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You Have Dreamed of Starting and FINISHING a Novel

Maybe you're here because you've written a lot of novels, but are looking for a way to smooth out or speed up your process. 

BUT...

Odds are pretty good that you're not. Odds are high that you've started at least one novel, but probably haven't finished it.

Why do I say this?

Because most of us who who have ever done this for a living - myself included - began with unfinished story starts cluttering hard drives or notebooks or drawers.

Doesn't matter where you start, though.
If you want to write a novel, you can.

Why do I say this?

Because I was you.

My name is Holly Lisle, and my first novel, written before I turned 25 because of the only New Year's resolution I ever successfully kept, was bad.

But finishing that novel all the way to the end, and then revising it, taught me that I could in fact sit down and write novels.

And I learned well enough that my second novel, Fire in the Mist, sold the first time out to the first place I sent it (Baen), and went on to win the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. That's been a lot of years ago now - but I'm still a novelist, and still love the work.

And I can show you how you can move past the unending creation of hard drive zombies (those unfinished novels that wander around on your hard drive filling you with feelings of failure and despair that you'll never finish them) and write your whole book. All the way to THE END.

 

The Big Things You'll Get From This Class

In this class you get:

• No novelist ever became a novelist by reading about writing.
• We all did it by writing.
  
• A lot.
  
• BUT not a lot all at once. It's a "small bites" process.

 

So on to the writing...

The first four weeks are preparation and setup — and once you’ve mastered the techniques and concepts involved, in your future novels you’ll be able to work through this part in a day or two.

After you finish prep and setup, you’ll be writing your novel for the next thirty-four weeks. That part? Well, it depends on you, on the book, on how big you want it to be when you’re finished, and on LIFE, and what life decides to do while you’re writing. But you can can spend a year (or more) writing bigger books if you want, or a few months writing shorter novels if you’re so inclined.

The process will fit what you want to do with it. So let’s look at the process.

How to Write a Novel is a learning-by-doing class.

INTRO & SECTION ONE:
BUILDING YOUR NOVEL'S BARE BONES

 

LESSON 1: Starting Right — Developing Novel-Sized Ideas

In WEEK 1: If you've ever asked the question, "Why do I always end up stuck in the middle of my book, lost trying to figure out what happens next?" the answer is, "Your idea wasn't big enough for a novel."

And the answer to the follow-up question, "How do I make sure I have a novel-sized idea before I start writing?" is the step-by-step process in Lesson One.

Sitting down and grinding for a novel idea is not fun. At the point where I was on my tenth "3 chapters & synopsis" for an editor with whom I had a three-book deal and who had rejected the previous nine, I was ground down to the bone. Being broke and living on beans, rice and fear does not help creativity much.

Wish I'd known then what I'm going to show you in this lesson.

Because you can sneak up on a wonderful, complete novel idea by playing a game.

By letting your right brain Muse do what it does best -- pull its toys out of your attic and start tinkering around with them until it comes up with something clever that knocks your socks off. Something that will let you write the whole novel secure in the knowledge that you have a big enough idea to support it.

LESSON 2: Concept Testing with Your Story Artifact

LESSON 3: Novel-Worthy Characters:
How to Make Yours Measure Up

LESSON 4: Immersive Conflict —
Grabbing Readers and Not. Letting. GO.

 

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 ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ IN-CLASS STUDENT RECOMMENDATION: ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫

The best thing about Holly's How To Write a Novel class is that it isn't learning ABOUT how to write a novel.

You actually write a novel in the class, and after Week 4, you have a specific, but very low, very manageable word count goal to meet along with doing the exercises, which are expertly integrated into the novel writing.

So instead of learning all this theory and practice on separate worksheets that you then have to figure out how to apply to your own novel, you are really just working on the novel the whole time. 

Raven O'Fiernan
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SECTION TWO:
BUILDING YOUR WRITING PROCESS

 

LESSON 5: Writing the Killer First Page
(and All the Ones that Follow)

In WEEK 5: We're going to do a bit of MythBusting this week. In first draft, you do not EVER have to have a killer first page, a killer first line, a brilliant first scene.

