Back to Home > Courses and Seminars > Novel Writing

Novel Writing

Draft your novel in 3 months!

Course is closed.
Novel Writing

WHEN 12 weeks, Tuesdays, July 22 - October 14, 6:45-9:45 pm

WHERE New York (Downtown)

LEVEL Intermediate

PRICE
$610 ($575 for )
more info

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. It's hard to stick to self-imposed deadlines. 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 a small group of fellow writers in your pursuit of a completed first draft, under the guidance of a novelist who knows what she's doing. 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 stick with the pace of the class, you will finish the first draft of your novel in three months. If you need an edge to write that novel and make it salable, this is the class for you.

For the first six weeks, you'll get a lesson at the beginning of each class on such topics as characterization, tone, theme, and dialogue. For the second six weeks, the focus will switch to the business aspects of getting published.

In this class, you will learn:

  • How to write a perfect outline and when to change it
  • How to create strong characters
  • How to create a tone and make it consistent throughout your novel
  • The secret behind perfect dialogue
  • How to discover the theme of your novel, and how to manifest that theme through the piece

By the end of class, you will have:
Approximately 80-100 pages of a draft of your novel.

Admission requirements:
Please submit a letter of interest (including a brief work history) and a fiction writing sample (less than 2,000 words).

Related Courses

Tell me when courses like this are scheduled.
• Personal Essay Writing – ONLINE (Class starts July 23)
View all courses in Fiction | Book Publishing | | New York, NY

Instructor Bio

Shari Goldhagen's Courses

Novel Writing: Advanced – New York (Class starts October 22)

Shari Goldhagen
Shari Goldhagen published her first novel, Family and Other Accidents, in 2006 (Doubleday). She holds an MFA from Ohio State and a journalism degree from Northwestern. A fellow of both Yaddo and MacDowell, she currently lives in New York City, where she has stalked celebrities as a reporter for magazines, including The National Enquirer, Life & Style, and Celebrity Living.

Testimonials


Shari was wonderful! Very helpful and reassuring. I loved how she was frank and just utterly honest. She told us how it really is, but didn't sour us on publishing our own works. -- Nicole Yanolatos

"Shari was excellent, very perceptive, and very encouraging. She had lots of specific examples from writing her own novel and novels she had read. This helped to both generate a first draft and improve on the content already there." --Dekker Dare

AvantGuild* Discounts on mediabistro.com courses are just one of the wonderful benefits of being in AvantGuild, our premium membership program. For just $59 a year, you'll receive instant access to our How to Pitch articles and other premium articles, transcripts from selected seminars and panels, and discounts on virtually everything we do (including eClasses and the Freelance Marketplace)! Click here to join now.