In addition to writing, I also teach. Listed below are the workshops I’ve developed to help romance writers get a better grasp of key tools for their stories. Workshops are geared towards writers of all levels though the BDSM for Romance Authors I really suggest you have an understanding of the craft of writing. It’s not required but for all the material covered, it helps speed things up.
I have taught for Coffee Time Romance, Hearts Through History RWA, Orange County Chapter RWA, Passionate Ink RWA, and most recently Lowcounty RWA, I taught the Male POV workshop to Cal Writers – Berkeley group in early February 2012. In addition to teaching at Savvy Authors, I teach these courses on my private loop.
Male POV – Creating Better Heroes- This course focuses exclusively on learning how to write from the Male POV. The romance genre is filled with a plethora of writers who write straight erotic romances as well as an increasing number of writers who write male/male romances. Obviously, bringing our characters to life is key to keeping and gaining new readers, but what if you’re a woman who has never really been able to grasp the male mindset? Do you want to enhance, understand and craft heroes that readers will talk about?
The importance of understanding the male mind in conjunction with the Heroine and her journey are imperativeto any well written romance. The syllabus can be found here
BDSM for Romance Authors- This workshop is for authors in the romance genre who dabble BDSM in any form, be it writing spanking stories, light bondage, or like myself, heavier darker things. What authors often fail to recognize about Kink and BDSM is that the term BDSM is a BLANKET TERM encompassing many different things that if utilized properly and marketed appropriately can expand an author’s audience. If you’ve ever role played, held your lover down, worn a corset, used food during sex, guess what? You’re KINKY!
Click HERE to see the syllabus
WriteSEX– A primer on writing erotica, covering the basics of writing erotica for a profit. This is an extension of the WriteSEX blog and is usually taught by a few of us from WriteSEX .
Why Kink? - This class will focus on the basics of kinky sex, including why people indulge in non basic sexual practices, a little BDSM knowledge, define kink, cover role play and how all of this can be used in your stories to add variety and spice to your sex scenes so the reader remains engrossed on more levels. Adding kink to a story and the plot helps expand the author’s potential reader base by including a wider range of interests. We’ll cover some of the marketing basics for kinky writers.
2013 Upcoming Class Schedule:
January 6-12 – Male POV for Savvy Authors
June 10-16 Male POV for FF&P RWA chapterJuly 22nd -28 2013 Why Kink for FF&P RWA Chapter
September 16th-22nd WriteSEX Workshop (Probably Savvy Authors, I forgot!)
December 2nd-9th BDSM in Romance for Savvy Authors
December 14th Male POV LIVE for Orange County RWA
What others have said about Sascha’s classes
“Just wanted to say thank you. I really enjoyed the lessons in this class – Itook your BDSM course, last spring (I think that’s when it was), through the PI
RWA chapter, and it was fantastic. It really made a difference with some things
I wasn’t sure about.” – Gianna Simone, Author
“This has been a very interesting class and I want to thank you before we get to the end. The archetype discussions have been most illuminating. I took your template and revamped my character template in Scrivener and rewrote a lot of my heroes’ info. Lots of useful stuff. I have lots of heroes in my series and making them work is important.” – Claire Hoffman, Author and RWA member
Thank you Sascha for a most informative class” -Joan Maze, Erotic Romance Author
"Thank you so much to our workshop presenter, Sascha Illyvich, for the
wonderful insight into writing male characters! We have lots of great
information to consider for our heroes now
”– Karla from Hearts through History RWA Chapter“This has been a very informative, excellently crafted and helpful class” – Barbara Karmazin, Erotic Romance Author
