So, you’ve been writing stories since high school. Or maybe you just started recently. You’ve got a Nanowrimo or two under your belt and you’re starting to find your groove. And now, you’ve decided to get serious about your writing. I applaud you for it. And I will give you one piece of advice that took me years to learn: If you want to separate yourself from the crowd, you need flourish. Readers can choose from thousands of different stories. Hundreds of thousands. But what they want is a story that will jump off the page. They don’t want to be recited to. They want to be entertained. You are not a writer, you are a literary gladiator, thrilling the crowds as you knock down one sentence after the other. “Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?” The writers of the movie Gladiator might have been speaking through their protagonist with those lines. For those who haven’t seen Gladiator, Proximo is an older man, a former gladiator who won his freedom. He owns his own gladiators now, and he tells one of them (Maximus, the story’s protagonist) this: “I was not the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd and you will win your freedom.” That line has always resonated with me, because it applies to every type of creative writing there is. Do not write quickly or dispassionately. Thrill the crowd. Make them love you and you will win them forever. This course will teach students ways to find Flourish in their writing. Simple techniques to make your prose sing and make your readers come back again and again.
