This week, we’ll learn about genre, age group and word count expectations for novels. There’s a wide world of genres out there, and while there’s a place for every project, your readers will come to your work with expectations (doubly so if you’re planning on attempting traditional publishing). We’ll also talk about plot structure, and how to make a simple synopsis. At the end of this week, you’ll have the basic framework of your novel (word count, genre, age group) down, as well as a basic idea of your novel’s hook, premise, and stakes. Students will also have the opportunity to name a reward that they promise to give themselves for successfully completing the course.

Assignment: List your novel’s basic information and your weekly goals for the remainder of the course.

This week, we’ll talk about the Three-Act Structure and other commonly used novel structures. We’ll prepare to write by expanding our basic premise into a 4-5 page synopsis, which we will use as an outline for our work. After this week, we’ll dive right into writing, but students who want to create a more detailed outline will be given the resources to do so.

Assignment: Create a 4-5 page synopsis that details the major plot points of your novel.

And we’re off! From this week onward, class material will be focused on supporting you as you write. This week, lecture material will focus on how to start a novel, how to choose your starting scenes and craft compelling first lines, and how to show your protagonist’s ordinary world.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week. 

As we approach the first 10% of the book, we will discuss common ways that stories are divided. We will talk about chapter and chapter length, the difference between long and short chapters and their impact on pacing, and where to end a chapter to keep your readers where to end a chapter to keep your readers engaged.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

This week, supporting material will be focused on inciting incidents, the turning point that locks the protagonist into the plot, which occurs between 10-15% in most story structures. We’ll discuss the role that conflict plays in a story, and about how to manage conflicting forces while maintaining the protagonist’s agency.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

As we pass the 15% mark, supporting material this week will be focused on time management. We’ll talk about the practical side of writing, how to find time to write, how to set achievable goals, and how to keep going when it feels like the initial spark of inspiration has been lost. We’ll also talk about mental health for authors and what to do when you fall behind.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

In this week’s supporting material, we’ll discuss subplots, what they are and how and when to add them to stories. We’ll talk about POV, why some authors choose to use multiple POVs and how to manage them. We’ll also talk about single POVs and how to develop characters whose POV is never shown in the story.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

As we approach the first 25% of the story, we’ll go back to structure. Multiple novel structures have major turning points at the 25% mark, and we’ll discuss ways in which the story can change from here.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

In our second to last week, we’ll take a look at the work we’ve done so far and talk about what happens when the story starts to veer away from the outline. We’ll talk about how to make changes in the story’s plot without breaking the flow, and how to deal with the fact that what we’re writing may not be turning out the way we initially planned.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week.

In our last week, supporting material will focus on where to go from here and what to do next. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on what they have done so far and consider how to move forward. Course material will include an overview of the second third of the novel (the dreaded “messy middle”) and will include tips and tricks for finishing the project.

Assignment: Meet your personal word count goal for the week. Celebrate writing the first third of your novel! 

We’ll begin by discussing what makes a protagonist a protagonist and what makes a book YA. This week, we’ll go over genre conventions, what people expect from a young adult novel, and what people expect from a protagonist. By the end of the week, you should have your protagonist’s basic details down.

Writing Goals:

• Fill out a basic character sheet with some information about your protagonist, their goals, and a one-sentence summary of their story.

In our second week, we’ll look at how our protagonists are affected by the world they live in. We’ll talk about how the worldbuilding of the story can affect a protagonist’s character, and how their characters are influenced by culture. Since speculative themes are so popular in YA novels, we will also discuss the role magic and other speculative elements play in defining our protagonists.

Writing Goals:

• Build a cultural background for your protagonist, and make notes about how that background affects the way they behave and their outlook on the world.

In our third week, we’ll talk about the prevalence of orphans in young adult and children’s fiction. We’ll discuss why this trope is popular, why people both write and read orphan stories, and the types of stories where killing off the protagonist’s parents works. We will talk about the role that family plays in children’s literature and discuss some ways to include family members without disrupting the adventure. The goal of this week is to have authors consider how the protagonist fits in their family and how their family.

