Novel Revision: A Crash Course

Class Description

You’ve finished the first draft of your novel! Congratulations! What on earth are you going to do now?

Don’t panic. Make a plan.

This course is for writers who’ve taken Novel Builder, Novel in Progress, or an equivalent workshop and want to build on that momentum. It is also designed for writers who have made significant progress on their novel or have completed a first draft, and are interested in the great adventure that is novel revision. Weekly assignments will include readings, online discussions—how to end a novel, how to make the most of feedback, how to take your draft apart and put it back together—and writing prompts, tools, and tricks designed to demystify the art of revising. By the end of the course, you’ll have a surer understanding of your novel as a whole, and how you can use revision—the most playful and experimental part of the writing process—to tweak and prune and re-work your novel, and bring it as close as you can to the book you first imagined writing.

This is not a critique or feedback-heavy workshop; we’ll focus on practical writing process and community. Assignments are asynchronous, though you will have the option of attending a weekly Google hangout conversation.

*Note that while our handy dandy "Schedule" tab states a 6-7pm class time, there are actually no live meetings for this class! Assignments will be given on a weekly basis and students will be able to access the portal at anytime after 5:00pm, September 6th. Instructions for logging onto the online portal will be emailed to registered students before 5pm the first day of class. Students will access the online portal at the following web address: http://online.grubstreet.org/