Les Standiford and Prose Structure

Les Standiford will be teaching a weeklong workshop that is all about how to make readers want to "turn the page." The class is designed for writers of fiction, memoir, and narrative nonfiction alike. Les has published in all three genres and says that learning how to drive tension through narrative structure has made all the difference in his career.

"As the author of twenty books and the founding director of two university creative writing programs, I think that an understanding of how to create and maintain narrative drive is the most important tool for a writer wishing to engage an audience," Les says.

This class will explore the techniques of compelling storytelling common to all the prose narrative forms. You will emphasize specific shaping and revising techniques, including identifying the "DNA" of the material, choice of the most effective jumping off point, pacing of the "dreaded middle," and the ultimate "closing of the circle."So, if you are looking for ways to up the tension in your narrative structure, this is the class for you.

Les Standiford is the author of Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction that Changed America, a 2011 New York Times bestseller and a #1 Wall Street Journal true-crime bestseller. He is the recipient of Fellowships in Fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Arts Council as well as the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. He is Director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University in Miami, where he lives with his wife Kimberly, an artist and psychotherapist.