ZIGZAG Plotting
Instructor: Zara West
Start Date: Monday, March 2, 2026
End Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Duration: 4 Weeks
Type: Groups.io
USD Fee: A2P Member – $10; Non-A2P Member – $20
Unlock your novel’s heartbeat! Looking for a way to add tension and conflict to your novel? Then this workshop is for you. Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, you can apply these easy-to-use tools and techniques as you draft, during revision of your WIP, and even as a way to break through writer’s block, whenever it strikes.
In this workshop, you will discover how to read your novel’s heartbeat like a surgeon, visually map out characters’ actions and reactions, as well as their emotional highs and lows, and, in doing so, create tension and conflict that flows through each scene, across the chapters, and that unify your entire novel.
About the Instructor
There are lots of different ways to write a novel, and award-winning author Zara West has tried them all. An author of both fiction and non-fiction, she has published two award-winning romantic thriller series, The Skin Quartet and Tide Harbor Suspense. As Joan Koster, she has written a biographical historical series about Forgotten Women, and she is also the author of the Write for Success series of writing craft books: Fast Draft Your Manuscript and Get It Done Now, Revise Your Draft and Make Your Writing Shine, Research Your Subject and Validate Your Writing, and Power Charge Your Language and Make
Your Writing Sing.
Zara blogs about romance at Zara West Romance, about writing at Zara’s Journal, about Forgotten Women at JoanKoster.com, and teaches numerous online writing courses. Find her current teaching schedule HERE.
Instructor: Jennifer Bokal
Start Date: Monday, February 2, 2026
End Date: Friday, February 27, 2026
Duration: 4 Weeks
Type: Groups.io
USD Fee: A2P Member – $10; Non-A2P Member – $20
BRIEF CLASS DESCRIPTION
From First Blush to Climax: Writing Sex Scenes
A well written sex scene can affect a story on every level. A poorly written sex scene can kill the mood—and the book.
Join Jennifer D. Bokal, author of more than 25 spicy romance novels, to learn the key elements for creating insightful and impactful love scenes, while also learning what mistakes to avoid.
This four-week class will have 2 lessons posted each week, along with assignments. Each participant will have the opportunity to submit one scene for feedback.
January Workshop
Wait, What?! Writing Killer Plot Twists
Instructor: Cynthia Owens
Start Date: Monday, January 5, 2026
End Date: Friday, January 30, 2026
Duration: 4 Weeks
Type: Groups.io
USD Fee: A2P Member – $10; Non-A2P Member – $20
Class Description
Wait, What?!
Writing Killer Plot Twists
A Four-Week Workshop
Instructor: Cynthia Owens
As readers, we all love to get into a good book with great characters and an engrossing plot line. We also like to guess what’s going to happen. But what we love most of all are those moments when you’re bowled over by some totally unexpected that you didn’t see coming, yet when you read it, it makes complete sense.
In Wait, What?! Writing Killer Plot Twists, you’ll learn how to write plot twists that will blow your readers’ minds and keep them turning the page.
Topics covered in this workshop include: What is a Plot Twist?, which defines the term, gives the rules for how a twist should be written, and why we should use them; how to approach a plot twist from the reader’s point of view; how to misdirect your reader with dead-ends, false hints, and red herrings; techniques to foreshadow your twist; how to write a twist using flashbacks; how to play upon your readers’ emotions; how to work backward to layer in hints and misdirection; and tips for writing the killer twist.
***Included in this workshop is Your Plot Twist Workbook, filled with resources, worksheets, and more!***
About the Instructor, Cynthia Owens:
I believe I was destined to be interested in history. One of my distant ancestors, Thomas Aubert, reportedly sailed up the St. Lawrence River to discover Canada some 26 years before Jacques Cartier’s 1534 voyage. Another relative was a 17thCentury “King’s Girl,” one of a group of young unmarried girls sent to New France (now the province of Quebec) as brides for the habitants (settlers) there.
My passion for reading made me long to write books like the ones I enjoyed, and I tried penning sequels to my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries. Later, fancying myself a female version of Andrew Lloyd Weber, I drafted a musical set in Paris during WWII.
A former journalist and lifelong Celtophile, I enjoyed a previous career as a reporter/editor for a small chain of community newspapers before returning to my first love, romantic fiction. My stories usually include an Irish setting, hero or heroine, and sometimes all three.
I’m the author of The Claddagh Series, the Wild Geese Series, the Children of the Swan Series, and the Irish Hearts Series. A lifelong resident of Montreal, Canada, I still live there with my own Celtic hero. I have two adult children.