- Level
- Mixed
- Basic and Premium Members Prices
- Premium Members $30 & Basic Members $40
Register by July 1st and save $5, use code PLOTBATES2024 at checkout!
- Category
- Characters
- Structure
- GMC
- Plotting
- $5 off Early Registration Coupon-expires 1 week before class starts
- PLOTBATES2024
- Class Length
- 4 Weeks
Writing a full novel is a daunting prospect. As a writer, you have to fill between 75,000 – 120,000 or even more words based on genre expectations. But how do you make sure you can avoid that dreaded saggy middle? How do you know that each chapter and scene zings with tension and keeps readers riveted on the edge of their seats? This course will examine how to create tight pacing for your work, avoid meandering in the middle, and help you create a book that people will read way too late in bed before work because they need “just one more chapter.”
To begin, we’ll discuss the sagging middle and look at reasons why tension can wane in the novel in mid-stride. We’ll then address how to create strong plots that string from the cause and effect of your high agency characters’ actions, and we’ll also address how to avoid becoming bogged down in some of the dreaded pitfalls like too much exposition, encroaching subplots that take over the main plot, and understanding that just because a conversation happens or a breakfast scene is fun to write that it is a darling that, alas, is just dragging your pacing down. We’ll kill darlings and skip the extra carbs because, my writer friends, pancakes?
They are never the plot.
To begin, we’ll discuss the sagging middle and look at reasons why tension can wane in the novel in mid-stride. We’ll then address how to create strong plots that string from the cause and effect of your high agency characters’ actions, and we’ll also address how to avoid becoming bogged down in some of the dreaded pitfalls like too much exposition, encroaching subplots that take over the main plot, and understanding that just because a conversation happens or a breakfast scene is fun to write that it is a darling that, alas, is just dragging your pacing down. We’ll kill darlings and skip the extra carbs because, my writer friends, pancakes?
They are never the plot.
- Class Format
- Savvy Authors' workshops are held on a forum: a bulletin board based system. You will receive a reminder notice one day prior to the start of the workshop that includes instructions on how to access the workshop forum. If you have not received instructions by the day the workshop begins, please check your spam filter.
The forum will be available the morning (EST) of the day the workshop starts and will remain accessible to all participants thereafter. You will also be given simple instructions on how to create a PDF of all your discussions along with our privacy and data retention policy.
