CLasses & Workshops

I’d love to come teach at your university, school, conference, or writing group!

Check out my course offerings below and Contact Me for scheduling and other teaching-related inquiries!

Fantastic Tropes and How to Subvert Them

We all have some tropes we unequivocally love and others we absolutely despise. This presentation will explore the good, the bad, and the overdone in tropes and how to subvert them or use them to market your work and give it a leg up on others dealing in similar tropes. 

How To Crush Your Edits (available as 1, 2, or 3-hour workshop)

Once they have finished the first draft of a manuscript, many authors become intimidated or even dread the editing process. This workshop will take the dread out of editing and instead help authors come to love the editing process, because this is where the magic happens. We will break down the different types of edits, what they are, when they should happen, and how to approach them, different ways of getting and working with feedback, and how to prioritize long lists of edits and changes to make your edits not just effective, but fun while you’re working on them!

Keeping it Real: Writing Realistic Dialogue

In this class we’ll study a variety of examples of dialogue, analyze what makes good, realistic dialogue and how fictional dialogue works differently from real-life dialogue. Come prepared to participate in writing exercises and learn about voice and the character and plot building inherent in good dialogue.

Let’s Talk About Sex

(18+, can be 1 or 2-hour presentation or workshop)

Romance and intimacy are a ton of fun to write–but how do you spice up your intimate and/or sex scenes to make them more inclusive and avoid heaping on the purple prose? This workshop will go over why sex and intimacy can be important to your story (even if you aren’t writing romance!) and how to make these scenes not only vivid and fresh, but inclusive of diverse characters across all genders, sexualities, backgrounds, and ability levels.

Not Your Sassy Gay Friend: How to Write Queer Characters

While media, including books, have been growing a lot when it comes to including queer characers, not all representation is good representation. In this class, we will dissect some of the stereotypes and cliches surrounding queer representation in books and media, dismantle their history, and most importantly, emerge with strategies to do better and include fully fleshed-out queer characters beyond harmful tropes and stereotypes.

“She released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding” and other Cliches

Cliches happen. The thing is to not let them continue happening. That’s what editing is for. This presentation will help authors learn about different types of cliches, why they exist, how to spot them, and most importantly, how to edit them out of their writing. From the commonplace, to the annoying, to the outright harmful–we’ll slay some serious cliches here.

To Swear or Not to Swear: Swearing in Fiction

Should you swear in your fiction? Why does swearing offend us anyway and how has that changed through history? This class includes a lesson in the history of swearing and examines examples of swearing across different genres and audiences, all in an attempt to help you determine how, and if, swearing in your writing is right for you and your characters.

Writing Action Scenes Without Getting Lost

Action scenes are a lot of fun. They can also become overly complicated and hard to navigate. This class is for those authors who tend to lose track, struggle to visualize, or otherwise fight to get their action scenes just right. We will analyze the makings of good action scenes, how to outline, block, and balance them, and ultimately write compelling, realistic action scenes without authors or readers getting lost in them.

Writing Beyond the Gender Binary

Many authors, whether writing in our contemporary or historical world, or creating worlds of their own, still think within the gender binary when it comes to world and character building. This class will go over how gender as a social construct has evolved, and how we in turn can evolve our fiction and worlds along with it to be inclusive of all genders, identities, and expressions.

Writing Inclusively (also available as a 2+ hour workshop)

Our world is much bigger and more diverse than white, straight, cisgender farmboys destined to save the world. This class covers reasons representation is important, what good representation is, and how to truly write inclusively without tokenism and harmful stereotypes.

Author Website Starter Kit

(1, 2, or 3+ hours)

So, you need an author website. But how do you build one? Where do you start and what do you include if you haven’t even published anything yet? From domains, to templates, branding, visual inspiration, and consistency, this workshop will provide a step-by-step guide to building and optimizing your author website. The longer version of this offers workshopping and critiques and feedback of your website as well.

Building Your Author Platform

Whether you are traditionally or self-published, marketing is a part of every author’s professional life. It can be overwhelming at first or feel like without a logical place to start. In this presentation, Alex Jay Lore (also writing as Alex Harrow) will share tips and tools to get you started building your online presence, as well as ways to figure out your brand, audience, and use your online platform to add to, rather than detract from your writing.

Content Warnings and Why You Need Them

Content warnings aren’t just for movies and tv anymore. They are becoming increasingly common in books, too–both in traditionally and self-published titles. This class will show authors the ins and outs of content warnings, what they are, why you need them, and how to write them in an informed and specific way to help readers make informed decisions about what they are about to read. 

