Welcome to Lesson 1!

I'm so excited you have joined us for one year of learning how to write a novel! Writing a novel can be challenging, but it can also be fun. I hope my experience of over a dozen years of study, successes, and failures will be of help to you. So let's get started!

This lesson is an introduction to writing. We talk about what fiction is and isn't, can you be a writer?, and more.

To-Do

Please watch the video.

Download the weekly assignments file and then complete the assignment (shown below) and the reading.

Read the course schedule, project guideline, and course rules in the assignments file.

Download the workbook (optional).

Course notes

This course has assignments with most lessons, and I encourage you to do them so you'll get the full benefit of practice to apply what you're learning. To help with this, I recommend you bring in a friend to send your completed assignments to each week. Your friend doesn't have to read them, but they do need to be the sort to hold you accountable if you don't keep up. Writing is really a team effort--writers, readers, and helpers. Great writers don't write alone. Modern authors have teams of editors and beta-readers and just people to discuss the books with. Writers of yore, like Jane Austen, and still some writers today, read their work aloud chapter by chapter to their families. If you think all authors write alone, look up The Inklings and see how that group influenced some favorite authors. Accountability, and the humility to risk sharing your work, are important parts of being a writer, so search out a partner and get started!

The project guideline is also available in the assignments file. The assignments file is available in PDF if you want to easily view or print it. It is also available as a Word document if you want to type your responses within the file itself.

There is a workbook if you want a guide for keeping notes and thinking through things in the video. It is a bit time-consuming some days, so it is optional.

Assignment

Part 1: Read the course rules and look over the schedule. (The course rules are mainly for anyone who wants to post comments. Plus it reminds you to respect copyright of course materials and student comments.)

Part 2: Briefly introduce yourself in the discussion board (optional). Tell us what state or country you are from, what you like to read, a few of your favorite books and movies, and one fun fact about yourself. 

Part 3: Just for fun: Write an introduction in first person from a character you wrote or a character you love. Imagine you are all sitting around a campfire and your character is there and must give an introduction. You can also post this in the discussion board, if you want.

Reading:

The main class projects are a book proposal for a “Beauty and the Beast" and a short story retelling (around 20,000 words in length). Retellings give a certain amount of structure, so the students aren’t starting from a blank slate. It can be a loose retelling, so even students who don’t like the story can create a work they are excited about. To get started, however, let’s read one of the most famous of the many, many “Beauty and the Beast” type fairytales. We'll talk more about the project along.

For now, read the Beaumont version of “Beauty and the Beast.” It’s short and can be found through Project Gutenberg here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7074/pg7074-images.html