Don't Get Lost in the Woods
Adventure with me
Developmental Edits
Substantive Edits
Take a Rhay Class
A three-pass read provides a wealth of information about story, plot, characters, setting, structure as well as pacing and emotional impact. Detailed letters typically range four to eight pages and the program includes opportunities for email or live-chat discussions, clarification or further explanations.


More than just a developmental edits. With the addition of both inline line comments, suggestions, and line edits, as well as chapter summary suggestions, this program gives writers even more information to take her work where she wants it to go.
Who cares about your story?
You’ve put your heart, soul and every drop of blood into your characters, and the story they have to tell. You’ve created a compelling plot where characters run a gauntlet of obstacles. You’ve edited, deep edited, made sure every single word sing.
And you’re still getting critique partners, beta readers saying, “but I don’t get it” Worse, you’re getting those form rejections or those just-didn’t-care-enough responses.
Don’t panic. All writers experience this at one time or another, and Stacking the Stakes just might be your answer
With practical tips and tricks and plenty of opportunty for feedback will empower your writing and your chapters in a whole new way.
We’ve all taken classes, sat through workshops and lectures and often felt this isn’t what I need to, want to, can use, but with a limited ten student enrollment, the Two, Ten, Your-needs course gives you personalized, focused tips, tricks, lectures, and guidelines to empower your writing.
With information coming from all sides, at all times, the world has become a here and now kind of place. No wonder authors, agents, editors and readers want to feel that same kind of immediacy with stories. They scream for deep point of view. And I mean deep!!
Conflict, conflict, conflict builds tension.
We’ve heard the tension-refrain at conferences, in workshops and in books. We know we must have tension. Tension on every page.
So, we wrote stories filled with murders, thefts, lost hope, arguments, sword fights, gun battles, chase scenes.
You name it, we threw all kinds of conflict into our stories, and we polished up those pages.
We sent out packages to agents and editors and indi-publishers.
We sat back and waited for the bang on the door, the contracts, the advances, the New York Times Best Sellers list.
And we got, thank you for your submission, but I just didn’t feel this story enough. Didn’t feel there was enough conflict.
So why not join me, and Kill them with Conflict?:
Depending on who you ask, there are 2, 4, 7, 9 or 13 different plots for a writer to use. Regardless of who you believe, with a finite number of what can happen, you’d better a find a way to a make your story stand out among the mass.
And there is no better to draw your readers in that than by creating compelling characters.
A two month, three pass read guides writers to power up their prose and make their manuscripts unputable down.
I’ve really enjoyed learning every aspect of this class. I love how interactive and timely you’ve been on responding to everyone’s posted assignments. You have such a positive attitude and that alone makes all the difference.
I know all of the assignments we did will only be beneficial to my writing and aid in the experience I’m hoping to give readers. I’ve taken A LOT of writing classes, workshops, read non-fiction writing books, and have attended conferences in the past and this has been the best class I’ve ever taken–by far–in regards to the knowledge that I’ve learned. I cannot stress enough how valuable your personal attention on each of my assignments has been for me. How one question of yours opened up a whole load of questions and thoughts for me that I needed to figure out for my characters. Amazing!
Thank you so so much!
Christie Monsoon
I’ve really enjoyed learning every aspect of this class. I love how interactive and timely you’ve been on responding to everyone’s posted assignments. You have such a positive attitude and that alone makes all the difference.
–Ashley Babcock
For more information or to Register for a class
Mentorship
A tailor-made program of monthly packets of forty pages–twenty new and twenty revised–writers have chance to work on areas of craft they need developing as well as empower the current work in progress.
Testimonial
Wow, that was a fantastic and inspiring class! Thank you so much for your innovative and practical lectures. And your personalized feedback, critique & encouragement was *amazing*. Hands down, better than any online workshop I’ve ever taken! It was fun connecting with other students’ writing-in-progress and sharing lessons-learned, too.
Each lesson offered a great way to reconceive of a different kind of writerly-puzzle.
I certainly hope to have the opportunity to take another Margie Lawson Academy course with you in the coming year!
Very best wishes,
Catherine