First Draft: A Literary Social with Alejandro Nodarse

Miami Book Fair presents First Draft, a series of free and informal writing events where community, craft, and rapid-fire creativity meet for monthly themed virtual salons where writers get social, share their work, and leave with great stories.

Instructor: Alejandro Nodarse
Theme: “Who do they think they are?”: Building Characters through Revelation

The novelist and playwright Cristina García describes characterization as information that “reveals what is essential to know about a character.” Characterization is an ongoing process that begins in the opening sentence of a story and ends only when the reader turns away from the final page. But above all, it is a revelatory process in which, through a combination of exposition and description, a writer creates space and opportunities for characters to grow and change as their story unfolds.‌

So how do writers tackle this process? What tools are available to us as we craft our characters and their world? This workshop explores how writers like Flannery O’Conner, S.A. Cosby, and Alice Feeney approach characterization, and includes an examination of their use of Setting, Dialogue, Description. This session provides writing opportunities for participants to try out some actionable approaches to building character.

Alejandro Nodarse was born and raised in Miami, FL. The son of Cuban exiles, he holds a Masters degree from Florida State and an M.F.A. from the University of Miami. He is an alum of the Las Dos Brujas Writers Workshop, a former independent bookseller, and former staff member of the VONA Writers Conference. He’s currently a public high school English and Creative Writing teacher in Miami-Dade county. Blood in the Cut is his debut novel.

Find him across social media platforms @ Instagram and Twitter

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