Kristan Higgins Workshop

On Saturday, May 5, 2018, the Calgary Association of the RWA hosted its annual Spring Workshop.

As usual, we started with a continental breakfast.

For this workshop, our guest speaker was Kristan Higgins, one of my favourite authors.

With eighteen novels written and published—in two dozen languages—Kristan obviously knows what she’s doing. Her nineteenth book is showing up in August. Her “NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT” is nominated for a RITA. This woman is definitely a professional writer.

She’s also friendly, an excellent teacher, and humble. The first thing she did as she started her workshop was to pick up her cell phone and take a picture of us. “First things first. I’m always tickled that people come to my workshop!”

The workshop was held at the Delta Calgary South in the Kananaskis Room—I love the classroom style setup.

This workshop had three topics:

Secondary Characters, Secondary Plotlines
Writing Humour
Character Mistakes and Missed Opportunities

There was so much good material to absorb.

We break for a hearty lunch.

Kristan also critiqued several humour submissions telling us what worked, and what did not resonate. Notice her choice of words. She didn’t say it didn’t work. It just didn’t resonate with her.

My head is still spinning and I’m still high from this workshop. I learned so many things that I can use in my own writing.

Some of the things we talked about

Different types of characters: The Mentor, The Best Friend, The Deflector, The Reflector
The difference between Secondary Characters and Fringe Characters
What a “Christmas Card” is. (A character dropping in from another book in a series—and serving no useful purpose.)
Having a sense of humour does not mean you can write humour. Note: In case you’re not aware, I’m writing in Canadian, so humour—instead of humor. (I’m bilingual