A Writer's Guide to Descriptive Settings - Pass Christian University

A Writer's Guide to Descriptive Settings You may live among the prickly pears, dust devils, and intense sun of the desert. Or you may reside in a small town nestled alongside cornfields. Or perhaps you live in the big city and take a train in to work every day.

No matter where you live, your surroundings have special physical, historical, and spiritual characteristics that you can--and should--rely on to breathe life into any work of fiction or nonfiction.

During this course, you'll learn to tap into the world you know in order to establish a realistic sense of place in your writing. You'll develop your eye for detail, and you'll find out how to collect the information you'll need to infuse your works with believable characters, memorable settings, and detailed descriptions.

This hands-on course is filled with a variety of valuable exercises that will help you hone your skills of observation, interviewing, collecting oral histories, remembering details and descriptions, reproducing dialogue and diction, using figurative language, developing realistic characters, and more.

By the time you finish this course, you'll be well-prepared to create truly unique works filled with vivid and meaningful observations of the people, places, foods, customs, and events in not only your local community, but also in places that exist only in your memory.

Recommended Courses:

Students who enrolled in A Writer's Guide to Descriptive Settings were also interested in the following courses:

Beginning Writer's Workshop

Forensic Science for Writers

Research Methods for Writers

Romance Writing Secrets

Travel Writing

Writeriffic: Creativity Training for Writers

Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Observation and Data Collection

Friday - Lesson 02

Found Objects and Poetic Devices

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

The Natural World

Friday - Lesson 04

Gathering Oral Histories

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

People Watching and Creating Characters

Friday - Lesson 06

The Way Folks Talk

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Place in Memoir

Friday - Lesson 08

Researching History and Culture

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Foods—Oysters and Slumgullion

Friday - Lesson 10

Mapping Out Your Stories

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Edit, Edit, Edit

Friday - Lesson 12

Offering Your Writing to Others

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Lori Wilde.

Lori Wilde has published 45 romance novels with Harlequin, Time Warner, and St. Martin’s Press. Her novels have been translated into 17 languages and her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Quick and Simple magazines. She is a four-time nominee for Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award and she is a former finalist for the Romance Writers of America prestigious RITA award. Several of her books have appeared on the Waldenbooks bestseller list. Her novels have garnered accolades from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She is a former registered nurse and for the last 10 years has made her living writing romance.

Requirements:

Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

Student Reviews:

"Amazing class. Much valuable information, well reinforced. Examples were excellent and illustrative of the concepts being presented."

"Course details were thorough and interesting. Instructor helpful and responsive. Would take it again. Thanks!"

"I already have suggested the course to one other person. I like it very much and think it very helpful."

"I found this course to be very helpful. I learned a lot about place and setting and how to integrate it into my writing. I also liked that much of the focus was on creative writing, not just assignments for the sake of an assignment."

"I found this course very helpful, especially sections dealing with voice, showing instead of telling, points of view, and editing. Liz was knowledgeable, helpful, friendly and encouraging; fellow classmates were mutually supportive."

"I liked this course because I met a lot of people with experiences outside my own geographic area. It was helpful to have feedback from people with different perspectives."

"I loved the class, your input, and the class participation. The class was instructive and fun - and useful."

"I really enjoyed this course. I feel much more confident about my ability to be descriptive. Anyone interesting in learning how to create pictures with words should take this class."

"I really enjoyed working with the instructor; I like her writing style."

"I really liked this course. The instructor was very helpful with her advice, and the classmates were very open and receptive. The lesson length was just right, considering I was trying to keep up with lessons and assignments, plus keep up with my own life's demands."

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course, and the interaction with the tutor and other students,especially as they were American and I'm Australian. The content was just what I was looking for, and I feel confident that my writing will continue to improve using the knowledge gained. The only down-side is losing contact with the other students."

"I took this course to get an overview of creative writing. It was very interesting and gave practical ways to get started."

