The Guppies provide instructors for four types of classes and a few that defy categorization. Some of these classes are given every year. Others are given every other year, or are brought back periodically. Instruction is given on Groups.io in two or four week class lengths. You must be a Guppy to take Guppy classes.

• • Craft classes focus on improving fiction-writing skills, such as how to write dialogue, set pacing, infuse conflict into plots, develop author voice, perfect your first-fifty pages, and revise rough drafts. We try to present at least 5-6 of these classes yearly.
  • Genre/Subgenre classes, of which we present 4-5 yearly, teaching conventions of different subgenre, such as how to:
• • Craft a suspense novel rather than a mystery novel
  • Write cross-genre or historical novels
  • Infuse humor or romance into your mystery novel.
• • Specific Mystery Genre classes by various topics, such as Forensic Psychology, Crime-Scene Investigation, Police Procedure, and Weaponry/Injury. We include 1-2 of these classes yearly and rotate among these topics every other year.
  • Promotion classes, such as how to market your work given the constraints of your personality, write blurbs, synopses, and agent letters promoting your own work, create a brand/platform, perfect a novel pitch, and use social media to increase your readership. Some of these classes are presented every year.
  • No Category classes, how to—write a series, determine if your idea is worthy of a short story, single title, or a series, conduct research without wasting time, get out of writer’s block. 

All Guppy classes are group classes, not individual. Members may pose questions to instructors using the class Groups.io system only. Interaction among students is a fruitful part of each course; everyone benefits from other members’ questions and the instructor’s answers.