The Art of Pacing: Macro and Micro Methods to Keep Your Story Moving

with Chaitali Sen

Saturday May 6, 2023 1:00pm US Central time • 2 hour webinar

Online
One-time Zoom webinar

Perfect for
Fiction writers of any skill level

Live attendance is not required: enrollees can watch the recording at any time after the workshop!

Neither readers nor writers want a story whose pacing is off: a story that stalls, sputters, or sprints ahead at breakneck speed. Every part of your story must have an appropriate pace—but how do you find that pace? Hint: It’s not all in the plot. The right narrative pacing comes from decisions large and small, from word choice and sentence structure, to scenes and description, to action and character arcs.

In this information-dense 2-hour live class, you’ll explore all of the factors that affect the speed and pacing of a story, and practice various ways to modulate that pacing so that the reader is pulled along unstoppably from beginning to end.

Join Chaitali Sen, an acclaimed author and winner of the 2021 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction, as she teaches you the skills and techniques that result in perfect pacing, live in this single-session Zoom webinar. Engage in short exercises, group discussion, and lively Q&A with Chaitali as you study these methods that will permanently change the way you tell stories.

That feeling of not being able to stop reading, to be pulled along by a magical hand that makes the rest of the world disappear, is one of the most rewarding and intangible experiences in life. With the right tools and motivation, it’s possible to achieve this in your own writing.

Some of Chaitali’s career highlights

A New Race of Men From Heaven Brooklyn Chicago Quarterly Review The Pathless Sky Colorado Review New England Review Writers League of Texas Electric Literature Hunter College Karkita Review Waxwing Los Angeles Review of Books New Ohio Review

What you’ll learn

After you finish this class, you’ll:

  • Learn how to structure your story to create forward propulsion from beginning to end.

  • Understand how to eliminate dead space in your manuscripts.

  • Have techniques for giving your characters energy and agency.

  • Know what makes for great scenes, and how to write them.

  • Be able to strategically use language to build suspense in your narrative.

  • Zoom schedule

    Everyone enrolled in this webinar will receive a copy of the recording afterwards, so you can review it later in case you missed it.

    • Saturday May 6, 2023 1:00pm US Central time — 2 hours

    How this workshop works

    This workshop is a live Zoom webinar. Sign in from anywhere in the world and participate live as the instructor conducts the workshop, with time for Q&A at the end.

    Student praise for Chaitali Sen

    This was one of the best classes I’ve taken through WLT. I really appreciated the mixture of handouts, discussion, prompts, and some time to work on our writing. Great class!! Would definitely recommend to others.

    There were moments when you heard the entire class go “ohhh” in a collective understanding of something that seems simple and obvious but clearly wasn’t. Came away with excellent tips and direction.

    Chaitali’s sage guidance has taken me from (very) rough draft to submittable manuscript, not just once but several times. She is a wizard at spotting what needs to be fixed, what needs to be added, and what needs to be discarded. She also shines as a counselor on the overall structure of the story.

    —Kirk W.

    I was extremely impressed by Chaitali’s knowledge of literature and accessible teaching style. Ms. Sen allows the participants to engage in the discourse freely. Her inclusive and relaxed yet respectful manner of teaching made the learning process for me not only enjoyable but also meaningful. A life-long teacher and professor myself, I could appreciate her teaching style more than I expected.

    —Manisha R.

    Chaiti’s class on revision was my last step before querying and I’m so happy I had the opportunity to take it. As a list-driven person, I really liked how she broke down revision into actionable steps. I felt like I touched every part of my novel in a very systematic way that also left room for creativity. After her class, I was ready to proceed and signed with an agent about two months later!

    —Amanda Churchill

    Questions about this class?

    We’re happy to answer any questions you might have!

    • Contact us and a real person will get back to you ASAP.

    About Chaitali Sen

    Chaitali Sen

    Chaitali Sen is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions, 2015) and the story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven (Sarabande, 2023), selected by Danielle Evans as the winner of the 2021 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Her work has appeared in Boulevard, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, Shenandoah, and many other publications. The Pathless Sky was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Fiction, and included on Idra Novey’s Buzzfeed list “10 Books That Challenge Our Political Landscape by Inventing New Ones,” Library Journal’s “Top Fall Indie Fiction,” and Mic.com’s “25 Essential Reads to Make Women’s History Last Longer than a Month.” She has taught writing classes around the country through the Writers’ League of Texas, Writing Workshops Dallas, The Writing Barn, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Hunter College and lives in Central Texas.

    Other workshops starting soon

Saturday May 6, 2023 1:00pm US Central time
2 hour webinar

Premium members have full access to recordings of all of our past craft workshops.

Join now & watch the recording