Online | Novel | Workshop

6-Week Online Novel Workshop: From Idea to Outline

This 6-week course is for people who want to write a novel and are wondering how best to shape it.

In this course, we’ll consider the novel comprehensively. You’ll take the pieces you have so far (maybe it’s notes, character sketches, a few chapters, or maybe it’s just an idea for a scene) and build on them to create an outline of the basic plot. The initial stages of writing a novel include making a lot of foundational choices about character, voice, pacing, and structure. Along with your outlines and a short piece written in the voice of your novel, you’ll be asked to articulate how all of these elements will function in your novel project. Time in the weekly Salon will be used to discuss these elements in detail.

By the end of this class, you’ll have a template or outline for your novel, plus the first page. My hope is that by creating a map of the story, you’ll feel confident to begin writing.

Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the desktop client so you have access to all platform features.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

- A deeper understanding of the basic elements of a novel

- A comprehensive outline of your novel

- The first page of your novel

- Samples of dialogue from each of your characters

- Confidence that you can, in fact, write a novel with the outline you have built yourself

- 10% off all future Catapult classes

COURSE SKELETON:

Week 1: Introductions + Basic Elements of the Novel

Week 2: Character

Week 3: Narrator, POV, Dialogue

Week 4: Time & Structure

Week 5: Plot

Week 6: Details

Swan Huntley

Swan Huntley is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her novels include Getting Clean With Stevie Green, The Goddesses, and We Could Be Beautiful. She earned her MFA at Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. Her essays have appeared on Salon, The Rumpus, and Autostraddle, among others.

Testimonials

"Huntley is adept at deploying Catherine's good fortune as a fulcrum of suspense... Huntley deftly establishes Catherine's tendency to rationalize and repress... Lively... Huntley writes with wit and verve, excelling at economically hilarious descriptions... The book's strengths lie... in the zippy social satire, in the portrait of a dysfunctional family (Catherine's relationship with her sister turns out to be especially affecting) and, most of all, in Catherine's voice—strange and funny and engaging to the very end."

Jennifer DuBois THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, on WE COULD BE BEAUTIFUL

“As in her first book, Huntley is a keen social observer, empathetic and biting at once… [A] gripping psychological portrait of a woman at a personal crossroads. A haunting story of betrayal and forgiveness that packs an unexpectedly emotional punch.”

KIRKUS on THE GODDESSES

“An addictive fictional saga in which a jilted wife goes to the mat to save her marriage and her morale.”

O MAGAZINE "10 Titles to Pick Up Now" on THE GODDESSES