scaffolding for your manuscript

why scaffolding?

When you construct a tall building, you need more than a strong foundation. You need scaffolding to support and raise the materials for the structure as it is being built. If you have ever watched a skyscraper under construction, you may have seen the frameworks made of poles and boards creating temporary elevated platforms for the materials and a place from which to work as the building rises up.

When you create a book manuscript, you also need a strong foundation. We call that the premise. But you may also need scaffolding, techniques used to support and elevate your writing. How do you keep it all straight in your head and how do you remember what the reader already knows? Scaffolding helps the writer do the heavy lifting in a work that takes a long form. These methods help you with character development, narrative structure, sense of time and place, pacing, identifying themes and threads, interesting juxtapositions, emergent metaphors and more. Only temporary, they are removed once they no longer serve any purpose.

During each of the six sessions of this course, you will learn a scaffolding technique and the opportunity to apply the methods to your own work-in-progress. These meta-writing exercises stand outside the manuscript to support you as you write and revise. Each technique informs the others to build a strong spine to your story, more robust narration and vivid scenes. Scaffolding can guide your writing and revisions.

what kind of writer should take this course?

This advanced workshop is intended for writers who have a book-length narrative work-in- progress, whether fiction or nonfiction, memoir or a collection of essays. This intensive class is especially suited for participants who have completed or nearly completed a rough first draft of their manuscript. Writers who previously participated in this workshop are encouraged to register for an even deeper dive into their project, process, and progress as the course schedule is spread out over twelve weeks instead of six. This workshop will emphasize your story rather than editorial feedback on your writing.

what are the requirements?

You will need to have a computer with a camera and mic and a good internet connection as well as comfort navigating an online learning platform.

Each week you will be asked during our class session to apply a scaffolding method to your work-in-progress. You will be encouraged to continue to work on the scaffolding method after the session ends. You may ask questions or be asked to volunteer sharing your discoveries during our discussions.

how does this remote class work?

This course will take place on Elephant Rock’s course platform, Mighty Networks. Our course will have a dedicated page containing course materials, a private group chat, and an events tab where each sessions Zoom meeting will take place.

Each session will introduce a new scaffolding method with a meta-writing exercise during our live synchronous workshop. Please expect to appear on video and contribute to the seminar-style conversation. Be prepared to share with others what your work-in-progress is about. Outside of our sessions, expect to apply and use these methods on your work-in-progress during the course of the workshop. During our last session, you will be encouraged to describe your work-in- progress and what scaffolding has done to advance your writing craft.

what will writers take away?

You will know your story in a much deeper way. The organization of your writing project that occurs when you use the scaffolding methods also creates coherence and the structure is solid. Learning the tools and techniques of scaffolding will lighten your load as you complete your book-length manuscript.

who is the teacher?

Jill Swenson is a developmental editor and literary representative in Wisconsin who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Chicago and taught journalism at the University of Georgia-Athens and Ithaca College. She has taught writing workshops at The Loft Literary Center, Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, and the Grand Marais Art Colony. In July 2021 she completed a writing residency sponsored by the St. Croix Watershed Research Station (Science Museum of Minnesota) and was the featured writer-in-residence for the Red Shoes Lake of the Woods Writing Retreat in September 2021. She has recently completed a braided nonfiction narrative manuscript, Dispossessed, exploring on Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota the connections between her maternal relations and the Kakaygeesick family over seven generations and why we can never dispossess ourselves of the past, no matter how shameful or tragic or distant.

what is the cost?

Elephant Rock tuition for this class $499 (nonrefundable). Under normal circumstances, full payment is due at least 15 days before the workshop begins. Extended payment plans may be available in cases of severe economic hardship. Please send an email to Elephant Rock to inquire.

what have other writers had to say about Jill Swenson?

I found Jill Swenson’s nuts and bolts approach to constructing a memoir, or any long form, valuable. Her methodology is easy to grasp and to implement. We learned by doing: timeline and character sketches, identifying important scenes and POV, interactions with place, all building towards writing a premise statement and answering the ultimate question: what’s the point? I’ve been in numerous workshops over the years. My memoir is in its second draft. Reading other writers’ work, receiving and giving feedback, has become less useful. Exploring the structure of my memoir, building from the ground up piece by piece, helped me revision my whole narrative. – Jill Johnson, 2023

Jill Swenson offered me a new way of approaching my work by focusing on the structure rather than the writing. She showed me how to build my story from the ground up by implementing a variety of tools, including, timelines, character profiles, and scene sketches. The Mighty Network platform allowed us to share our work in progress. Jill kept the conversation going throughout the course by commenting on our work and offering insights. She gave me the confidence to move forward. – Cynthia Allen, 2023

When you want to write your very best, you need feedback from the very best—and that’s Jill. [She helped] me resolve issues that have affected my writing for decades. Some people might see a therapist for these issues; instead, I found an editor. I can’t recommend her support and guidance enough, - Margot Bloomstein, author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap

Jill Swenson is smart [and] honest and practical with writers in her detailed and big picture feedback. She’s always encouraging, and appropriately honest when the writing needs minor and major revisions, - Elizabeth Rynecki, author of Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy (Berkley/Penguin Random House, Sept. 6, 2016.