How to Write a Novel
Dates: Monday 26 July - Friday 30 July 2010
Time: 10am - 5pm Monday to Thursday, 10am - 4.30pm on Friday (an hour break for lunch)
Venue: University College Falmouth Library Building, Woodlane Campus, Falmouth, TR11 4RH
Price: £275 (Not including accommodation, which you will need to arrange separately)
Note: This course is now full. If you would like to be added to the waiting list please email us.
For more information: please email Vicki Brotherhood on shortcourses@falmouth.ac.uk or call 01326 255957
Guest accommodation in Falmouth
Discover abilities you didn’t know you possessed, and learn the techniques and skills every novelist needs - whether you aim for publication or simply wish to derive more pleasure from writing.
Have you always wanted to write a novel but don’t know where to start? Have you written one and all you have to show for your efforts is a pile of rejection slips? This is your opportunity to discover abilities you didn’t know you possessed while learning the techniques and skills every novelist needs, whether you are aiming for publication or simply wish to derive more pleasure and satisfaction from your writing. The course is a mixture of lectures, discussion, workshops, exercises, with additional tasks to complete at home overnight. Participants will have the opportunity on the final day to discuss work in progress individually with the tutor.
Day 1
Morning – Understanding your Market
Understand your market and your reader. Assessing your writing strengths. Writing for different genres. Avoiding Trend traps. How to find ideas. Research.
Brainstorming session: Genres, visualisation and the reader contract.
Afternoon – Settings
The importance of settings. Workshop activity – settings. How character and plot derive from setting.
Day 2
Morning - Know your characters
How to create vivid believable characters readers will remember. Exploring motive: What do they want, why do they want it?
Workshop: writing and paired activity: Interviewing your characters.
Afternoon
First, second and third level characters.
Workshop: experiment with different methods of revealing character. Discussion session on short extracts from published works which demonstrate these techniques.
Day 3
Morning – Dialogue
The concept of register. Finding a voice for your chief characters and how to make sure this differs from your own. Interior monologue.
Afternoon
The function of dialogue in a narrative. The requirements of different genres.
Workshop: Examining published extracts and writing a snatch of dialogue to indicate character.
Day 4
Morning - Beginnings and Endings
Grabbing your reader’s attention and keeping it. The five w’s. When to start and end a chapter.
Workshop – Examining published chapter openings and applying the techniques.
Afternoon – Plotting
Point plotting. Pacing your story, raising the stakes, plot twists. Writing your story in one sentence.
Brainstorming: Methods of charting highs and lows.
Day 5
Morning – Pace and Style
The relationship between pace and style. Balancing dialogue and narrative. Adjectives and adverbs. Techniques for changing the pace of a narrative and why you might wish to do this.
Afternoon – Revising and submitting your work. Query letters- what to include and what to leave out. Ten ways to get rejected. Writing a synopsis. Outlines and jacket blurbs. Agents and Advisory Services. Acceptance and after.
Your tutor
Rosemary Rowe is a pseudonym used by Rosemary Aitken, a highly qualified academic, who has written many best selling textbooks on English Language and Communication. Rosemary is the author of over twenty published novels including the ten historical crime novels in the Libertus series, starting with the highly praised ‘Germanicus Mosaic’. She has also written two prize-winning plays. Rosemary is an examiner for Trinity College London, specialising in English Language, Speech and Drama. Her novels have been translated into several languages and appear in large print and audio editions.
Rosemary has had many years experience in tutoring adults. She ran the Quiller postal writing course for 15 years, has been a regular tutor on fiction workshops for various bodies, has run short story and non-fiction workshops, and is the author of 'Writing a Novel: A practical Guide', a hand-book published by the Crowood Press has been acclaimed as “offering exceptional insights and inspiration”. Many of Rosemary’s students are now successfully published authors.
Related degree courses
If you are thinking about a degree course, this might be the perfect 'taster' course for you. You can find out more about related degree courses by selecting one of the links below:
Other writing short courses
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