"Write What You Don't Know" 10-week Zoom masterclass
What are you writing?
Memoir, fiction, poetry, screenplay, creative or transformational nonfiction?
Are you aiming for publication, or writing just for your own creative satisfaction?
Are you already published in one genre, but would like to explore further into your creativity?
Join a community of passionate writers in this 10-week Imaginative Storm masterclass with Imaginative Storm co-founder James Navé. In this immersive experience, you’ll unlock your creative potential and sharpen your craft. You’ll receive expert guidance, accountability, and inspiration. With lifetime access to recorded sessions and personalized feedback, you’ll emerge with 40 powerful pieces and a renewed sense of purpose.
Whatever your goals, the Imaginative Storm method will unlock the hidden potential of your imagination. And it will train your rational mind to shape those creative gifts into writing that amazes you.
11 sessions, Tuesdays, 3–5:30 pm PT / 6–8:30 pm ET, limited to 10 participants
Next course February 4 – April 15, 2025
What are you writing?
Memoir, fiction, poetry, screenplay, creative or transformational nonfiction?
Are you aiming for publication, or writing just for your own creative satisfaction?
Are you already published in one genre, but would like to explore further into your creativity?
Join a community of passionate writers in this 10-week Imaginative Storm masterclass with Imaginative Storm co-founder James Navé. In this immersive experience, you’ll unlock your creative potential and sharpen your craft. You’ll receive expert guidance, accountability, and inspiration. With lifetime access to recorded sessions and personalized feedback, you’ll emerge with 40 powerful pieces and a renewed sense of purpose.
Whatever your goals, the Imaginative Storm method will unlock the hidden potential of your imagination. And it will train your rational mind to shape those creative gifts into writing that amazes you.
11 sessions, Tuesdays, 3–5:30 pm PT / 6–8:30 pm ET, limited to 10 participants
Next course February 4 – April 15, 2025
What are you writing?
Memoir, fiction, poetry, screenplay, creative or transformational nonfiction?
Are you aiming for publication, or writing just for your own creative satisfaction?
Are you already published in one genre, but would like to explore further into your creativity?
Join a community of passionate writers in this 10-week Imaginative Storm masterclass with Imaginative Storm co-founder James Navé. In this immersive experience, you’ll unlock your creative potential and sharpen your craft. You’ll receive expert guidance, accountability, and inspiration. With lifetime access to recorded sessions and personalized feedback, you’ll emerge with 40 powerful pieces and a renewed sense of purpose.
Whatever your goals, the Imaginative Storm method will unlock the hidden potential of your imagination. And it will train your rational mind to shape those creative gifts into writing that amazes you.
11 sessions, Tuesdays, 3–5:30 pm PT / 6–8:30 pm ET, limited to 10 participants
Next course February 4 – April 15, 2025
What’s included:
Ten 2.5-hour sessions covering all the material in Write What You Don’t Know
A goodbye eleventh session at the end of the 10 weeks, to celebrate, make plans, and ask any last questions
Private YouTube videos of each session, lifetime availability
PDF download of the book Write What You Don’t Know
An open channel of communication with Navé throughout the week, for questions and encouragement
Opportunity to “hand in” your work each week, creating accountability
Optional editorial evaluation of one piece per week by renowned editor and WWYDK co-author Allegra Huston (limited to 6 people)
Testimonials from our most recent course:
“You have a jewel here; the world needs Write What You Don't Know! It took me into seeing things so much deeper and from different angles. This experience has been beyond anything I could have imagined.” — Krista T., North Caorlina
“This course has been transformative for me. It opened a gate to a kind of expression that I can't shut again - and I wouldn't want to. There's something about the Imaginative Storm process that evokes extraordinary depths from each of us.” — S. K., New York City
“I appreciated how the Write What You Don't Know course focused me. That first leap was like I had to jump over a canal, and then I was on the other side, and writing! This course has been really helpful, and it's been valuable to be part of a community.” —Raechel B., San Miguel de Allende
“When I started, I didn't have the path I have now. My writings in this course have revealed what I want to do with my writing. I haven't written like this before!” —Kelsey W., Oklahoma
“This has really been valuable. For me the best thing was learning how to develop plot—something I've always struggled with. The variation and quality of writing in the group were amazing.” — Kaye R., Torrance, CA
“I'm knocked out by the trajectory this group of people has traveled. The course was full of rich, dense, and thought-provoking content. It was less like a class and more like an experiment in humanity. My limitations never limited me.
