One night only! Monday, November 9, 6:30-8:30 pm

*You do not need to have taken Karen’s previous workshops at Anticus to take this class;
For those who have taken Karen’s other workshops, this will be all new content!

Do you have a glimmer of an idea, an inspiration, or perhaps a fascinating historical fact that
you’ve been trying to turn into a full-fledged story with a central idea that is “big” enough to
carry a book? This hands-on workshop is a deep dive into this process of doing just that.
In this practical two-hour workshop, you write and respond to prompts about your work-in-
progress, to make sure you leave the workshop already putting the concepts into practice.

In this workshop, we discuss eight fundamental questions that help you unfold aspects of your
initial inspiration to create a Story Map with these elements: a protagonist with a character arc;
an action arc with suspense and a beginning/middle/end; secondary characters; themes (main and
sub); a clearly defined connection between your story and the story’s world; and stakes for the
protagonist and the world.

While the resulting Story Map is helpful, it’s not intended to be rigid or binding like a traditional
“outline.” As you write, you will uncover and discover elements that weren’t in your initial Map
but that belong in the story. But a Story Map, unlike an outline, is designed to accommodate
those changes. Indeed, this workshop takes as its starting point the belief that every word you
write in your first draft will likely change by your second or third. Stories thrive on revision. But
the Map is a starting point and an evolving document. It will keep you moving forward as you
write and can save you time and frustration. The Map provides shape and a direction, a “pole”
that you’re writing toward, so you can finish the project you long to write.

USA Today bestselling novelist Karen Odden is the traditionally published
author of six historical mystery novels, with a seventh coming in 2027. Her
fiction has been nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer
Awards, and she has won the New Mexico-Arizona Awards for both Best
Mystery and Best Historical Fiction.
She earned her PhD in English Literature at NYU, taught literature at UW-
Milwaukee, and has taught over 50 writing workshops since 2019, for
conferences, libraries, and writers’ groups nationwide, including ASU Desert
Nights Rising Stars Conference, Maine Publishers and Writers Association, Lit Cleveland, and
Sisters in Crime. She divides her time between Utah and Arizona. For more information, visit
https://www.karenodden.com.