Whether it’s a character, a place, an image, or a single line, stories need a concrete seed from which to grow. But once you have your beginning, how do you know where to go next? How do you determine the characters and circumstances with the most potential for conflict and nuance? How do you structure and layer your narrative toward an evocative ending? In this session, we will discuss some key strategies to move your process from a place of ideas to a fully realized draft. Through craft lecture, examples, and group conversation, we will look at some important writerly tools you can apply so that you can be more productive, focused, and efficient in mapping out and executing a successful story.

Dariel Suarez is the Cuban-born author of the novel The Playwright’s House (forthcoming, Red Hen Press) and the story collection A Kind of Solitude (Willow Springs Books), winner of the 2017 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and the 2019 International Latino Book Award for Best Collection of Short Stories. Dariel is one of City of Boston’s inaugural Artist Fellows and the Director of Core Programs and Faculty at GrubStreet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Third Coast, Southern Humanities Review, and The Caribbean Writer, where his work was awarded the First Lady Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize. He holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from Boston University and currently resides in the Boston area with his wife and daughter.

Learn about other workshops and the rest of the 603 Sit ‘n Click Video-conference here.