{"id":5259,"date":"2025-12-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com\/?p=5259"},"modified":"2026-06-22T21:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:56:15","slug":"2026-odyssey-online-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.odysseyworkshop.org\/2026-odyssey-online-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Odyssey Online Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apply by January 18, 2026<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Odyssey’s Winter Online Classes are here! Build new skills and make your writing stronger and more memorable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve got three courses to choose from. Attend live, online class sessions for intensive instruction and an interactive experience. Assignments provide deep practice in trying out the new techniques you learn. Feedback from the instructor and your classmates will help you improve even more. A private meeting with the instructor will allow you to hone in on your particular concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our three instructors, successful authors of horror, fantasy, and SF, have been highly praised by students. The best way to succeed as a writer is to continue to build your skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we’ve got a live webinar, taught by award-winning editor\/publisher Scott H. Andrews of Beneath Ceaseless Skies<\/em>: Story Openings That Engage. Register<\/a> for the webinar before we run out of spots!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Worldbuilding in Fantastic Fiction<\/strong><\/a>
Course Meets<\/strong>: Thursdays, March 5 – April 2, 2026
Instructor<\/strong>: Melissa Scott<\/p>\n\n\n

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Award-winning author Melissa Scott has been a repeat guest lecturer at the Odyssey Writing Workshop, providing extremely helpful lectures on worldbuilding. We\u2019re very excited she agreed to teach Worldbuilding in Fantastic Fiction this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worldbuilding forms the strong foundation for fantastic fiction. In this course, Melissa will discuss worldbuilding as a springboard for character and plot, and the mechanics of revealing that world to readers. She will cover methods for creating truly original worlds, as well as where and when to rely on the conventions of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This course will focus intensely on the task of worldbuilding. Melissa will discuss the qualities of a strong world and the techniques that help writers create strong worlds. She will identify the principles by which worlds work. She\u2019ll explain the decisions you need to make, in the order you need to make them, to build a compelling, internally consistent world. You\u2019ll explore examples of weak settings and strong ones. Melissa will explain how to identify contradictions in the world and how to decide whether to eliminate those contradictions or use them to create mystery and conflict in your world. She\u2019ll discuss how to build your world in concert with other story elements, such as character and plot, and explain why making such connections is critical to the success of your story. You\u2019ll learn how to incorporate your world into your story and how to find the right balance between world and story. A fascinating world will not be an asset to your story unless you\u2019re able to gracefully include information about the world into the story. Melissa will explain methods for revealing your world that strengthen the story rather than weaken or distract from it. Melissa will also show how point of view can control the way the reader sees the world and offer additional opportunities to explain your world. You\u2019ll learn the importance of research for worldbuilding and receive tips for worldbuilding research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course is intended for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, and will cover issues relevant in middle grade, young adult, and adult fiction. It will be most valuable for beginner\/intermediate writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Melissa Scott helped me realize my world needs a backstory as much as my characters do. With her lecture and exercises, she immersed me in the job of creating a world and society with internal integrity, rich with possibilities for storytelling. I highly recommend this course to any writer of spec fiction.” –Pete Aldin<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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All the World\u2019s a Page: Adapting Acting Techniques to Strengthen Your Fiction<\/strong><\/a>
Course Meets<\/strong>: Tuesdays, February 24 – March 24, 2026
Instructor<\/strong>: Barbara A. Barnett<\/p>\n\n\n

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We’ve got an exciting new instructor for Odyssey Online this year. Barbara A. Barnett is an Odyssey graduate with a unique mix of writing and performing skills. She\u2019s had over sixty short stories published and has performed in musicals, operas, and operettas. Barbara has given fascinating lectures at The Never-Ending Odyssey (the program for Odyssey Writing Workshop and Your Personal Odyssey graduates) for many years, several of them focused on how to adapt acting techniques to improve your fiction writing. These lectures have opened up so many possibilities for participants to strengthen characters, emotion, point of view, plot, description, dialogue, and subtext. Now she\u2019s bringing her invaluable techniques to Odyssey Online in her course, All the World\u2019s a Page: Adapting Acting Techniques to Strengthen Your Fiction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever envied the way actors make their characters look and sound like real people, full of nuance, depth, and complicated emotions? Have you ever wished you could capture that in your writing? Good news: many of the tools actors use can be adapted to short stories and novels, and in this course, you\u2019ll learn how. Don\u2019t worry, no acting experience is required, and you won\u2019t be expected to perform in front of anyone—but you will be expected to write!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students will learn about several different acting techniques and how they can be applied to various aspects of their writing, including: developing characters; portraying emotion; deepening point of view; creating plot momentum through a better understanding of how a character\u2019s goals and emotions influence their decisions; strengthening description through the use of specific, character-revealing details; crafting realistic and distinctive-sounding dialogue; and conveying subtext. We\u2019ll also explore the pitfalls that come with this approach—turning the movie in your head into words isn\u2019t as easy as some people think—and how to deal with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, you won\u2019t be required to do any acting in front of your classmates. Instead, through lecture, examples, writing exercises, and discussion, we\u2019ll adapt these techniques to the written word, whether it\u2019s new material or revisions of a work in progress. By the end of the course, you\u2019ll have a new set of acting-inspired tools to strengthen your storytelling, all without ever stepping foot on a stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course is intended for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Yet the techniques covered can help improve all fiction writing, so fiction writers who focus on other genres could profit from this class and would be welcome. The course will cover issues relevant in middle grade, young adult, and adult fiction. It will be most valuable for intermediate writers since it will assume students already understand the basics of fiction writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes<\/strong><\/a>
Course Meets<\/strong>: Tuesdays, March 3 – March 31, 2026
Instructor<\/strong>: Barbara Ashford<\/p>\n\n\n

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Our third online course this season will be taught by award-winning novelist Barbara Ashford. Barbara has been an outstanding, top-rated instructor for Odyssey Online for 16 years, sharing her wide-ranging knowledge and providing deep feedback to students that has helped them make major improvements in their writing. Barbara will be teaching One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compelling scenes pull readers into a new world, evoke an emotional response to the characters and conflicts, and encourage readers to turn the page to find out what happens next. Failure to fine-tune these essential building blocks of your story can dilute its power and impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This course will explore ways to help you add tension, drama, and power to your scenes by<\/p>\n\n\n\n