Gay romance fiction

Unreal Estate: worlds from words

a craft workshop for genre authors

  • Format: available in lengths from one to six hours.
  • Technical requirements: projector/screen if available.

 

Class Blurb:

UNREAL ESTATE with Damon Suede

Worldbuilding isn't just for paranormal, fantasy, and scifi; even contemporary fiction and memoir deserve worlds worth visiting. With a solid foundation, every story locale can do heavy lifting and provide fertile ground for your muse. Unforgettable settings can anchor character arcs, drive drama, and fascinate audiences long past the story's end. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn to dodge the hodgepodge and map an unforgettable environment full of narrative possibility. Whatever your tropes or subgenre, come develop a way with worlds.

"No one deserves to be punished for loving with an open heart." (Hot Head - D. Suede)

Class Description:

Unreal Estate is a craft workshop looking at worlds, settings, and resonant description in all kinds of genre fiction. Covering theory, technique, and project planning, this session explores:

  • simulations nd the mechanics of mimesis
  • emotional cartography: impressionism and expressionism
  • structural tension and axes
  • thisness: critical details that bring settings to life
  • dramatic navigation: building "sets" that move audiences
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Though this class operates primarily as a lecture, there are exercises throughout to provoke relevant discussion and experimentation. 

Takeaways:

  • A comprehensive theory of setting development and world architecture.
  • A dissection of hierarchies and dynamics for richer environments
  • Ways to improve your manuscript via worlds regardless of media or genre
  • Exercises and references to develop your worldbuilding muscles.

 

Presentations:

  • "Set Pieces" workshop for PNWA in Seattle, WA (November 2023)
  • "Unreal Estate" masterclass for the PNWA Conference in Seattle, WA (September 2021)
  • "Unreal Estate" workshop for MSC Writers Collective in New York, NY (November 2019)
  • "Unreal Estate" workshop & lab for Dreamspinner Author Weekend in Orlando, FL (March 2018)

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"For an endless moment, Runt imagined the crooked corporation had folded and they’d been forgotten, laughing and living together under these perfect suns, waiting for wives that would never come, happily hunting fresh meat at the sharp edge of the galaxy." (Grown Men - D. Suede)

Recommended reading:

WORLDBUILDING & GENRE

 

DESCRIPTION

 

MAPS

 

THEME PARKS

 

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"No one deserves to be punished for loving with an open heart." (Hot Head - D. Suede)

If you'd like to book Damon to come present a workshop for your group or chapter, just give a holler.