Writers in narrative forms - novelists, short story writers, playwrights, screenwriters, epic poets - find their art requires an element other arts don’t: a plot. We choose to work in these forms, yet many of us find plot a difficult element to wrangle. This talk will explore why that is and what a writer can do about it. We’ll discuss:
• Story vs. plot
• The iterative process
• Outlining vs. not
• Plot and character
• 3-part structure
• Rising and falling action

SJ Rozan is the author of eighteen novels and over eighty short stories, and the editor of three anthologies. She has won multiple awards, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, Macavity; Japanese Maltese Falcon; and Life Achievement Awards from both the Private Eye Writers of America and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She speaks and lectures widely and will be teaching this summer at the Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy. Her latest book is Family Business and her website is sjrozan.net.

The Writing Life events in 2023 are generously underwritten by Jenny Lawrence.