character development decoded
A two day, virtual workshop to breathe life into your characters
Your characters are evading you...
You’ve done the character interviews. You’ve completed the checklists. You know your character’s favorite color. You know their favorite food, and their guilty pleasure TV show.
But you don’t know them.
You don’t know who they are at their core. You can’t connect with them, and neither can your readers. When you’re writing, they feel like cardboard stereotypes. When you try to justify their choices they don’t make sense.
You’re missing what’s made them who they are and how to weave that three-dimensional human being into your pages. You’re missing their BACKSTORY.
Just like in real human relationships, it’s hard to know who your character is without knowing what made them—what past events, successes, hurts, and relationships have built them into the person they are on page one. Character backstory is one of the most often overlooked, yet incredibly POWERFUL, tools for character development. It’s the foundation of everything your character is and it’s pivotal to writing three-dimensional and fleshed out characters.
We’re hosting a LIVE two-day workshop to develop your character's life before page one and then teach you how to show it your story (without flashbacks!).
SIGN ME UPBackstory is the major events of your character’s past that have specifically influenced what they want, fear, and believe in the story present. It adds meaning and reasoning to their thought processes, decisions, and viewpoints.
Together, we’ll dive into the two stages of weaving backstory into your novel:
- Developing the important, relevant moments of a character’s past
- Wielding those moments effectively on the page
Through interactive presentation and live workshopping, you’ll get to know your characters intimately and learn how to bring their humanity to the page. Join us to rocket your character development skills to the stratosphere. 🚀.
Dive deep into your character's past...
Get to the HEART of who they are.
Character Development Decoded workshop, Oct 5 & 6 on Zoom
One payment of $99!
WOO! I'M INDAY ONE
learn the power of backstory
Saturday, October 5
12-2 PM Eastern Time
During this presentation & QA workshop, we’re going to teach you exactly how to create complex and three-dimensional characters.
Together we’ll explore and build 3-4 specific events from your character’s past that have created their goals, fears, and flaws. Then we’ll answer ALL your questions.
DAY TWO
weave backstory into the story present
Sunday, October 6
12-2 PM Eastern Time
In this session, we’re teaching you how to use character backstory to make your character’s thoughts, emotions, actions, and reasoning clear in your pages. With tons of analysis and workshopping time, you’ll bring depth to your pages in an entirely new way.
Yes, there will be recordings.
You can keep them forever! BUT the workshops will be highly interactive, so we suggest you commit to coming LIVE if you can.
There will be live workshopping.
We will spend time making real progress together. With live exercises, you’ll flex your character muscles and become a backstory pro. You’ll get to pick our brains live, so your skills skyrocket in record time.
Your character’s backstory is the secret sauce to their three-dimensional humanity.
I WANT TO MASTER THIS MAGICyour workshop instructors
Emily & Rachel from Golden May
Hey hey! I'm Emily.
I’m your resident nerdy, excitable, dirtbag, cat lady coach. I’ve got craft books full of underlines and fantasy novels full of sticky notes, and I regularly fill notebooks with made up worlds while I’m off camping. I’m also a type-A perfectionist who’s played the hustle game for external validation and burned out because of it—and in my journey climbing out of that ditch, I learned how to love myself, how to get to know myself, and how to build a writing life and process that worked for ME. Now I’m devoted to helping writers like you build a sustainable writing life that works for YOU, that brings YOU joy, and that fulfills you all the way to your bones.
Hey there! I’m Rachel.
I’m your mac n' cheese loving, toddler mom, neurodivergent, book fairy godmother. As a coach and writer with ADHD, I understand how downright confusing craft can be and how much those "rules" can feel limiting. I understand what it’s like to struggle with your process and get hung up with mental hurdles. Throughout my journey, I've learned how to make writing craft work with my brain and I can't wait to help you do the same. Together we'll heal your mindset, develop a writing process that harnesses your unique strengths, and give you every tool you need to finish the book of your freaking dreams. It's gonna be badass. You in?
