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Spring Registration Opens Feb 23
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NVL 56 W — Conquer Your Opening: Novel Workshop

Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Jarrod Shusterman, Sofia Lapuente
Duration: 10 weeks
Location: Online
Date(s): Mar 31—Jun 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
 
Class Meeting Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1000
   
Refund Deadline: Apr 2
 
Unit(s): 2
   
Enrollment Limit: 18
  
Status: Registration opens Feb 23, 8:30 am (PT)
 
Quarter: Spring
Day: Tuesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Mar 31—Jun 2
Unit(s): 2
Location: Online
 
Tuition: $1000
 
Refund Deadline: Apr 2
 
Instructor(s): Jarrod Shusterman, Sofia Lapuente
 
Enrollment Limit: 18
 
Recording Available: Yes
 
Status: Registration opens Feb 23, 8:30 am (PT)
 
 
Every great novelist faces the same challenge: how to open a door that readers can’t resist walking through. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to establish voice, world, character, and momentum from the very first page, resulting in that kind of irresistible opening. Through close analysis of first chapters from best-selling novels across genres, we’ll examine how great writers draw us in and keep us turning pages. After studying techniques for creating hooks, building tension, and developing compelling characters, students will draft their own openings (up to 5,000 words). They will then undertake multiple rounds of revision until their beginnings feel polished enough for agent submission. Lessons will draw from craft guides such as Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Robert McKee’s Story, and Aristotle’s Poetics. You’ll leave the course confident that you have a polished and propulsive launch, having received detailed peer feedback, instructor critique, and real examples of editorial revisions.

JARROD SHUSTERMAN
Author

Jarrod Shusterman is the New York Times best-selling co-author of Roxy and Dry, which he is adapting for the screen with Neal Shusterman. He also writes with Sofía Lapuente, and they co-authored the novel Retro and collaborated on Gleanings, the fourth installment of the Arc of a Scythe series. His work has received starred reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal, as well as a Green Earth Book Award and two German National Book Award nominations.

SOFIA LAPUENTE
Author

Sofía Lapuente is the co-author of the novel Retro with Jarrod Shusterman. She also collaborated on Gleanings, the fourth installment of the Arc of a Scythe series, which is being adapted for the screen by Universal. Lapuente immigrated to the United States with a dream of storytelling and since then has been published in over a dozen languages worldwide. She is a writer, creative writing instructor, screenwriter, and former producer and casting director on an Emmy-nominated show.