Mentorship in Creative Writing

Mentorship project options with Mark Sarvas

Option 1: Submission
So you're ready - I mean, really ready - to try to send your novel out into the world? In this mentorship track, we will review and discuss the submission process to help you better develop a list of agents to submit to and a means to track your progress. We will develop your query letter and your synopsis, and we'll even take a fine-tooth comb through your first ten pages to help maximize your chances of catching a reader's eye! Getting an agent can be a long and lonely road, one that's sometimes hard not to take personally. I'll help you contextualize any feedback you get and help keep you strong and committed to the search!

Option 2: The Writing Life
While the most essential part of the writing life is sitting down and putting words on the page, it's not the only part. In this mentorship track, we will look at writing residences and fellowships, grants, MFA programs, conferences, community, or - above all - how to maintain a consistent writing practice. Applicants will select a focus that meets their next professional writing goal, and we will review the application processes, work to develop an artist statement and a project statement, learn the differences between Yaddo and Ragdale, and much more. 

Option 3: First 50
The first 50 pages of your novel are critical. It's in these pages that an agent will decide whether or not to go forward. (Many say they know within just a few pages.) These pages must absolutely gleam, without a snag or blemish or hiccup to give a reader a reason to put it down. In this mentorship track, we will look at your first 50 pages in ten-page increments and go through it in exhaustive detail, setting you up to polish the pages to a high shine that will catch the eye your future readers.

Option 4: BYO Mentorship
Why should mentorship offerings be limited to my own ideas? Every writer is different, every novel is different, so your needs might be different as well. We can work together to assess what you need most at this juncture of your writing life and what kind of accountability and discussion can help you move forward. Sometimes, we can't get started on something new. Sometimes, there's a structural problem we can't solve. Sometimes, we wonder why bother to write at all. One of my writing pals calls this "Writer Therapy" - pitch me what you need in a specific project tailored to your writing goals, and we will try to design something just for you.

Application Requirements for Mark Sarvas's Mentorship: 

• Workshop history (if any, please include unofficial transcripts from any writing course work)
• Publication history (if any)
• Short term writing goal for the 10-week mentorship 
• Long term writing goal 
• Proposed project for mentorship period 
• Work sample from project to be developed during this mentorship (10 - 25 pages)

Mentorship project options with Henry Lien

Track 1: Unique Concept Generation and World-Building
Creating a unique concept to write about, or a unique take on a familiar concept, is an under exercised superpower for writers. It helps writers distinguish themselves to gatekeepers, tame impostor syndrome, and smooth their path to publication. Further, books often succeed because of the originality or richness of their worldbuilding regardless of whether they are genre works. This track includes lessons, readings and focused writing assignments that draw from Surrealist parlor games, meditation, children’s and party games, technology and research. The end goal of this track is to help the writer create a concept and build a world that are unique as well as personal to the writer and write one chapter of that work. Note that this track is most suitable for writers who only have a vague idea of what they want to write, are at the early stages of planning their project or are willing to substantially rework their project if it is already partially written. This track is less suitable for writers who already have a fixed idea of their concept and worldbuilding. This track is suitable for writers of all forms of fiction or non-fiction, including genre work.

Track 2: Plotting
This workshop teaches the writer a painless but powerful technique to create a plot outline for their novel or story without killing spontaneity or discovery. It employs a Plot Grid technique to offload the outlining process to a document that will keep track of the plotting for the writer. The Plot Grid allows for a sort of x-ray vision revealing the rhythm of the book’s plot threads. The Plot Grid empowers the writer to be in control of their story like they’ve never been able to before and enables the writer to write a book that they otherwise couldn’t because the required architecture or choreography were too intricate. The writer will complete this track with a completed Plot Grid that will serve as their roadmap for writing their book, chapter for chapter. Note that this track is suitable for all writers, whether they consider themselves “plotters” who are comfortable with outlining before writing or “pantsers” who eschew outlining and who prefer to improvise. This track is most suitable for writers who have spent time with their concept, know what story they want to write, and have begun writing but have not completed more than one third of their manuscript. This track is suitable for writers of all forms of fiction or non-fiction, including genre work.

