NVL 45 W — Novel Workshop for Manuscripts in Progress: Going the Distance
Quarter: Winter
Course Format: Flex Online (About Formats)
Duration: 10 weeks
Date(s): Jan 16—Mar 22
Refund Deadline: Jan 19
Units: 3
Tuition: $1000
Instructor(s): Stephanie Reents
Limit: 20
Class Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
Winter
Flex Online(About Formats)
Date(s)
Jan 16—Mar 22
10 weeks
Refund Date
Jan 19
3 Units
Fees
$1000
Instructor(s):
Stephanie Reents
Limit
20
Recording
Yes
Closed
Writing a novel is challenging. Like setting off on a long-distance road trip, it can be lonely and psychologically taxing, although it can also be thrilling. Sometimes the best strategy when working on a first draft is to get some miles beneath your wheels, put your pedal to the metal, and discover what your story is actually about.
Whether you are stuck at chapter two, lost in the middle, or could use accountability and guidance, this course is designed to help you on your journey by providing the inspiration and structure needed to draft the next 50-100 pages of your manuscript. Generative exercises, weekly deadlines, and feedback focusing on possibilities and patterns—rather than problems—will inspire you to keep moving forward. Every week, students will have the space to submit five to 10 pages, either inspired by a loose prompt or self-directed, for feedback from workshop groups of three and instructor comments. Weekly lectures on craft topics such as drama and improbability, raising the stakes, making scenes, and deepening point of view will enable you to bring new energy into your writing process and keep your momentum going as you near your final destination.
Whether you are stuck at chapter two, lost in the middle, or could use accountability and guidance, this course is designed to help you on your journey by providing the inspiration and structure needed to draft the next 50-100 pages of your manuscript. Generative exercises, weekly deadlines, and feedback focusing on possibilities and patterns—rather than problems—will inspire you to keep moving forward. Every week, students will have the space to submit five to 10 pages, either inspired by a loose prompt or self-directed, for feedback from workshop groups of three and instructor comments. Weekly lectures on craft topics such as drama and improbability, raising the stakes, making scenes, and deepening point of view will enable you to bring new energy into your writing process and keep your momentum going as you near your final destination.
STEPHANIE REENTS
Former Stegner Fellow, Stanford
Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors' Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange voice at the heart of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Her novel I Loved to Run is forthcoming. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Charles Baxter, The Art of Subtext, 1st (ISBN 978-1555974732)
(Required) Stephen Koch, The Mordern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction (ISBN 978-0375755583)
(Required) Stephen Koch, The Mordern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction (ISBN 978-0375755583)