Learn to love plotting and outlining!
Give your novel the clear structure it deserves.

Almost no one who wants to write fiction has trouble writing. But too often that writing wanders, unguided, unfocused and doesn’t give the writer confidence in what’s getting to the page. Some writers might consider using an outline but many go screaming into the night in panic at the sound of the word “Outline.” They defensively come up with excuses why they shouldn’t outline. That’s because they’ve never mastered outlining for novels and their memories of outlining from grade school are not pleasant ones.If you don’t find a story planning system that works for you, you won’t outline. Given options and techniques you can capture in outline form the product of your imagination. From the outline you can plan and organize your writing, be sure you have incorporated all your intentions for your fiction into your manuscript, shape your story dramatically, and audition ideas and elements of plot and character.

Plotting

Most new novelists who find themselves having difficulty completing their novel failed to put together a solid plan before jumping into the writing. Without a good plot a novel loses steam and comes to a halt after the first hundred pages, which is more often backstory and character history than story.

This part of the course is focused on helping the aspiring novelist prepare a workable plot that produces a compelling story. This is done by defining the essential elements of the novel and the critical scenes which must be written. Students will walk through the process of identifying these components for their novels and organizing them into a functional plot outline.

Outlining

Each week there will be a lecture and demonstrations from the instructor. Students will choose and fine tune their outlining methods and will get recommendations from classmates and the instructor on how to adjust their outlining technique to make their outlines functional.

Class Outline

This is not a critiquing course or workshop. Students will not be uploading portions from their manuscripts, plots or outlines. Rather, this class will lead students through the steps necessary to adopt working outlining techniques to aid in developing a solid plot — the foundation for a novel. This two-part course is oriented on offering tools to outline and then begin the process of plotting a novel.