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November Webinar: Creating, Mapping, and Getting the Most Out of Your Secondary Characters
Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM EDT
Category: Workshops/Webinars

November Webinar 

Creating, Mapping, and Getting the Most Out of Your Secondary Characters

Presenter: Barbara Linn Probst

Host: Lisa Montanaro

Tuesday, Nov 19, 7-8:30 PM ET

Join the Webinar

Description: 

The story-world of most novels has more inhabitants than a protagonist and opponent. We call them secondary characters because they serve the primary character’s journey— as tempter, mentor, paragon, sidekick, confidante, mirror, foil. Yet secondary characters can be challenging to create, since they must be authentic, vivid, and purposeful—fulfilling their contribution to the story without the luxury of prolonged exposure. In this interactive webinar, attendees will learn how to create and make good use of these secondary characters by exploring topics such as:

  •  Types of secondary characters and the roles/purposes they can fulfill
  • What makes a vivid, authentic, and effective secondary character
  • Parallel, reciprocal, and reverse arcs in relation to the protagonist and to each other
  • Strategic placement of a secondary character’s appearance

Bio: 

Barbara Linn Probst is the author of three award-winning novels, as well as two nonfiction books and more than seventy essays on the craft of writing and the writing life. Her women’s fiction novels— QUEEN OF THE OWLS, THE SOUND BETWEEN THE NOTES, and THE COLOR OF ICE—have received multiple accolades, including a Kirkus starred review, the Sarton Award for Contemporary Women’s Fiction, finalist for the Hawthorne Prize, the silver Nautilus Award, and medals in literary and popular fiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association. 

Barbara is a former researcher, teacher, and therapist, with over twenty years’ experience giving workshops and webinars to local and national organizations including the Author Learning Center, Jane Friedman, and the Kauai Writers Conference online—and, of course, WFWA, where she has presented many webinars and was also a speaker at our tenth anniversary conference. Her fourth novel launches in May 2025.

 

Free to all WFWA Members

* Dates subject to change.