The Novel Series: Finding Your Direction From Your First Pages

Class Description

Have a good idea or great characters, but no idea where to go from there? Already have a full draft that has no center and reads no better than a smattering of actions and scenes? A novel without a sure-footed direction from the very beginning can be a nightmare to write, let alone finish, and agents and editors will seldom give them a glimpse. This course will focus on nailing your first pages, getting your story going without becoming mired in backstory, and allowing these pages to determine the rest of your book. Through a combination of lectures, readings, and writing exercises, students will work toward discovering where to begin—using concepts such as the Wounding Event, the Inciting Incident, and the Point of Attack—how to deal with backstory, how to raise the stakes on your protagonist’s actions, and how to make us care about those actions. You’ll learn how your protagonist propels your plot while discovering the backbone of your book. By the end of the course, you will have a better idea of how best to make your beginning both interesting and meaningful to your reader, laying the path of which way to go next. Part of a monthly series of eight one-day classes for novelists at the beginning or more advanced stages of their manuscripts.

Part of GrubStreet's Novel Essentials Series, led by Michelle Hoover and dedicated to exploring the core elements of novel writing. Classes include:

• The Novel Series: Character Lab
• The Novel Series: The Point of View Puzzle
• The Novel Series: Finding Your Direction from the First Pages
• The Novel Series: Conflict for the Conflict Averse
• The Novel Series: Dynamic Scenes and Chapters
• The Novel Series: Subtext, Setting, & Suspense
• The Novel Series: How to Hold Up Your Middle & Find Your Ending
• The Novel Series: Taming Time: Pacing, Compression, and Slowing Down