
A short welcome to the course, description of what it will cover and who I am
My three top tips for anyone wanting to start a novel
This lecture contains a bunch of helpful extra material, including my Five Step novel plan, and documents to help you with character building, structure, writer's process, genre and National Novel Writing Month. For regular updates, discussions and support, join us at The Write Group, my Facebook community for writers https://www.facebook.com/groups/311526622632395
Some advice about how to get the most out of this course
Some advice and tips about how and where you can look for ideas and inspiration.
This lecture explains what writing prompts are, how to find them and how they can help you find ideas and get writing. The websites mentioned in the lecture are available here in the resources section. There are also loads more links here to sites with prompts, and a pdf for you to download with some more. So lots here to get your teeth into!
Some of my thoughts on real life stories and how you might use them in fiction
An article to help you work out if your idea has what it takes to become a novel!
Lots of advice here on how you might go about establishing a writing practice, and the things that have worked for me and writers I know
In this lecture I talk about different writers and their ways of working to help you find out what might work for you
The pdf download here is a little quiz to help you work out the best kind of process for you
This lecture explains how you can write a premise for your idea
This lecture explains how you can write a synopsis for your idea
This lecture discusses the different ways to take your planning further and helps you work out what might be the best way for you
This lecture explains some basics about creating and building characters for your stories
This is a short character interview for you to use with your own characters
This download is something I use a lot to flesh out my own characters- there's a word document, a link to a google docs version that you can save as your own, and a pdf in case you'd prefer to print and fill it in by hand. I call it a 'character doodle' and I wrote in response to the snowflake method, which I've used a couple of times. You can find out more about the snowflake method at the attached website
This lecture explains what exploratory writing is, how it might help you, when you might want to try it and how to go about it
This lecture explains the different character perspectives you might take as well as how to work out who should tell your story and the way it should be told. The downloadable pdf attached gives a summary of this information, as well as some questions to consider when deciding on how to tell your story.
Now you are hopefully ready to start your novel, this lecture gives some hints and tips to make the writing good. I'm planning a future Udemy course on how to write great prose too, so look out for that!
How to write better dialogue using subtext and conflict. How to write your dialogue attributions
A bit of extra advice about how to use the technical section of the course
A lecture about story structure and how knowing about this can help you when writing.
Some details of the seven basic plots with examples
A lecture about how popular, page turning novels make readers want to keep on reading
Learn some really helpful MS Word functionality that will help you edit your novel
Learn how to use the navigation pane in MS word to help you reorganise and edit
Learn about helpful MS Word functionality for when you're working with others to edit your work
My YouTube Video on traditional versus self publishing and how to decide what's for you
My YouTube video on how to get published with a Big Five publisher
My YouTube video on how to get published via a smaller or indie publisher
My YouTube video about how to write a killer synopsis
A last video lecture with some final hints and tips from me about novel writing
This lecture has links to more bonus material and help from me
Have you always wanted to write that novel but aren't sure exactly where to start? Do you have a bunch of ideas but you're not sure whether they'll work? Or maybe you've written a novel or two but are suddenly finding yourself stuck. Then this course is for you.
With lectures to help you with your creative writing techniques, your writing process, as well as editing and polishing your work, prize winning author Nicola Valentine takes you through all the stages of novel writing, helps you get started and do lots of work towards your finished book. Take this course and work step by step through the process of writing your first novel and get lots of guidance and help along the way.
Learn how creative writers develop ideas and build the impetus to write a novel. Grow, build or design your novel; it's up to you which method you choose. Explore your characters, setting and plot with creative writing exercises designed to guide and inspire you. Learn how bestselling and prize winning authors work with ideas, and how ideas become novels over the fullness of time. Find ways into creative writing that will leave you desperate to start the first chapters, and give you the drive to finish writing the book. Learn about working with drafts and editing, as well as some tricks in MS Word to help you edit your writing. And NEW this November; a bonus section of Write Channel videos about publishing.
This course includes:
Nearly three hours of video lectures on creative writing
Downloadable creative writing resources and handouts
Regular creative writing exercises and assignments that build on one another, with the chance to post your writing and get feedback
Guidance on how to write great dialogue, and on story structure
Advice about getting published, or publishing yourself, as well as what to do once your work is out there
This course will get you well on the path to writing your first book and help you find a novel writing process that works for you. With full 30 day money back guarantee, there's nothing to lose.
So enrol now and get started on your novel writing journey!