This Writers Lab workshop is FREE* and open to all.

In this FUN two-hour generative writing session, we’ll read, discuss, and write short experiments that evoke surprise by thwarting our automatic minds and expectations. The most engaging writing is driven by exploration, not a blueprint or a recipe. Let your subconscious take the wheel!

In her book,  Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot, Neuroscientist Vera Tobin explains that surprised readers are more engaged with the page, because the surprised brain releases dopamine, which heightens our pleasure and sense of connection to the text and our fellow humans. Dopamine engages the reward center of our brains, which scientists believe is an adaptive response.

Moreover, studies have shown that surprise increases the intensity of all feelings—not just happy ones—a whopping 400%. 

“Until recently, scientists assumed that the neural reward pathways, which act as high-speed Internet connections to the pleasure centers of the brain, responded to what people like,” Read Montague of Baylor College of Medicine explains. “However, when we tested this idea in brain scanning experiments, we found that reward pathways responded much more strongly to the unexpectedness of stimuli instead of their pleasurable effects…This means that the brain finds unexpected pleasures more rewarding than expected ones, and it may have little to do with what people say they like.” —Scientific American

Wait, whuh?

Wake up, brain! It’s the dawning of surprise!

Surprised readers are also more likely to find your writing unforgettable—literally—because surprise enables us to retain what we’ve read longer; surprise is, in fact, one of the greatest predictors of information retention.

But how do we outrun our automatic minds and expectations? By applying both subjective and objective conscious visualization strategies that help us to zig instead of zag. All you need to bring is a notebook and a pencil. The workshop is open to writers at all levels and all styles of writing: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, etc.

I promise it’ll be as fun or funner than a Theresa Caputo show *or your money back!

Hope to see you there!