Cynthia D’Attilio: Writing under the Skin: going beneath the surface of your character’s experience

Have you ever gotten a rejection letter (or a review) that reads something like:

“The writing is solid, and your characters are well-drawn, but I just didn’t fall in love with it”?

After cursing the writer of the letter/review out, did you ask yourself: How do you make a reader fall in love with your story? One answer: by letting them be a part of it.

Many writers (experienced as well as newbies) write good scenes and call them complete. But further exploration reveals they’ve missed the opportunity to go deeper into the good stuff that hooks a reader—and creates a compelling story they’ll want to recommend to others.

This interactive workshop explores how to bring a character’s experience to life for your reader by using tips on points of view as well as a discussion of action and reactions. It attempts to teach writers how to get under a character’s skin and into their heads so that readers can live in them and through them and more fully immerse themselves in their story world. Bring a pen, some paper, and be ready to write and share in small groups!

Cynthia D’Attilio has too many pseudonyms. She writes as Cynthia Selwyn for Breathless Press, has edited as Cynthia Blackburn, Cynthia Brayden-Thomas and Veronica Swift, and is currently working on a book to be self-published under the name Marnie Blue. She also writes fanfic under the name GrammarDemon.

Besides a tendency towards multiple personalities, she is the mother of three,(under the name “Mom”) pack leader of two (as “Wuff”) and wife of one (as “Hey Honey, Have You Seen My Car Keys?”). She’s been a sporadic member of RIRW (see motherhood, previous sentence) since 1995 and has served the group as Newsletter Editor and as President. Cynthia currently lives in Cranston, and spends most days trying to remember what to call herself.

You can email her at cynthiablackburned@gmail.com; it’s the only email address programmed into her phone.