Readers love trouble (on the page). And we keep reading to find out how fictional characters and memorists deal with adversity.

In this session, we'll focus on the importance of setting up conflict and tension from the get-go, both to capture the reader's immediate interest and to lay the groundwork for the kinds of escalating clashes that drive a story toward resolution. We'll take a look at how other authors have accomplished this feat as well as experiment with a few in-class writing exercises