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OWC 303 D — Novel I: The Powerful Beginning

Quarter: Winter
Instructor(s): Angela Pneuman
Duration: 10 weeks
Location: Online
Date(s): Jan 8—Mar 12
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Fridays
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Class Meeting Time: 12:00—1:15 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1290
   
Refund Deadline: Jan 10
 
Unit(s): 2
   
Enrollment Limit: 15
  
Status: Registration opens Nov 30, 8:30 am (PT)
 
Quarter: Winter
Day: Fridays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:00—1:15 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jan 8—Mar 12
Unit(s): 2
Location: Online
 
Tuition: $1290
 
Refund Deadline: Jan 10
 
Instructor(s): Angela Pneuman
 
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
 
Enrollment Limit: 15
 
Recording Available: Yes
 
Status: Registration opens Nov 30, 8:30 am (PT)
 
 
This course is not open to the public, but rather by admission only. For more information on the Writing Certificate Program and its application process, please click here.

The beginning of a novel is crucial: establishing a contract with the reader, raising narrative questions, setting the tone and mood of the book, and, of course, introducing the main characters. We will begin by making sure that your novel starts in the right place, with a conflict compelling enough to reveal who these people are, and to ensure that they are making meaningful choices that lead to dramatic action. The challenges that our characters face up front help us to know who they are at the beginning of a book, and also set up expectations for how they might change by the end. Students will spend time thinking about the trajectory they envision not only for their protagonists but also for the secondary characters, and discussing issues related to characterization, such as point of view, dialogue, and voice. In this course, everyone will write and workshop an opening section of up to 5000 words.

ANGELA PNEUMAN
Author

Angela Pneuman has taught at Stanford and in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Lay It on My Heart and Home Remedies, and her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Glimmer Train, The Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares. She contributes to Salon and The Rumpus. Pneuman directs the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and received a PhD in English from SUNY Albany.