ONLINE Cliches and Tropes: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
micro-workshop | Monday, May 15, 2023 | 6-9pm MT
Instructor: Heather Osborne
MEMBER PRICE: $60.00 (with member coupon AWCSM25)
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $80.00
Clichés and tropes are those tired old phrases and plot devices that we’ve all seen a million times. Not to beat a dead horse, but clichés are so last week. Or are they? What if clichés are clichés for a reason, and we could all stand to take a second look? What are the uses and benefits of clichés? How do we twist them and subvert them—or should we? When we find ourselves falling into the same old plot patterns, are we failing to be original or are we succeeding at telling tales as old as time? This workshop is for beginner and intermediate writers who’d like to look a gift horse in the mouth and get off the beaten track. Bring some clichés and some questions and we’ll break them down to their component parts to find out what’s old hat and what keeps us coming back for more.
This is an interactive online class using the Zoom web platform.
Heather Osborne is the author of Songbroken. She writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance. She earned her doctorate of creative writing from the University of Calgary, and she is associate editor of the International Review of Science Fiction.