Foundations of Novel Writing

Confession: when someone tells me, usually in a conspiratorial tone, “you know, I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” I have to forcibly resist replying, “I’ve always wanted to perform brain surgery, I just haven’t studied brains or operation procedures.” Writing a novel isn’t brain surgery, but it is a lot of work. It’s also something everyone thinks they can do (because they’ve written stuff like emails, social media posts, that one poem from high school, etc.), and most people will never do. Fewer will do it well.

Being an enthusiastic lover of books naturally leads to dreaming up an idea or two for your own, but ideas are cheap and plentiful. It’s the completed execution of those ideas that separates authors from wannabes. And most authors don’t publish their first book (and certainly not the first version of it), so if you want to stop telling people about the book you’re going to write some day and start telling them about the book you wrote, roll up your sleeves.

This course will offer actionable advice on how to take your idea to completed novel with a comprehensive overview of how to plot your story, how to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and do the work, how to schedule your book’s completion and track your progress, how to revise your completed manuscript, and ultimately how to prepare it to be published. By the end of this course, you’ll either have a plan in place to finish your novel, or be able to decide that you’d rather just be a reader (the world always needs more of those).