The Write What You Don't Know course is like being in a country where you know you belong; within a week, you're speaking the Imaginative Storm language and developing long-term friendships with other dynamic writers.” — Arlene S., Los Angeles
“Because of this course, I'm on a roll now. I've got momentum. More than anything, the Write What You Don't Know course has kept me sane in a crazy time and helped me make some sense of a lot of nonsense.” —Katerina T., Los Angeles
“The “Write What You Don’t Know” course is not just about instruction; it’s about creating a vibrant, interactive learning community. As your facilitator, I guide the sessions rigorously, ensuring we stay within our allotted time while maintaining the pace and energy of an MFA program.
Each session includes two hours of generative writing and reflection, followed by an open mic where each participant shares a piece written during the session.
This course allows each participant to focus on personal objectives. Whether it’s Kelsey, a poet, or Krista, who is crafting a memoir, or Raechel, a published writer trying something new, the writing prompts keep you aligned with your goals. My job is to hold you accountable—to ensure your work progresses from handwritten drafts into typed form, moving closer to a final product.
Surprisingly, some of these 10-minute pieces come together so swiftly that they could be considered final products. I compiled a short film featuring readings from just one session, using AI-generated imagery to create a collage of narrative and visual art. It combines community work, imaginative exploration, and narrative creation.
And don’t worry if you miss a Tuesday—every session is recorded and uploaded to a YouTube, viewable only by the course participants. While nothing replaces the energy of participating live, these recordings ensure you never miss out on a session. You will have lifetime access to these recordings so you can return to them and do the course again, if you wish!
Join us for this immersive and transformative writing journey, where every session brings new opportunities to explore, create, and share.”
Listen to a selection of pieces from Session 5, “Elemental Alchemy,” on YouTube
Course schedule:
Session 1: Spin the Kaleidoscope of Your Mind
Ground yourself in the Imaginative Storm method and learn to retrain your inner critic.
What you'll learn:
How to invite your imagination out to play
How to make your writing authentic to your experience, your perspective on the world, and your voice
How to maximize your chances of writing well without trying to write well
Session 2: Let Rip
Rant and release your inhibitions to discover new humor and verve in your writing.
What you'll learn:
What may have been holding you back
How to find comedy in intense feelings
How to imbue your writing with tenderness
Session 3: Common Senses
Explore the sensations of your physical body to add immediacy and emotional power to your work.
What you'll learn:
How to make your reader's mirror neurons fire
How to focus on the details that matter
How to pack an emotional punch
Session 4: Go There
Discover ways to use setting to give a scene emotional resonance.
What you'll learn:
How to describe an event with immediacy and emotional impact
How to avoid a "know-all tone" in your writing
How to imbue past and future into a present moment
Session 5: Elemental Alchemy
Connect with the natural world and make symbolic connections in your writing.
What you'll learn:
How to make connections with the natural world in your writing
How to rack focus between micro and macro
How to enrich your observations so that nothing is ordinary
Session 6: Socialese
Explore the unspoken language of human interaction.
What you'll learn:
To notice and interpret “Socialese”
To track the undercurrents of a situation
To suggest aspects of your characters' lives outside the facts of your story
Session 7: Tender Spots
Discover what drives a person's actions and create strong, multi-dimensional characters.
What you'll learn:
How to understand what drives a person's actions
How to create multi-dimensional characters: good and bad
How to honor the individuality of minor characters
Session 8: Take Yourself Back
Examine your own life and explore what you don't know about yourself.
What you'll learn:
How to identify and develop the deep story of your memoir
How to write about yourself without seeming egocentric
How to know which events are part of your story and which aren’t
Session 9: There's No Story If Nothing Changes
Learn what makes a strong narrative and how to give your story momentum.
What you'll learn:
The building blocks of a strong narrative
How to know where your story begins and ends
What gives a story momentum—and why momentum sags
Session 10: The Oxymoronic Inversion
Experiment with framing scenes and characters with contradictions and paradoxes.
What you'll learn:
How to play in the paradox sandbox
How to balance a scene on the fulcrum of an opposition
How to flip your conception of a scene upside-down
Session 11: Write On!
Take the Imaginative Storm into your future
What you'll learn:
How to keep you writing momentum going
How to explore the Imaginative Storm method more deeply