Register 57 Seats Remaining

Editing Workshop: Push Your Protagonist

Fraser River Literary Festival

Push your protagonist out of their comfort zone! Award-winning novelist and editor Gail Anderson-Dargatz shares techniques for creating active characters and strong narrative drive.

Okay, let’s face it: writers don’t like conflict. Who does? But when we allow our characters to avoid their conflicts, we run into real problems, such as unclear story goals, passive protagonists and wandering storylines. These issues stem from a lack of thorough development, which can stand in the way of a book’s potential for success or even prevent it from being published. This workshop is hosted by Tamara Gorin. 

In this workshop, award-winning novelist and developmental editor Gail Anderson-Dargatz will point out where you’re likely avoiding conflict on the page and explore ways to build more active characters and a strong narrative drive. Gail will be joining the library virtually. 

Registration required. 

Please contact us if you need any accessible formats, including but not limited to sign language interpretation.

For more information about this Fraser River Literary Festival event, email ask@coqlibrary.ca. 

Tri-City Wordsmiths gratefully acknowledges support from the PoCo Foundation Community Initiatives Grant.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s internationally bestselling novels The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees were both short-listed for the Giller Prize. Her thrillers The Almost Wife and The Almost Widow were national bestsellers, and The Almost Widow was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada. HarperCollins has just released her latest novel, The Atlas Keeper. Gail also writes hi-lo books for the educational market. She taught for nearly a decade in the CW MFA program at UBC and now works as a mentor and developmental editor. For more, visit her website: gailanderson-dargatz.ca

______

Tamara Gorin is a poet, editor, and essayist. A graduate of SFU Writer’s Studio 2006/2007 poetry cohort and a member of the Federation of BC Writers, she owns Western Sky Books, an independent bookstore and art gallery in Port Coquitlam / kʷikʷəƛ̓əm, BC, with her wife. You may or may not want to ask her about her favourite limerances: birds, trees, water, bears, pollinators, resisting AI, and decolonization praxis—depends on how much time you have.

Upcoming events