How to Write a Novel: Writing the Draft

WEEK BY WEEK BREAKDOWN

Every Week

Students will watch instructor videos, interviews with authors and readings. Each week there is at least one assignment, regular group discussion topics and instructor feedback in the form of a question & answer podcast.

Week 1: Introduction / The Aesthetic Journey

• Introduction to the course.
• Ways to structure and organize your writing time.
• Point of view: from whose perspective will the reader experience the story? Each comes with its advantages and disadvantages.
• Types of prose and their uses.
• Voice: a strong, consistent stylistic quality that permeates your writing.
• Beginnings. The first sentence, first paragraph, and first page.

Assignment : Explore several different openings for your novel and assess the impact of each one.

Week 2: The Art of Conflict and Tension

• Active and Passive Characters. How to give a character more agency.
• Character Complexity and Conflict. Internal, interpersonal and societal antagonisms help build complex and fully realized characters.
• Tension in Scene.
• Backstory and Flashbacks.

Assignment : Tackle a scene that illustrates a key “turning point” that offers crucial insight into your main character.

Week 3: Crafting Believable Dramatic Dialogue

• What is the function of dialogue in fiction?
• How dialogue differs from everyday speech?
• What dialogue should never do.
• What are the hallmarks of great dialogue.
• How to work with subtext.
• Exploring the depths of your character: what is spoken, what is unspoken and what is unspeakable.
• How to format dialogue and work with dialogue tags.

Assignment : Write dialogue in several different forms, exploring the multiple ways it will function in your novel.

Week 4: Managing Plot

• The evolving outline. What to do when you start to stray from your initial outline.
• Troubleshooting Structural Problems..
• Troubleshooting plot in five popular fiction genres (literary, speculative, crime, historical and romance).
• Endings. How to navigate through writing an effective ending.

Assignment : Write the end of your novel: the last chapter, last scene, last moments. Tools of analysis.

Week 5: Research

• Why do research? What can research bring to different types of fiction writing?
• When to do research.
• What should you research?
• How do you best incorporate research?
• Case studies. Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Crime Fiction, and Socio-Political fiction.
• The ethics of research.
• Writing about yourself and your family.

Assignment : you will apply this week’s work in an exercise that challenges you to evaluate several different ways of incorporating research.

Week 6: Mind over Manuscript

• Blind Alleys. How to identify and back out of them.
• Procrastination and Hitting the Wall. Ways to combat these mental blocks
• Grappling with Theme.
• Dos and don'ts.

Assignment : This week's assignment will be to complete the Tool of Analysis. This will help you identify your weaknesses and ultimately provide the solutions to overcome them.