How To Write A Novel (Beginners)

Our How To Write a Novel course

Next date: 24th March, 2012

This course is designed for new writers who want to write a novel. You need absolutely no prior experience - just bring your imagination!

Keeping it simple, keeping it friendly

Our online course is designed to be incredibly simple. Simple to fit into your life, simple to understand ... and very friendly.

Simple to fit into your life. Because the course is online, you can dip in and out whenever you want. As long as you have a few hours to spare each week, it doesn't matter what other commitments you have, or which times of day are most convenient for you.

Simple to understand. Our online course course environment is very simple. If you can turn a computer on, your technical skills are probably fine. All our courses are hosted on our social networking site, The Word Cloud, so you can pop over right now to see how it feels.

Very friendly. Writing is hard, but it doesn't have to be scary. Our course tutor will be there to help you at every stage, and you'll get loads of help and support from your classmates. They're beginners too, so don't worry about being the odd one out.

Course Tutors

Your course tutor will be Jessica Ruston (left). Jessica is the prize-winning and bestselling author of Luxury and To Touch the Stars. She's also a very experienced writing tutor and editor and loves working with first time writers.

Bookings info

Duration: 6 week course

Next start date:24th March, 2012

Fee: £295

Syllabus: See detailed info below

 Each week, you will get an introductory video, detailed lecture notes, a discussion topic, a homework assignment and feedback on that assignment. In addition, all class members are encouraged to chip in themselves. Ask questions that have been bothering you. Get into debates with your tutors and classmates. Offer each other feedback. Set challenges. Have fun!

How to book: See schedule and bookings info

More about our online courses: Click here

Any questions?: Ask away

Course Syllabus

Introductory Period
Before the course starts, you'll be able to watch an introductory video from the course tutor and get to know your fellow students in a dedicated area of the Word Cloud site.

Week One: Ideas.
All professional writers get asked the question 'Where do you get your ideas from?' We'll start off the course by trying to answer it. We'll look at: Recognising and developing ideas; Reading as a writer, and getting into good writing habits; Defining your idea through titles and outlines, and the role of planning.

Week Two: Character.
Creating convincing, realistic characters that readers are compelled to find out more about is at the heart of successful novel writing. We'll begin to build a character, looking at different ways you can approach this, what makes a successful character, how to develop your characters and begin to think about how character and plot interact - an issue that lies at the very heart of how to construct a compelling novel.

Week Three: Story, plot and narrative.
How do you create a compelling plot that keeps readers turning the page? We'll start to think about what makes a story a story as opposed to a series of events, introduce you to the idea of archetypal plots, and look at the roles of pacing, hooks and conflict all play in story-telling.

Week Four: Structure.
Once you know what your story is and who's in it, you need to start thinking about the best way to tell that story. Writing a novel means making a series of decisions about things like structure, point of view, genre, setting, time and place. We'll look at what the implications of these choices might be for your story.

Week Five: Style.
This is where we get down to the nuts and bolts of writing. Dialogue, prose style, the elusive concept of 'voice', description, and the much-discussed 'show don't tell' will all be covered.

Week Six: Editing and the business of publishing.
How many drafts should you write? How do you know when something is 'ready'? Many writers say that getting to the end of the first draft is just the start - that's when the real work begins. From structural editing to polishing your prose, we'll go through the stages involved in editing your novel. We'll also aim to give you a brief overview of how publishing works, and what to do with your novel once you've written it.