Understand the unique rules of your story

You will work through how your system of magic or technology affects the social, political and psychological environment your characters live in: how your world shapes your characters’ experiences.

You’ll learn how to explain the role of non-human characters in speculative fiction, and help you understand what function your non-human characters (if any) are playing in your story; how do you write a truly non-human entity?

The course will reveal the different kinds of structures that have been used in “spec fic”: trilogies, quartets, ongoing series, parallel story series, single book structure including multi-book arcs, and more. And you’ll get advice on your next steps, which might range from simply, “Go home and write it!” to which agent or publisher might be the most appropriate to submit to (including international publishers and agents).

Pamela says: “I love teaching this course, because speculative fiction is the most exciting area of publishing today, and there is so much that the beginner writer in speculative fiction needs to know before they submit their work to a publisher. As well, students will meet other people who care passionately about the same kind of books that they do, and that’s always fantastic. A lot of friendships and workshopping buddies to come out of this course.”