Writing Goals:

• Flesh out your protagonist’s family, writing short character sheets for their parents, other adults in their lives, and any siblings they might have.
• Write a brief (one sentence to one paragraph) summary about where each of their family members are at the beginning of the story and the role they play in the plot.
• Summarize (one sentence each) how the various members of the family influence the protagonist, the way they make choices, and the way they perceive the world.

Week four is all about age and life experience. We’ll talk about the difference between a teenage protagonist and an adult protagonist, and how to believably write teenage characters without having them read either as adults or as a teenage stereotype. We’ll also talk about establishing a timeline and making sure that the character’s age lines up with their backstory and accomplishments.

Writing Goals:

• Expand your one-sentence summary of the character’s role into a one-paragraph of at least five sentences.
• Build onto your protagonist’s history by establishing the timeline of their life up until the start of the story. Make sure that there is enough time in the character’s life for them to reach the role planned at the story’s start.

For our last week, we’ll talk about theme. We’ll discuss the sort of stories we tell as young adult authors and what we hope teen readers will get out of our books. We’ll talk about how to give the character’s internal and external conflicts that support the theme of the story and discuss how a character’s development can be affected by the theme. At the end of the class, we’ll also talk about resources to start writing the story.

Writing Goals:

• Name a theme or major conflict of the story, and outline both the character’s internal struggle and the external conflict that drives the plot.
• Expand your one-paragraph summary into a one-page character synopsis.

This week, we’ll define worldbuilding and talk about the importance of worldbuilding in science fiction and fantasy. We’ll also discuss how worldbuilding is used across all genres of fiction. We’ll share examples of worldbuilding in class and compile a list of traits common to good worldbuilding.

Writing Goals:

• Determine the core concept of your world, the thing that you will base all aspects of your world around.

In our second week, we’ll look at how geography and climate can affect stories, and look at examples of fictional worlds that have played with fantastical geography. We’ll also discuss how real world climates affect cultures, and can change the resources available to the story’s cast.

Writing Goals:

• Build onto your core concept established in the previous week by deciding on the climate and setting of the world where the story will be told.
• Class participants can choose to create fantastical geographies or use real-world geographic patterns.

This week, we’ll focus on the role of technology in worldbuilding and how it affects societies. We’ll start with science fiction worlds, where technological developments are naturally centered, and move on to fantasy worlds, using examples to show how even fantasy worlds can have varying levels of background technology. We will also discuss how magic can function as technology in fantasy worlds, and talk about how to build a good magic system.

Writing Goals:

• Build further onto your unique worlds by setting a level of technology and discussing how this level of technology would affect the lives of people living in the world.

In week four, we’ll ask the worldbuilding questions “Who is in charge?” and “Who has the money?” We’ll briefly touch on real-world political systems like democracy, monarchy and oligarchy, and talk about establishing systems of government (or lack of governance) in our own secondary worlds. We’ll also talk about economics, the resources that people have access to, and what those resources imply about trade.

Writing Goals:

• Continue to build on your own worlds by establishing systems of government, and by considering the role of economics and currency in your worlds.

This week, we’ll talk about how the elements we’ve already established in our worldbuilding directly affect the culture and societies that form in that world. We’ll talk about traditions, beginning with real-world traditions and expanding from there. We’ll also discuss when it’s appropriate to draw from real-world cultures, and how to write engaging fiction without appropriating from marginalized groups.

Writing Goals:

• Further expand worldbuilding by developing either the prevailing culture of the story, or, for stories that involve a lot of travel, the prevailing culture of the place where the protagonist grows up.

Our final week revolves around the stories that people in the fictional world tell themselves. Depending on what’s already been established, this could mean creating a fictional religion, creating folk heroes, or placing historical events on a timeline. This week, we will also talk about resources to begin outlining the story, and how to start writing.

Writing Goals:

• Finish up your individual worlds by describing the stories told about things that happened before the story starts, and how this might affect the people living in the world.

