Course Details

You want to write a novel. So what's the big deal? Well, it's a huge task to take on by yourself. Self-imposed deadlines rarely work. And what's the actual writing process? Do you need an outline? What do you need to know about dialogue? How can you stop procrastinating? Join 11 fellow writers in your pursuit?under the guidance of a novelist who knows what he's doing?to get your novel finished. If you stick with the pace of the class, you will have a finished first draft of your novel by the time three months are over. You'll learn the lost art of craft, the power of the outline, when to leave well enough alone, and how to turn your pages into a page-turner. If you need the edge to write that novel (and make it saleable), this is the class for you.

For the first six weeks, you'll get a lesson at the beginning of each class on writing an outline, writing characters, tone, theme, dialogue, etc.

In this class, you can expect to learn:

• How to write a perfect outline, and how to know when to change it.
• How to create strong characters and motivation for them
• What you want your novel's tone to be, and how to create it (and make sure it remains throughout)
• The secret behind perfect dialogue
• How to discover (or impose) the theme of your novel, and how to carry that theme as a throughline for the piece

By the end of class, students can expect to have:
The first draft of a novel.

Admission requirements:
To apply, you must submit a letter of interest (including work history), and a fiction writing sample that should not exceed 2,000 words.

Instructor Bio

Rachel Resnick's Courses

Rachel Resnick was born in Jerusalem, Israel, raised up and down the Eastern seaboard, and attended high school in Sylacauga, Alabama. Her first book, Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick: A Novel of Separation, (St. Martin's Press, 1999), was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. She has written cover stories for Black Book magazine, and non-fiction for The Los Angeles Times, The Book LA, Hartford Courant, and Tin House, where she is now a contributing editor.

Rachel's short plays have been produced in Los Angeles to critical acclaim. Her fiction, non-fiction and plays have also been published in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Women On The Edge, The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, L.A. Shorts, and Absolute Disaster. She has been a guest lecturer at Emerson College, Whittier College and Cal Arts, and has taught graduate and undergraduate students at Antioch University and Chapman University. At Antioch, she created a survey course, The Art of the Detective Novel, partly inspired by her year-long stint as a private investigator. At UCLA Extension, she's taught fiction writing and two courses she created: A Touch of Evil: Writing Unflinching Fiction and The Necessary Lie: Turning Life Into Fiction. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Yale University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Vermont College.

Rachel lives in Topanga, CA, up the street from where Charlie Manson used to park his bus. She is currently writing a pulp novel for Sin House (a division of Tin House Books) which will be forthcoming in 2006.

Testimonials

This 12-Week Novelist course is exactly the kick in the ass I needed to jumpstart my novel and fiction-wrting. My peers were intelligent, sensitive, and humorous, and supplied excellent feedback, even if I didn't agree with some of it. And instructor Rachel Resnick is sharp-tongued, quick-witted, well-read, and occasionally brutal...exactly what a Boot Camp instructor should be. -- Nicole Dorsey, Fitness magazine West Coast editor and 12-week novelist alum


"When is the last time you challenged yourself?When is the last time you committed to something? For writers this course is "the reveal." You find out what you have, what works and what doesn't. The pace allows for minimal whining and lots of crankin' out the pages. You said you wanted a novel right? Then this is a great place to get started." -- Rhonda Mitchell, 12-week novelist alum


"Taking mediabistro.com's 12-Week Novelist with the amazing, inspiring Rachel Resnick kicked my butt into action. Without the weekly deadlines and the support and wisdom of my fellow boot campers and Rachel, I would never have completed my manuscript, Dirt, which is a very fictionalized account of working as a reporter for The Star. Now, Dirt has been written about on The New York Post's "Page Six" and on LA.com and I have a meeting with a power agent in New York! The class is hardcore (expect to write a lot), but if you are serious about cranking out a first draft of your novel, this workshop is the place to do it!" -- Pete Davis, author of the forthcoming novel, Dirt


"Rachel pushed us, sometimes in unorthodox ways, to write 20 or more pages every week, always pointing out the strong and weak parts of our results." -- JoBeth McDaniel, author of A Special Kind of Hero (Doubleday, Dell)


"Rachel Resnick brought sharp focus to everyone's work and the process. The classes were intense. I quickly learned that my initial idea for a comic novel was not working, and proceeded to radically re-tool it as noir all the way to the finish. I completed my first draft with minutes to spare." -- Larry Gassan, art director