, participants will submit one full-length story (2500-3000 words) to the group for discussion. In addition to the full-length story, participants will have opportunities to share scenes generated in response to weekly prompts.
The critique of short scenes will focus on the elements of short fiction discussed in the exercises as well as on sentence-level decisions about diction and rhythm. By flipping between critiques of full stories and shorter pieces, we will be able to have conversations that both delve deep into sentence level concerns and address big-picture structural questions. This format also allows participants multiple opportunities to share their work with the group.
This workshop centers on delivering and receiving feedback. Isolating what is and isn’t working in other people’s work is crucial to honing your own craft. Further, learning to give incisive and compassionate feedback is a valuable skill that will help you build a writing community.
Participants should have a short story of 2500-3000 words prepared in advance of the first session of the workshop.
*This workshop will take place at the QWF Office (Room 3, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Westmount, Quebec) with up to 2 virtual spots for participants who are unable to attend in-person because of distance or disability. By default, all workshop registrations are for in-person spots. If you would like to request a virtual slot, contact John at john@qwf.org stating the reason for which you would need the virtual spot, then wait for a response before registering. Please do not register until you receive confirmation of a virtual spot for you.
Workshop leader
Eva Crocker is a writer and editor based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Back in the Land of the Living (House of Anansi Press 2023) and All I Ask (House of Anansi Press 2020), which won the BMO Winterset Award. Her debut short story collection, Barrelling Forward (House of Anansi Press 2015), won the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction and the CAA Emerging Writer Award, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers and the NLCU Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers, and was a National Post Best Book. Her new short story collection, Bargain Bargain Bargain, will be published by McClelland & Stewart in 2027.
Eva holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Concordia University.