This week, we’ll introduce the speculative fiction genre and discuss different subgenres. By the end of the week, you’ll be able to define what makes your story idea speculative fiction, and start thinking about your story’s core concept, the unique aspect that makes your world different from reality.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story & Novel(la) Tracks: Identify the genre and core conceit of either your novel project or your first short story

Worldbuilding is important in all forms of fiction, but in speculative fiction, which often relies on strange and wondrous settings, worldbuilding is absolutely necessary. This week, we’ll work on all the basics of building a world, beginning with the core concept you identified last week.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story & Novel(la) Tracks: Write a short (~500 word) scene from the point of view of an ordinary person in the world your story will be set in

All stories require characters, and speculative fiction stories are no different. This week, we’ll talk about characters, the role they occupy in the story, and how to build them. We will also talk about how the speculative fiction genre allows us to push characters in ways more realistic stories can’t. At the end of this week, students should be able to identify the protagonist of their story.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story & Novel(la) Tracks: Identify your main character, and write a short (~500 word) scene from their perspective, before the start of the story.

Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This week, we’ll discuss the basics of building a good technology or magic system, depending on what your story needs.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story & Novel(la) Tracks: Fill out a worksheet outlining the importance of technology or magic systems on your story and setting. Build your magic system or core technology

As fun as it is to imagine fantastical worlds, we do need to at some point write the story. This week, we’ll talk about plot and structure, including common frameworks for story structure like the three act story, and deviations from that structure. For aspiring novelists, this week will also have a discussion on word count expectations across age groups.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Track: Outline your first short story
• Novel(la) Track: Outline the first act (or first third, if not using the three act structure) of your novel(la)

You’ve developed your own unique world, or have introduced fantastical elements into our world, but how do you show all that to the reader while still maintaining good pacing and avoiding the dreaded “infodump”? This week, we’ll discuss pacing and exposition, giving you the tools you need to finally begin putting words on the page.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Track: Write the first half of your first short story
• Novel(la) Track: Write the first chapter of your novel(la)

Chosen ones? Epic battles? High councils? This week is all about tropes. We’ll tackle how to write action sequences, which are common in the genre, but also talk about how to put a fresh spin on old ideas for those of us who aren’t writing action-packed sword and sorcery adventures. Tropes are not bad, as long as they’re used well!

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Track: Finish your first short story
• Novel(la) Track:Write the second chapter of your novel(la)

If you’re writing hard science fiction, you’re going to need to do some research. But even the most medieval of medieval fantasy writers can’t escape occasionally hitting the books (just how far can a horse travel in one day, anyway?). This week is all about where to go for information and how to incorporate that information into the world.

This week we will also talk about sensitivity readers, and the importance of being critical with your own sources, to avoid stereotyping other cultures.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Track: Receive feedback on your first story and decide whether to revise your story or to write a second short story.
  • Short Story Revision Track: Read through comments and begin revision of your first story
  • Second Short Story Track: Outline your second short story
• Novel Track: Write the third chapter of your novel(la)

Fantasy and science fiction allow us to explore impossible scenarios, but that doesn’t mean that these stories have to purely be about escaping the real world. This week, we’ll talk about how these genres can be used to shine spotlights on human nature or society. We’ll tackle themes and how to find out what you are trying to say in your own story.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Revision Track: Finish your first revision and submit your story for feedback
• Second Short Story Track: Write half of your second short story
• Novel Track: Outline the second act (or second third) of your novel(la)

For our last week, we’ll go back to the business of writing. We’ll talk about strategies for finishing a long project after the initial inspiration has worn off, and how to start revising. This week will introduce the concepts of alpha and beta readers, and talk about next steps for those with publishing goals, including finding markets for short fiction, finding editors for self-publishing, and querying agents for traditional publishing.

Writing Goals:

• Short Story Revision Track: Complete line edits of your short story
• Second Short Story Track: Complete your second short story
• Novel Track: Outline the final act (or final third) of your novel(la)