Revision writing workshop with bestselling author Chris Tebbetts

The Page Turner's Toolbox: A Writer’s Workshop on Revising for Tension and Flow

Tuesdays, April 14 - May 5, 2026
7:00-8:30 PM EST | Online | Workshop recorded
Level: All levels
Cost: $539

This Workshop is full

Immersive. Propulsive. Fast-reading. These are the qualities of a page turner. 

Whether you’re revising your novel or you just want to enhance these essential skills, don’t miss out on this opportunity to add more tools to your writer toolbox. 

Join best-selling author and teacher Chris Tebbetts for this four-week, generative, craft-focused workshop that will focus on tools and techniques for creating stories that keep readers engaged and … well … turning pages. You will explore concepts including: the deep POV, the single/singular idea, cause and effect, rhythm and cadence, the passage of time in your manuscript, and the writer/reader relationship

Building on what is working well in each of your manuscripts, this workshop uses participants’ work in place of mentor texts. We’ll kick off our workshop with sentence-level revisions and subsequent sessions will examine scene-level, story-level, and thematic revisions. The final session will include additional time for an optional sharing of work.

Participants are invited to revise and resubmit scenes in the second half of the workshop for before-and-after editing comparison. 

This Workshop Is For You If:

  • You are an experienced or beginning novelist interested in expanding your writer’s toolbox.

  • You are a writer who gravitates toward (or would like to increase their focus on) propulsive, immersive, and fast-reading fiction.

  • You are a writer looking to tighten their prose. 

  • You are a storyteller who finds plot and plotting difficult.

  • You are a writer particularly interested in taking your work in a more commercial direction. 

You’ll Complete This Workshop With:

  • The skills to keep readers turning pages and engaged.

  • The skills to find and eliminate hidden redundancies and to capture lived experiences on the page.

  • The capacity to make your prose work for you – putting more storytelling in your story.

Workshop Details:

  • Participants are asked submit up to 1000 words from their works-in-progress.

    Your submission should be 12-point Arial or Times New Roman and be double-spaced with one-inch margins.

    Chris will use student submissions in place of mentor texts for this workshop. The instructor will only use submissions to illustrate successful execution of craft points or as a way of pointing out examples that can accomplish a given task in the editing process. (Which is to say: don’t be afraid!)

    While we can’t guarantee all manuscripts will be used, we encourage those planning to register to send an excerpt.

    Please mail your submission to submissions@whalerockworkshops.com, and put “Page Turner Toolbox” in the subject line.

  • CHRIS TEBBETTS is the co-author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling MIDDLE SCHOOL series as well as the forthcoming middle grade adventure, DR. ZEUS, both with James Patterson. He also co-authored the bestselling STRANDED series with Jeff Probst from TV’s “Survivor." Other projects include: two YA novels, ME, MYSELF, AND HIM and M OR F? (with Lisa Papademetriou); the bestselling adult thriller 1ST CASE; and the audio drama 10 RULES FOR THE PERFECT MURDER, also with James Patterson. His work has received children’s choice awards in Oregon and Hawaii, a Sunshine State Young Readers Award nomination, and a nod on the New York Public Library’s annual list of Books For the Teen Age. Chris has visited schools around the country and has taught for the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, The Highlights Foundation, Adirondack Center for Writing, and others.

  • No more than 15 students