Workshops
Hire Jaye to teach a workshop for your writing group or organization. Below is a sample of her most popular workshops, but please reach out if you have a special topic you'd like taught or need customization of existing offerings.
Promises & Payoffs in Fiction
Good stories don’t happen by accident. To master the art of delivering satisfying tales, writers must learn how to effectively make story promises from Page One as well as how to deliver satisfying payoffs by The End. This class will explore the types of promises you must make from the first line of your story, demonstrate a variety of tools you can use to make those promises, and offer strategies to avoid cheating your readers out of satisfying payoffs. Participants go home with a workbook to use for their works in progress. Length: 90 mins, but can be modified down to an hour or up to a half-day session.
Fighting Demons: Internal vs External Conflict
In this workshop, we'll explore distinctions between internal and external conflicts, as well as the importance of combining the two to create riveting fiction. Includes Jaye's exclusive formula for creating internal conflict and a handout primer to use as reference. Length: 60 min
Mastering the Scene
Scenes are the building blocks every every great story. In this workshop, Jaye will share her strategies for building compelling scenes that deepen characterization and ramp up tension. She’ll address the use of beats to craft scenes, the proper place to begin and end scenes, and weaving scenes together to craft an amazing story. Length: 60 mins or expand it to 90 minutes to include interactive elements to analyze scenes from students’ existing work or breaking down scenes from bestselling books.
Master Your Universe: World Building
Jaye believes that world building is the foundation of every story, regardless of genre. In this workshop, she'll share her techniques for building vibrant, complex worlds and how to use them as the basis for stories readers can't put down. Two version of this workshop are available: One for audiences of speculative fiction and one for a genre audience. Length: 90 mins up to a full-day workshop depending on your needs.
Testimonials
"I took the Novel Workshop with Jaye Wells this fall and it was extremely helpful. She shared many of her personal tips for writing, organizing, world building, plus provided articles on relevant topics. Great class. Highly recommend."
"Jaye Wells is passionate about teaching and excellent at it as well as at writing. The intersection of those two things made this a wonderful class."
"Jaye Wells' seminar on world building was great—she not only gave us invaluable insights into the art of world building, but she also approached it from a practical standpoint, helping us to understand how to balance her suggestions with the ultimate goal of real-world publication. I highly recommend these workshops."