Track 3: Freestyle
This track resembles a more traditional writing coaching relationship. The writer will submit pages, and the mentor will identify issues in the pages that could use development. Based upon that, the mentor will create lessons, readings, and/or exercises to help the writer work on that aspect. Aspects that the mentor and writer could address include subjects universal to all prose, such as character development, prose style, and plotting or to things specific to particular genres such as unique concept generation and world-building. This track is suitable to writers of all levels. This track is suitable for writers of all forms of fiction or non-fiction, including genre work.

Application Requirements for Henry Lien's Mentorship: 

• Workshop history (if any, please include unofficial transcripts from any writing course work)
• Publication history (if any)
• Short term writing goal for the 10-week mentorship 
• Long term writing goal 
• Loglines (brief 1-2 sentence description) of at least two concepts you are interested in writing 
• Proposed project for mentorship period 
• Work sample from project to be developed during this mentorship (10 - 25 pages)

Mentorship project options with Jessica Barksdale

Option 1—Submission Package
You’ve been through the process, revised, edited, revised. You’ve had readers, taken classes, and now you are ready to send your novel or short story collection out into the world. We will put our heads together and work on a strategy. One of the ways we will do this is to examine the options: the people and places that you might submit your work. Then we will get busy by crafting/honing your pitch, query letter, synopsis, short outline, and first ten pages. As you go through this submission process during the mentorship, we will do check-ins and reevaluations of the strategy. You will leave our time together with a clear way to go forward.

Option 2—Putting Together a Collection
Putting together a short story, flash prose, or poetry collection isn’t easy. I’ve published four collections, and this was the place where I felt the most confused and stymied. And I’ve seen this confusion play out while judging contests. What, I wonder sometimes, was this writer trying to say? This is what I’ve asked myself. What to start with? What to end with? And what about the middle? What is the point/idea/feeling I want my reader to have? What pieces work together and which should be put in different corners of the room? Over time, I’ve learned some strategies to help me create arcs and narrative/thematic movements within a collection, and I can help you do the same. You and I will discuss your collection as a whole and find the pieces/stories that will anchor your book. You will leave the mentorship with a clear idea about how to present your work to the reading world.

Option 3—A Sustainable Writing Life
The writing life can be lonely, and often, we find ourselves reaching out to others to find readers and like-minded folk by taking classes, joining writing groups, going to conferences and workshops. Bottom line, sometimes there we are at home struggling to stay in our chairs. Worse, we can be in our chairs, staring into a big white space, wondering what we are doing. Maybe we have a huge hit of imposter syndrome. Maybe we feel we have nothing to offer. On it on it goes, until it stops, a lot of writing time wasted. During our mentorship, I will help you reevaluate and organize your writing life. We will work on ways to keep your writing going on any given project or turn you toward one. I will present many ideas that have helped my students and me keep going, and we will set some weekly goals. I’ll share my scheduling process with you, and then try on a number of different ways until we find what works best. On hand will be many resources that I’ve used over the years to keep me going. By the end of the mentorship, you should have writing for an existing or new project.

Option 4—The First Fifty Pages
Agents don’t always ask for a whole novel right away. Often, your novel might sparkle as an idea, but they don’t want to see it all, not yet. So let’s take the first fifty pages and make them as riveting, beautiful, and wonderful as possible. Reading in ten-page increments, I’ll go over with a fine-toothed comb, providing ideas and insights from the sentence to thematic levels. You will leave this mentorship with 50 pages that sing.

Application Requirements for Jessica Barksdale's Mentorship: 

• Workshop history (if any, please include unofficial transcripts from any writing course work)
• Publication history (if any)
• Short term writing goal for the 10-week mentorship 
• Long term writing goal 
• Proposed project for mentorship period 
• Work sample from project to be developed during this mentorship (10 - 25 pages)