About this online workshop
This 2-hour online workshop is designed for creative writers who love writing short stories.
Whether you want to make a living writing for literary magazines, win short story competitions, or practice your craft before tackling a novel, you'll improve your writing & have fun!
In this workshop you'll learn how to outline your story, write and revise it, and get it published under the guidance of author Tevis Shkodra, who is also the Editor-in-Chief of Raconteur Literary Magazine.
Course Outline
- What makes a short story?
- What is “short”?
- What are the conventions of the short story form?
- How are short stories composed?
- Why start with a rough draft?
- Character first
- What makes a strong beginning?
- How do you know where to start?
- The importance of pacing
- How is information released?
- How do you balance internal and external action?
- Four common structural problems (and how to fix them)
- What does the ending need to accomplish?
- Three common problems with endings (and how to avoid them)
- The process of revision
- How much is enough?
- What’s the difference between revising and polishing?
- Building out “your list”
- Following Submission Guidelines
How will this workshop kick-start my writing career?
Workshop leader Tevis Shkodra will use in-class exercises and real-world examples to teach you:
- How to develop & draw out short story ideas
- What the components of a strong beginning are and how to integrate them into your story
- Deepen your understanding of the technique and the mechanics that create moving stories
- What to avoid when writing your story’s ending
- The difference between revising and polishing – and how to do both
This workshop also includes:
- Detailed tips and tools that will help you improve your writing and get published.
- A chance to ask questions of Tevis Shkodra, live, or by email after the event. All questions will be answered!
- A video recording of the workshop emailed to you after the event.
Am I ready for this workshop?
YES! This workshop is open to you writers who are at any stage of your writing journey, in any genre, and who want to start writing or improve your short stories, under the guidance of a published author and editor of a dynamic literary magazine.
Whether you have...
- Just an idea in your head
- An outline for a story
- A few lines down on paper, or
- A completed story
...Then you will benefit from this workshop. Join us to learn from a helpful mentor about how to master the art of the short story!
How Does it Work?
Join online: Participate in the workshop from the comfort of your home, anywhere in the world. You'll get to interact with Tevis and the other participants using video, audio, and text chat (or, you can lurk in the background - we don't mind!)
About Tevis Shkodra
Tevis Shkodra is a Toronto-based short story writer and the Editor-In-Chief of Raconteur Literary Magazine. His short stories have been featured in over a dozen online and in-print publications and anthologies.
Tevis began writing in 2015 and has since penned over 60 stories, publishing over a dozen of them, give-or-take about two publications per year since starting out. He handwrites ideas in an unlined journal and keeps stories in file folders arranged by year written.
In addition to the frequency of publication, Tevis is proud to have published stories across diverse genres, from high fantasy to science-fiction, to murder-mysteries, to literary fiction.
In 2017, his fantasy short story “The Trials of Man” was anthologized in Aphotic Realm Magazine after being shortlisted as a top finalist for the magazine’s “Short Story of the Year” award.
In 2019, Tevis co-founded Raconteur Magazine, of which he is the Editor-In-Chief. On average, Raconteur receives somewhere in the ballpark of 500 submissions per issue, from which Tevis reads, rates, and determines which 5 fiction pieces to publish each issue.