The Nine Month Novel
Syllabus*
Week 1 – Regarding our hopes and goals for the course
Week 2 – Using the combination of Character / Setting / Conflict to generate story ideas
Week 3 – Why write stories, anyway? Making Time and Examining Our Priorities
Week 4 – First Draft strategy
Week 5 – Outlining v. Freestyle and the strengths and weaknesses of each
Week 6 – Point-of-view / Discovering (or creating) your writing voice
Week 7 – Free Indirect Narration
Week 8 – Beginnings and Hooks
Week 9 – Going deeper with your protagonist
Week 10 – Antagonists and their role in your story
Week 11 – Thinking through structure and plot (The First Act)
Week 12 – Pace and how to maintain it
Week 13 – Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue
Week 14 – Using Detail
Week 15 – The First Gate (Moving Into Act 2)
Week 16 – What themes and motifs are emerging in your writing?
Week 17 – Figures of speech
Week 18 – Books we’re reading and what we’re learning from them as writers
Week 19 – How to use feedback (and when to get it)
Week 20 – Mindsets to get you through the messy middle
Week 21 – Subplots – Are they contributing or not?
Week 22 – Hitting the wall and finding fresh inspiration
Week 23 – Sketching out your story arc / timeline
Week 24 – Explore potential endings through free-writing
Week 25 – The Second Gate (Moving into Act 3)
Week 26 – The Climax
Week 27 – The Voices
Week 28 – Peer Review
Week 29 – Tying Themes and Characters into Your Conclusion
Week 30 – How has your protagonist changed?
Week 31 – Taking stock of where you’re at in the process
Week 32 – Finishing Strong
Week 33 – How our creations become art (clue: by sharing them with others)
Week 34 – What to do with your first draft / goals for a second draft
Week 35 – Finding Beta Readers
Week 36 – Thoughts on Self-publishing
Week 37 – Working with editors
Week 38 – Working with agents
Week 39 – Farewell and Next Steps
Optional Reading List:
From time to time, sections of the following books could serve as supplemental material:
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Story by Robert McKee
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
How Fiction Works by James Wood
On Writing by Stephen King
* This syllabus is a guide. Weeks may be changed, reordered, or removed.