WHEN 12 weeks, Wednesdays, January 21 - April 15, 6:45-9:45 pm WHERE New York (Midtown East) LEVEL Intermediate PRICE $610 ($575 for ) more info

Course Details

You want to write a novel. So what's the big deal? Well, it's a huge task to take on by yourself. It's hard to stick to self-imposed deadlines. And what's the actual writing process? Do you need an outline? What do you need to know about dialogue? How can you stop procrastinating?

Join a small group of fellow writers in your pursuit of a completed first draft, under the guidance of a novelist who knows what she's doing. You'll learn the lost art of craft, the power of the outline, when to leave well enough alone, and how to turn your pages into a page-turner. If you need an edge to write that novel and make it salable, this is the class for you.

In this class, you will learn:

• How to write a perfect outline and when to change it
• How to create strong characters
• How to create a tone and make it consistent throughout your novel
• The secret behind perfect dialogue
• How to discover the theme of your novel, and how to manifest that theme through the piece

By the end of class, you will have:
Approximately 80-100 pages of a draft of your novel.

Students who have taken this class have published:
Total Knockout: Tale of an Ex-Class President (Simon & Schuster), House and Home (Voice), and signed with the McIntosh and Otis agnecy

Admission requirements:
Please submit a letter of interest (including a brief work history) and a fiction writing sample (less than 2,000 words).

Novel Writing (PDF) View a sample syllabus for this class here

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Instructor Bio

Alison Pace's Courses

Alison Pace is the author of the novels If Andy Warhol had a Girlfriend, Pug Hill, Through Thick and Thin, and City Dog. Her essays have been included in several anthologies, including Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, and It's A Wonderful Lie: The Truth About Life in Your Twenties. Her writing also appears frequently in The Bark magazine, where she is a contributing editor. Alison lives in New York City where she teaches creative writing and is at work on her fifth novel.

Testimonials

Allison became a real mentor. She was supportive and intelligent and her experience with the publishing industry was very valuable. -- Lauren Tanick

"Alison went above and beyond in answering questions and offering her wisdom. She also had the right balance of direction and casual relaxation, allowing the class to be structured and organic at the same time." -- Barton Perez

"Alison Pace is a fantastic teacher. By the end of her novel writing class I was only a few thousand words away from a finished first draft, and had drafted a decent synopsis and query letter." -- Lara Kristin Lentini