"Two thumbs up!" - Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of The War of Art
THE 90-DAY NOVEL© TELECOURSE
BEGINS JANUARY 20, 2020
TELL YOUR STORY
The 90-Day Novel© Telecourse is an intensive workshop designed to guide the writer from initial idea to the completion of a first draft.
THE WORKSHOPS ARE LIVE
The 90-Day Novel Telecourse meets by phone once a week on Mondays at 12:00-1:30 p.m. (Pacific Time) and is appropriate for both fiction writers and memoirists at all levels.
GET STARTED!
THE 90-DAY NOVEL© TELECOURSE INCLUDES:
- 14 LIVE 90-MINUTE WORKSHOPS - Mon., 12:00-1:30 p.m. (Pacific Time)
- LIVE Q&As
- PLAYBACK ACCESS to the workshops
- 90 DAILY LETTERS
- DAILY WRITING PROMPTS
Why 90 Days? Learn more about the 90-Day Novel© Process, and download a free audio recording of The 90-Day Novel© Primer.
INSTRUCTOR: ALAN WATT
Alan is known as the Writer Whisperer. He's an L.A. Times Bestselling novelist for Diamond Dogs, which won France’s Prix Printemps for best foreign novel of 2004. Alan's telecourse workshops for The 90-Day Novel and The 90-Day Screenplay attract writers at all levels from across the globe... MORE
The 90-Day Novel© Course Outline
The first four weeks are dedicated to stream-of-consciousness writing exercises as you begin to develop a relationship to the world of your story. As you inquire into the nature of your premise, images and ideas naturally emerge. Al Watt works one-on-one with each writer to illustrate the process of seeing beneath the premise to the primal forces at work. There are no rules to novel-writing, but there are story principles and tools to help you develop a more specific and dynamic version of your story. Many writers have had the experience of getting stuck halfway through their work. The 90-Day Novel© helps free writers from limiting ideas they may have of their story, and provides tools to explore the story in a deeper way. Below is a brief outline of the weekly topics covered.
WEEK ONE
- Imagining the world of the story
- The dilemma at the heart of the story
- Exploring the protagonist’s goal
- Why you are uniquely qualified to write this book
WEEK TWO
- Story Structure lecture
- The nature of the premise
- Building an outline
- Plot versus theme
WEEK THREE
- Narrative drive
- Exploring the antagonistic forces
- Deepening the outline
- Writing the forbidden
WEEK FOUR
- Show, don’t tell
- Beginnings, middles and endings
- Backstory
- Story analysis
WEEK FIVE Writing Act One - Narrative voice
- Writing the beginning
- Setting up the dilemma
- Inciting Incident
WEEK SIX Writing Act One
- The opposing argument
- Characters behave uncharacteristically
- Giving yourself permission to write poorly
WEEK SEVEN Writing Act One
- The protagonist makes a decision
- What if I’ve fallen behind?
- Backstory… revisited
WEEK EIGHT Writing Act Two
- The protagonist experiences false hope
- Blind spots
- Making the scene dynamic
WEEK NINE Writing Act Two: The Midpoint
- The protagonist experiences temptation
- The nature of commitment
- Stepping into the unknown
WEEK TEN Writing Act Two
- The protagonist suffers
- Story isn’t linear
- Raising the stakes
WEEK ELEVEN Writing Act Two
- Lecture on surrender
- The protagonist’s dark night of the soul
- Making the impossible possible
WEEK TWELVE Writing Act Three
- Reframing the protagonist’s goal
- Protagonist accepts the reality of the situation
- The protagonist is stripped bare
WEEK THIRTEEN Writing Act Three
- Our protagonist takes action
- Transformation: avoiding the deus ex machina ending
- Battle scene: the dilemma is resolved
- The hero is returned home
FINAL CLASS
- Completion of first draft
- How to proceed from here