Ready...Set...Plot! -

Dates: February 9-20, 2004
Instructor: Leigh Michaels

Course Description:

Ready... Set.... Plot!

Girl meets boy, girl wants boy, girl can't have boy, girl gets boy... that's the basic plot of a romance novel, right? If only it were so easy!

In a romance novel, the romance is not the same as the plot. Two people who are simply exploring their growing attraction for each other just aren't very interesting. What keeps readers reading is the reasons why girl can't have boy- how the conflict between the characters grows and worsens and is ultimately solved. That's the plot-it's all the other things that are going on while our characters are falling in love.

Join Leigh Michaels, author of more than 70 contemporary romances, in a two-week workshop on how to create fully developed, logical, and believable plots which are more than just the romance.

About the Instructor:

Leigh Michaels (www.leighmichaels.com) is the author of more than 70 contemporary novels and several non-fiction books. More than 30 million copies of her romance novels have been published by Harlequin Books. Six of her books have been finalists for Best Traditional Romance novel in the RITA contest sponsored by Romance Writers of America. She has received two Reviewer's Choice awards from Romantic Times.

Her work has been translated and published in 120 countries in more than 25 languages. She is the author of non-fiction books such as WRITING THE ROMANCE NOVEL, a step-by-step workbook, CREATING ROMANTIC CHARACTERS. She is also the author of DEAR LEIGH MICHAELS: A Novelist Answers the Most-Asked Questions about Getting Published, and a cookbook, A TASTE OF LOVE. She has produced audio tapes on subjects of interest to writers in general.

Ms. Michaels teaches romance writing at in-person seminars at the University of Iowa and on the Internet at Gotham Writers' Workshop and Barnes & Noble University. Men and women from around the world have participated in her workshops, and a number of them have gone on to publish their own romance novels with commercial publishers.

She wrote her first romance novel when she was fifteen and burned it, then wrote and burned five more complete manuscripts in the next ten years before submitting to a publisher. Her first submission was accepted and published by Harlequin, the first publisher to look at it.