This week I wrote my first scene as a short demo in the lesson, then decided to take a fresh run at it to see if I could get it a bit longer, a bit meaner, a bit richer, and considerably more "novel-y". You'll get the SECOND raw first draft, in which a lot of the details change, in the supplemental handout.

So this week, we have a couple of BIG extras.

First is the "Scene Building Workshop," where Becca and I brainstorm and then build four novel first scenes live.

Second, you get the first Live Writing Video, in which I start my novel, which became Dead Man's Party.

And this week, YOU start writing YOUR novel, too.

LESSON 6: The Next Scene, and Going Deep into "Show, Don't Tell"

LESSON 7: Novel Structures, and How to Work Inside Them

In WEEK 7: There is no One True Way to write fiction. And the more you connect with the way your mind creates fiction, the way you discover and experience stories, and the way you actually sit down and get work done, you'll discover there isn't even really "YOUR One True way."

LESSON 8: Getting Words On The Page: Building Your Daily Process

LESSON 9: Genre at Novel Length:
What HAS to Be There

 

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▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ IN-CLASS STUDENT RECOMMENDATION: ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫

The best thing about this class is I now have a roadmap of the way to finish a novel, a map of those obstacles that will be in my way, and the solutions around those obstacles. After several false starts before this class, I know I am going to get this done!

BJ Steeves
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SECTION THREE:
BUILDING YOUR BASIC TECHNIQUE

LESSON 10: Pacing the Plot — Building and Maintaining Suspense

LESSON 11: Immersive Dialogue — Fixing Talking Heads
and Other Conversational Disasters

LESSON 12: Research — Bringing Your Book in On Time & Under Budget

LESSON 13: Writing Good Descriptions (That Aren't Exposition)

LESSON 14: The Writer's Guide to Transition Scenes:
Shooting "But..."

SECTION FOUR:
BUILDING YOUR INTERMEDIATE TECHNIQUE

LESSON 15: Writing Meaningful Fiction: Mastering Theme, Allegory, and Subtext

LESSON 16: Building Your Novel's RIGHT Voice and Tone

LESSON 17: How to Figure Out "What Happens Next?"

LESSON 18: Building, Hiding, and Revealing Core Plot Twists

LESSON 19: Provisional Outlining & Provisional Thinking: Dealing on the Fly with the Mess in the Middle

 

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▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ IN-CLASS STUDENT RECOMMENDATION: ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫

For me, the big thing here is that Holly isn't just standing up front teaching the class, she's also part of the community, and available to answer questions. Which means that you can fine-tune your understanding in a way that you can't, other places.

 Klynn (Forum Username)
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SECTION FIVE:
BUILDING YOUR ADVANCED TECHNIQUE

LESSON 20: Building Your Midpoint Pivot

LESSON 21: Writing Your Characters Into GOOD Corners

LESSON 22: Getting Your Character OUT of Good Corners

LESSON 24: Identifying, Pacing, Tracking, and Resolving Story Arcs

 
SECTION SIX:
DEALING WITH MID-BOOK PROBLEMS

LESSON 25: Invasive Ideas —
Protecting Your Novel from Wrong Directions

LESSON 26: I Turned Right, My Story Veered Left...
Now We're BOTH Lost

In WEEK 26: Last week we figured out our novels' premises, and looked at ways to keep a novel inside the premise.

Ideally, you never drift, you never get lost, you never fail to notice that you just followed a character away from the premise into "I Broke My Book" land. Unfortunately, sometimes we DO chase phantoms, will o' the wisps, and red-heads down the primrose path.

And then have to figure out where we went wrong, how we went wrong, and how we fix what we broke.

So this week you're going to meet Sarah Ellen Hahns. My nightmare.

And I'm going to show you how I broke her, and how I could have fixed her if I'd had a bit more experience... and if I'd been a bit less stressed. Because tossing 60,000 words when you're on a tight deadline is a bad last option, and one I shouldn't have taken... especially not twice in the same book.

