Speaking Topics For Parents
Growing Your Child’s Communication Skills
Looking for ways to teach communication in the midst of a busy life? In this talk, Given Hoffman shares practical steps for training your child in communication no matter what age they are. Be empowered to enjoy your children while in the process growing their ability to communicate. (Length 45-60 min)
Creating New and Healthy Communication
Seeing unhealthy habits forming in your child’s communication? Or are you watching them withdraw from normal interactions? Not sure how to help them re-engage in a healthy way? In this talk, Given Hoffman will highlight common failings in communication and present practical solutions for helping you and your child create new and healthy patterns. (Length 45-60 min)
Making Writing Fun Using Flash Fiction
Looking for solutions to get your reluctant writers writing? In this talk about flash fiction, Given Hoffman presents a fun, creative, and easy way to get your child past “I don’t know what to write” and into writing short stories that will teach them not just how to put together sentences but also how to craft clear and concise messages for all areas of life. (Length 30 min or 45-60 min)
Help! My Child Wants to be a Fiction Writer
In this talk about writing, Given Hoffman shares ten reasons why you should encourage your child in their pursuit of good fiction writing. She will show how trained in fiction writing will actually provide your child with a number of highly marketable skills that will benefit them no matter which career they end up pursuing. (Length 30 min or 45-60 min)
Speaking Topics for Parents, Adults, and/or Teens
How to Make Friends and Build Community
Are you feeling isolated and lonely? Wishing you were better at making friends? In this talk, Given Hoffman will share practical and easy ways to start conversations, find common ground, and develop friendships. She will teach you communication tools that will help you overcome social fears and equip you to boldly navigate new friendships and grow a community. (Length 30 min or 45-60 min)
How to Keep Your Friendships Alive and Well
Ever wonder what being a good friend should look like? In this talk, Given Hoffman will teach you social cues and communication tools that can help you conquer where friendships often falter and bring better stability to all your relationships. With an abundance of friends, Given has used her training in communication to navigate hard conversations, overcome conflicts, set good boundaries, and ultimately build friendships that last. Join her for this session and learn what it looks like to be a good friend and how to keep your friendships alive and well. (Length 30 min or 45-60 min)
The Power and Influence of Story
Well-crafted stories have a uniquely powerful means of impacting people. Storytellers effectively influence their story consumers by motivating them to relate to, care about, invest in, feel for, and learn from the characters they create in their stories. Given Hoffman will present how this influence is accomplished and why it is important for us to be always aware of and evaluating the stories we are consuming in books, movies, news, magazines, video games, and social media, etc. so that we are able to discern the truth from the lies. (Length 45-60 min)
Addressing Magic: Lord of the Rings vs Harry Potter
There has long been division in the Christian community in regard to the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series. Some families embrace both, other families won’t let their children read either, and even more families embrace the LOTR but reject HP. Why all this controversy? Well, the issue is magic. In this talk, Author Given Hoffman will address the questions: What kind of magic is presented in these series? Is the magic in HP different from the magic in the LOTR? And if it is or isn’t different, why does it matter? What can we know about magic from what we see in Scripture, and what should our response be to magic as Christians? (Length 45-60 min)
Dealing with Magic in Media: Biblically Navigating Culture’s Growing Fascination with Magic
In this talk about magic, Given Hoffman, an author of young adult fiction and an international blogger on Christian worldview, will talk through all three forms of magic present in media: entertainment magic, fantasy magic, and supernatural magic. She will share with you what magic is and why as Christians it is important for us to know the differences between real and fake magic and to have an accurate and Biblical view of magic. She will help you better understand magic for yourself and, if you’re a parent, how to teach your kid(s) to safely navigate their own encounters with magic in books, video games, movies, etc. (Length 45-60 min)
To See how Given addresses magic from a Biblical Worldview, you can read her blog series on magic here.
Co-Presented Speaking Topics for Parents
Given Hoffman and Her Long-Time Friend Kate
Teaching the Wisdom of Discernment
As Christians we are often accused of “sheltering” our children, but sheltering means a place of temporary protection. So, how do we use our homes—our places of protection—as a way to teach our children how to handle what they will encounter when they leave that protection? In this talk about discernment, millennial homeschool graduates and long-time friends, Given and Kate, will discuss how to teach your children the art of godly decision making in a world that demands blind acceptance. (Length 60 min)
~Kate is a millennial, homeschool graduate, aesthete, peacemaker, and freelance writer who is passionate about worldview, the pursuit of truth, and supporting the family to equip the next generation.
~ Given is a millennial, a homeschool graduate, a young adult suspense novelist, a professional communicator, and an international blogger on Biblical theology and Christian worldview.
Given and Kate podcast together on Young Exiles.