"I very much enjoyed and learned a great deal from those lessons. I was able to participate fully. Good course, well worth the time and effort."

"I was very pleased with the organization and design of this course. I really appreciated all the thought and creativity that went into it. And most importantly of all, the instructor knew a lot about the topic and made wonderful,insightful comments in the discussion areas. I wish I could find more writing instructors/coaches like her."

"I write short stories but this class provided valuable information. I particularly liked the excellent links at the end of each lesson."

"Many thanks for the excellent lessons"

"So far I have taken 4 classes through this program, and this is by FAR the most productive, well written and responsive class. Everyone has been so supportive…I feel like I have changed as a writer, grown, and learned so much just in 6 weeks."

"Thank you for this wonderful learning opportunity!"

"The instructor was very encouraging to all students and made suggestions to us on how to improve our writing skills. The class material was easy to follow and informative. The assignments were fun to do, and they made you utilize what you learned in the lessons. I enjoyed this class and feel like I learned a lot from it."

"The interaction in the discussion areas was particularly helpful."

"The material covered in this class is so beneficial. The assignments were enlightening. I've learned a lot."

"This class has inspired me. I felt that Liz had an expectation of me and I worked hard to fulfill that expection. I would like to take another class with her in the future."

"This class was excellent. I enjoyed reading other people's work and the instructor's comments. The experience of having fun while learning can't be beat."

"This course has been very helpful to me, an aspiring writer who needed a jump start. I learned so much from this class. Now I have more confidence and feel ready to start my own writing projects. Thanks Liz for all of your wonderful comments and encouraging words."

"This course has opened an area of expression for me that I'd long ignored and forgotten. In general the time required to complete the assignments was not available to me, but the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment I gained from focusing on the few assignments that I did work on, has given me a renewed interest in writing, a new confidence in my ability to so, and an excitement as I look forward to writing when I retire. The many exerpts from published writers presented in the lessons has provided a useful reading list and, reading the submitted work of my classmates, along with their and the instructor's comments, was a privilege."

"This course increased my self-confidence and improved the results of my writing."

"This course provided me with excellent information that I will be able to use now and far into the future. The instruction materials contained enough examples to help spur my thoughts into writings."

"This course was very informative and useful to get me started as a beginner writer."

"This is an interesting and quite helpful course. The assignments definitely led the student to be conscious of, and to write about, people influenced by and surrounded by a specific place."

"This is my first online class. I was very impressed with the layout of the lessons, and the caliber of the feedback from the instructor. If you are interested in writing, for what ever reason, I highly recommend this class. I had specific purpose in taking the class, and was able to present some of my writings for critique. The feedback I received was invaluable. Great class. Thank you."

"This was an excellent course and the instructor was very interactive and helpful."

"This was an excellent writing course. The presentation, assignments, and resources were outstanding. I would highly recommend the course to any beginning writer. I think it would also be helpful to more experienced writers who just need a little nudge, a new focus, or more writing practice."

"This was another great course in the writing series."

"This was the best money I've ever spent."

"Very good experience. I am glad I signed up for the course."

"Lori Wilde is a wonderful instructor, patient and knowledgeable, a born teacher."

"Lori answered all of my questions, showed me how to improve my writing and encouraged me to continue writing my memoirs. She did the same for other students in the class. Good job."

"Lori is an excellent instructor. She gave helpful ways to improve my writing skills and encouragement when needed. I'm sorry the course has come to an end."

"I enjoyed this class and Lori, our instructor, was very helpful. She had great suggestions. I felt motivated to write."

"The assignments were interesting and the feedback was timely and insightful. Great class and supportive, responsive instructor."

"I am a veteran of several online writing courses, and Ms. Wilde's is one that I would place at the top of my list of useful and challenging courses."

"Lori's class is a practical for any writer who needs to work on descriptive detail to help readers connect to their characters and story. I felt it gave me "what was missing" in my writing. Thanks so much."