CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — West Virginia native Michael Knost, winner of the UK’s Bram Stoker Award for horror writing, will be in Clarksburg Saturday to host a free writing workshop at the Clarksburg Public Library for anybody interested.
Knost believes that you don’t have to be a young prodigy to become a great writer, which is part of the focus of his workshop.
“I started at 38, and I’m 48 now,” Knost said on the MetroNews-affiliated “The Mike Queen Show” on Wednesday. “It’s never too late. That’s something that I want to make sure that everybody knows.”
Knost attended similar workshops around the country, and said he spent a lot of money to hone his craft. But instead, he wanted to offer the lessons he took from those workshops for free in his home state.
“I love making things available to people in this area that they can come to for free and get the same education, the same workshops,” he said. “Because we have some very talented people in our state.”
Though Knost is a known horror writer with tales like Return of the Mothman, his workshop will focus on the fundamentals that go into any type of writing.
“Writing is writing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you write. If you write love stories, if you write westerns, if you write ghost stories or whatever, writing is writing. That’s what these workshops are about.”
He’ll focus on four fundamental basics: plot creation, descriptions, dialogue and point-of-view, and creating great characters.
“These are what I consider the foundation, or the building blocks of great story telling,” he said. “And from there that’s where the artistry comes into play. Then you can decorate the house after you’ve built a good strong structure.”