What’s Missing? with Toni Weisskopf
Story/Theme/Structure—How to Build a Strong Story
4-hour Master Class $81.00
Class is limited to 20 students
Friday, June 9th, 9am – 1pm
What’s Missing? Story/Theme/Structure—How to Build a Strong Story
Summary: The class will learn to distinguish story from plot, and some tricks of the trade to create solid story structure.
Four or more points that the class will cover:
a) The difference between plot, theme, world, and story
b) Building blocks of a solid story
c) Asking the next question: how to kickstart worldbuilding
d) Why storytelling is a human universal
Toni Weisskopf succeeded Jim Baen as publisher of Baen Books, a leading publisher of sf and fantasy, in 2006. She has worked with such authors as David Weber, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, Wen Spencer, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Correia, Charles E. Gannon, and many others. With Josepha Sherman she compiled and annotated the definitive volume of subversive children’s folklore, Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts, published by August House.
Baen is also known for its innovative e-publishing program, founded in 1999, which has expanded under Weisskopf’s leadership to include not only titles published by Baen, but also titles from other publishers, all without DRM. Other new programs under Weisskopf include the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award (co-sponsored with the Houston branch of the National Space Society) established in 2007, the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, awarded at GenCon and established in 2014, and the Baen Best Military SF & Adventure SF Reader’s Choice Awards, presented at Dragoncon, established in 2015.
She has been a guest speaker at many writers workshops and science fiction conventions across the country, and is well known for her interactive, audience-participation discussion of Baen Books covers and artwork, on-going and ever-changing since 1991.
Weisskopf is a graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in anthropology. She is the widow of Southern fan and swordmaster Hank Reinhardt and the mother of a delightful daughter. She lives in a hundred-year-old house with two dogs and three cats. Taking care of them, house included, consumes most of her spare time, but she is also interested in space science and takes part in the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop.