Five Steps to a Winning Novel with Author Gwen Florio

We all know the rules: Write what you know; show, don’t tell, etc. Great in theory, so very vague in practice. In judging contests such as the 2019 Edgar Awards, novelist Gwen Florio read hundreds of books, a process that revealed some very specific things that made a few novels shoot to the top of the list while other, perfectly well-written books, faded in comparison. (It also gave her tremendous empathy for agents and editors facing the slush pile.) This workshop will focus on those key qualities, with specific examples, and advice and techniques on achieving them.