Debut Author Survival Guide: 10 Tips to Improve Your Book Launch

Debut science fiction and fantasy author Alex Jay Lore (also writing as Alex Harrow) shares ten tips and tools he learned from being a debut novelist to help you make your book’s launch as effective and fun as possible.

Nailing Your Synopsis with the Snowflake Method

Lots of authors absolutely dread having to write a one-page synopsis. Alex Jay Lore (also writing as Alex Harrow) used to be one of these people until he figured out the magic of pre-writing your synopsis and using methods like the Snowflake Method and the Seven-Point Plot Structure to create a synopsis no matter where in the writing process you are. This class will demystify what synopses are, why you need them, and how to boil a complicated plot down to one to two pages. 

Queries that Lead to Requests

(also available as 2-hour workshop)

Many authors who dream of getting traditionally published struggle with writing queries that get them the agent requests they want. This workshop breaks down the anatomy of a successful query, addresses the dos and don’ts, and includes hands-on practice in drafting and editing your query, along with what to do (and what not to do) during the querying process.

Building Your Author Online Platform

Whether you are traditionally or self-published, marketing is a part of every author’s professional life. It can be overwhelming at first or feel like without a logical place to start. In this presentation, Alex Jay Lore (also writing as Alex Harrow) will share tips and tools to get you started building your online presence, as well as ways to figure out your brand, audience, and use your online platform to add to, rather than detract from your writing. Participants will experiment with tools and techniques, discuss and critique products and online content, and emerge with a solid basis for their branding and online platform. 

Graphic Design for Authors

Marketing yourself and your work can be an entirely separate job all by itself. Many authors feel overwhelmed at the thought of having to design things like websites, business cards, book marks, posters, and social media graphics. But never fear! This workshop will provide step-by-step guidance, tools, and exercises to build the skills they need to create appealing and effective graphics for any marketing or social media need. Note that this workshop requires participants to bring their own device (laptops are best) to work on and include critiques from both instructor and participants to help you make the most out of your new skills.

Hey, Listen! Writing Voice

Voice is one of those things some authors feel they either have or don’t have. This hands-on workshop will examine the different types of voice, how to watch out for them, and how to create characters that are as unique and engaging as possible. They say it’s hard to teach voice. Turns out, what we really need is practice. 

Keeping Up the Tension

Tension and pacing are absolutely essential to a good story. Authors want to keep readers reading and delight in the “I couldn’t put this down” types of reviews. In this workshop, we will study what makes good pacing and how to not only keep up the tension, but ratchet it up on every page. Be prepared to participate in writing exercises and level up your tension to create unputdownable stories!

Nailing Your Synopsis with the Snowflake Method

Lots of authors absolutely dread having to write a one-page synopsis. Alex Jay Lore (also writing as Alex Harrow) used to be one of these people until he figured out the magic of pre-writing your synopsis and using methods like the Snowflake Method and the Seven-Point Plot Structure to create a synopsis no matter where in the writing process you are. This class will demystify what synopses are, why you need them, and how to boil a complicated plot down to one to two pages. Participants will outline, draft, critique, and edit their own synopsis and leave the class with a finished synopsis in hand.

Pitching and Querying

Many authors who dream of getting traditionally published struggle with pitching and writing queries that get them the agent requests they want. This workshop breaks down the anatomy of a successful pitch and query, addresses the dos and don’ts, and includes hands-on practice in drafting and editing your pitch, query, along with what to do (and what not to do) during the pitching and querying process, both in person and online.

Slaying Your Submission Package

So, your book is ready to submit to an agent or publisher. …Or is it? This course will help you create everything from pitches, to taglines, content warnings, book information, to a synopsis, blurb, and a variety of samples needed to ensure you’re ready to submit your book. 

Using Scrivener to Outline, Draft and Edit Your Novel

Scrivener is an amazing writing software that can do seemingly everything all in one place. It also has a steep learning curve to many. Whether you’re a total beginner or have dabbled with Scrivener, this workshop will go over ways to make the most out of this tool. We will go over ways to organize your manuscript, brainstorm, outline, gather research, draft, share, and edit your work, all in one place, all free from intimidation.

Writing Mindfully

As authors, we all want our stories to succeed. We want to reach as many readers as possible with the best possible reactions. But we also know that there is so much we don’t know about people different from our own backgrounds, about how to make sure we don’t accidentally cause harm or perpetuate hurtful stereotypes. Never mind, figuring out ways to hold ourselves accountable and always keep learning. This workshop breaks down some of the things authors should keep in mind when approaching any story, how to write outside of their own lane, and how to become comfortable feeling uncomfortable as we’re all learning new things that inform our writing practice all the time.