Amy Tan was 33 before she first explored her voice as a fiction author. A few years later, her debut novel, The Joy Luck Club, spent 40 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Now she’s showing you her approach to the challenges and joy of self-discovery through writing. Learn how to craft compelling beginnings and endings, find your voice, and embrace your emotional memory to bring powerful narratives to life.
Overview
Syllabus
- Meet Your Instructor: Amy Tan
- Amy Tan, the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club, welcomes you to her class by sharing what writing means to her and what she’ll be teaching you.
- Finding Your Writing Voice
- Amy explores the importance of a writer’s voice and invites you on an inner journey to find yours.
- Memory, Truth, and Imagination
- Amy walks you through her process of using emotional memory and real-life events to write fiction by sharing her own childhood memories.
- Research and Observation
- Get Amy’s tips on how to conduct research and find inspiration in observing the world around you.
- Beginning Your Story
- Amy believes the first pages of a story are the most important. Learn the key elements of a compelling beginning and how to grab your readers right from the start.
- Narrative Point of View
- Learn Amy’s process for choosing a narrative point of view—and why it’s not set in stone.
- Character Development
- Find out how to create complex, compelling, and authentic characters that will engage your readers.
- Choosing the Right Words
- Amy dives into her love of words and explains the importance of choosing each one carefully.
- The Revision Process
- Amy teaches you how to become your own best editor and to seek useful feedback from other writers.
- Writing Companions
- Write to your muse, talk to ghosts, and dialogue with your doppelgänger. Amy takes you into her creative underworld to teach you how to access yours.
- Writer’s Block
- Amy explains why you have writer’s block and how to get out of it.
- Behind the Scenes: The Joy Luck Club Movie
- Get Amy’s insider’s perspective on the adaptation of her bestselling book The Joy Luck Club into an award-winning film.
- Amy’s Rejection Letters
- Amy shares her rejection letters with you to show how she processes disappointment and carries on.
- How to End Your Story
- Learn how to craft an engaging and satisfying ending that will keep readers looking forward to the sequel.
Taught by
Amy Tan