Speaking Topics For Writers (Adults and/or Teens)
Fiction Writing Goals
Well-crafted stories have a uniquely powerful way of impacting people’s lives. In order to utilize this very effective means of communication and influence, a storyteller must master certain goals: how to make a reader relate, care, invest, feel, and learn. Given Hoffman will present how and what is needed for a Christian storyteller to master these goals and create powerful stories that speak into people’s lives in honest and God-honoring ways. (Length 45-60 min)
Fiction Writing Basics
In this talk, Given Hoffman will teach the building-block principles of story development and three-act-structure, using the tools of goal, conflict, and resolution. She will show how the story plot, each scene, and even the way individual sentences are structures, are all built using these tools. She will teach how to properly craft cause and effect, which is integral to utilizing these principles in order to heighten tension and keep readers engage. And she will address how goal, conflict, and resolution can additionally be applied to character(s) arc and story theme. (Length 30 min 45-60 min)
Fiction Writing Techniques
Given Hoffman will share five major techniques used to improve fiction writing and make stories better crafted and more engaging. The techniques she will cover are: how to use Show, Don’t Tell to bring a story to life, how to correctly understand and use Point of View, how to transform a story from Passive to Active structure, how to fully engage the reader using The Five Senses, and how to strengthen a story by removing Un-Needed Words. (Length 45-60 min)
Using the 5W’s and H to Orient Your Readers
Every time you start a book, introduce a new character, change scenes and/or take your character to a new location you need to know how to orient your story readers. In this talk, Given Hoffman will teach you how to use Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to help you as a writer make sure you are including all the elements your readers need to truly experience your story with your character(s). (Length 45-60 min)
Using the Power of Story to Capture Your Specific Audience
When determining what genre (what audience) your story is intended to serve, there are three powerful elements that must be specifically chosen and carefully crafted within your story. Those elements are age (character), voice (style), and relevance (theme). Given Hoffman will talk about these elements within the framework of writing for teens and will present how they can be used to craft a compelling story that is able to speak truth powerfully and create a deeper more meaningful connection with your reader, no matter what genre you write. (Length 45-60 min)
Three Masteries You Need in Storytelling
How to engage, draw in, and immerse your reader by creating a story your readers will relate to, invest in, and feel.(These three sessions can be presented individually or together as a set.)
Relate – Creating Empathy
Have you ever been fully engaged in a story where what the character was pursuing was something that you didn’t care about at all and yet somehow the storyteller had you rooting for that character anyway? Want to know how the storyteller did that? In this talk you will learn a number of connection points and tools you can use to make a character and/or their goals or plight something your reader will care about and to which your reader can relate. (Length 45-60 min)
Invest – Promise and Reward
We all know what it’s like to be invested in a story. In fact probably most of us have binge-watched more than one TV show in order to get the reward we’ve been promised. In this talk you will learn the three different types of promises that are created in your story and how to reward your readers in such a way as to keep them invested in turning pages. (Length 45-60 min)
Feel – Character Immersion
In fiction writing we don’t have the advantage of getting to include the creepy music to tell the reader something bad is coming or the romantic music to tell them to feel happy, or do we? We may not have a physical sound to send with the book, but we do have the mental sounds our words create and the internal responses a reader has to certain words. In this talk you will learn four different ways you can use specific word choices in your story to create the exact type of feel you want your reader to experience as they absorb your story. (Length 45-60 min)
The Self-Publishing Process
Given Hoffman will walk you through the process of self-publishing, teaching you which steps to take at the right time and how to avoid the pit falls she discovers in her own journey of becoming and independently published author. Given will share about the ins and outs of finding and hiring editors, designers, and publishing companies; purchasing your ISBN and barcodes; and launching your own business to sell your book(s). (Length 45-60 min)
Using Magic in Storytelling
Given Hoffman will talk through the three forms of magic used by storytellers: entertainment magic, fantasy magic, and supernatural magic. She will present what magic is, where it comes from, and how to have an accurate and Biblical view of real and fake magic. She will share ways that Christian storytellers actually have a unique and awesome opportunity to incorporate magic into their stories in such a way as to benefit their readers’ relationships with God and showcase the safest, best, and most God-honoring ways to respond to magic. (Length 45-60 min)
To See how Given addresses magic from a Biblical Worldview, you can read her blog series on magic here.
Fiction Writing For Teens “The Power of Story”
Whether as a solo event, part of a teen track, a special add-on event during a convention, or a pre-conferences track for teens, I offer fiction writing classes for ages 12 or older that could be a great fit for your event. The Power of Story can be scheduled for as little as 2 hours or as long as 5 hours with a mix of my writing classes and works best with a minimum of 10 students. Teens will be encouraged in their writing and will come away with a better idea of where they can take their stories, how they can best accomplish their story development, and what techniques they can use to craft the most impactful version of their stories.
If your interested, I’d be happy to share more information
If you are in need of a topic that isn't listed here but that you think Given could speak on, please reach out and ask her about it. She would love to work with you to see if she can create a talk that will meet your speaking needs.
~ Given Hoffman is an author, a podcaster, an international blogger on Christian worldview, an instructor in communication, and a writing coach. Her fifteen years of experience in the realms of media and communication, has influenced her to help teach others the power of verbal and nonverbal communication, the importance of training in worldview, and the necessity of Biblical discernment. As a homeschool graduate and millennial, Given’s greatest passion is teaching and helping parents and teens grow in their Christian faith and communicate well with each other and the world.
Compensation
$150 per talk with booth space, travel, and lodging.
– or –
Honorarium negotiable with
– One booth space
– Travel and lodging
– Meals provided or meal allowance
Contact: givenhoffman@gmail.com