LESSON 27: Thin Prose, Fat Prose — The Jack Spratt Dilemma

SECTION SEVEN:
DEALING WITH LATE and UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS

LESSON 28: The Series Temptation: Keep the Book Standing on Its Own Two Feet

LESSON 29: The Story Idea That's Bigger Than Your Writing Skills

LESSON 30: Reining in a Runaway Novel

LESSON 31: Keeping the Faith — Getting THIS Novel Done In Spite of Fear, Doubt, and Distraction

SECTION EIGHT:
HANGING ON WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH 

LESSON 32:  Big Book or Story & Sequel?

LESSON 33: Unsticking Stuck Stories

LESSON 34: Affirming Theme, Allegory, and Passion

In WEEK 34: Back in Lesson 15, we built themes, allegories, and subtext for our novels based on what mattered to us.

That feels like half a lifetime ago — but this close to the end of our novels, we have to check to make sure that even as our books have undergone strange and unexpected directions shifts, and have brought our characters and us to places we didn’t expect...

We’ve still managed to get our readers to the right place.

Theme and allegory are what matter to you about your story.

They’re also what you leave behind at the end for your reader to think about after she closes your book.

And this week, we’re either going to find what we need already in place, or we’re going fix what went missing.

SECTION NINE:
FINISHING THE NOVEL

LESSON 35: HARD MODE — Multiple Antagonists & Multiple Endings

LESSON 36: Finding or Building (and Recognizing) Your RIGHT Ending

LESSON 37: Bringing It All Home—
Story, Characters, World, and Promise

In WEEK 37: This week you write your novel's final scene. If you're not actually ready to do that, save this lesson until you are.

You're going to look very lightly at what you thought you were going to write, what you actually wrote, and how the best version of what you've written can end.

And when you're done with this, you'll write your FIRST DRAFT ending. Remembering that when you revise, you can fix everything that's wrong with the book in one go -- and can make sure that you come up with the right ending for the fixed book, if you don't come up with it this week.

It's a light but thoughtful process. Interesting. Kind of fun. Very freeing.

THIS moment is beautiful, and wonderful,
and something you can remember with joy and delight
for the rest of your life. 

You can do this!

P.S... The class bonuses...

The SMALL Class Bonus: Streamlining Your Novel-Writing Process

In WEEK 38:  This week you get the "built-into-the-class" bonus: How to take the parts of the process that worked for you this time and build them into YOUR process -- while not losing track of things that you either didn’t need this time, or couldn’t figure out how to use this time -- that might come in handy in the future.

So before we get started, two important pointers:

• Every novel is different, and you never stop learning how to write novels…
• You never stop figuring out how to streamline and improve your process for getting this done.

I have a lot of things I do to write novels most of the time. Writing PACTS sentences for each planned scene (which I did NOT do this time) is something I use a lot.

I have a few tricks in my bag that saved my butt once, but that I then forgot when I stopped needing them. Until I started needing them again. Provisional outlining — outlining just several scenes ahead and trusting my Muse to use the elbow room well — is an example of learned - forgot - relearned.

The key here is that what you need is YOUR process. Which will change. Which you will adapt. Which will get you through most novels.

This week, you start identifying your current process, and making sure you leave room for necessary adaptation as you grow and change as a novelist.

The How to Write a Novel Big Bonus — Chosen by the First Class:

INTERWEAVING Multiple Story Threads in Big, Complex Novels​

When you find yourself writing a Great Big Novel with four main point-of-view protagonists, eight or more major plot lines, multiple locations, multiple conflicts, and a lot of things happening in different places and different times, what is the SIMPLE, CLEAN way to keep all of that straight.
 
I figured this out when I was partway through writing Diplomacy of Wolves,  and the process got me through that trilogy smoothly, with some terrific twists and surprises, and and ending I love do this day. And on deadline. Hit all three of them.

This is a cool, powerful, and best of all, EASY technique.

So c'mon in. Write with us. Learn how to get all the way from start to finish on a brand new novel, and then how to make sure you can do it again. And again.

You can do this.

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Holly Lisle

Novelist, Writing Course Creator