Write the Book You Want to Read

Here's the course description for my course: Advanced Fiction: Novel Writing

According to a recent survey, 81 percent of Americans feel they have a book in them. I figure you're here today because you're one of those people. Good for you. Please understand, however, that you're not going to "write a novel" this semester, meaning you're not going to finish one, but you will start one. You will also learn what it will take to finish one and maybe even publish it.

I want you to start writing the book you want to read, not the book you think I want to read or you think your other teachers want to read, or anybody else for that matter, but rather the book that YOU want to read. I want you to start working on the book you've always wanted to write but you think you don't have time for, the one you think you're not ready for. This is an excellent opportunity to begin work on a manuscript to submit to MFA programs or to continue to work on after you graduate. At the very least, you will have gotten your "drawer novel" out of the way. For those of you who aren't necessarily planning on writing as a career or even a hobby, that's fine. You will leave the course a better and more appreciative novel reader—because you will have learned how hard it is to produce a novel, or what Henry James referred to as a "loose, baggy monster."

A novel is a big thing that's made up of lots of little things. You will write 3,333+ original words each week, which will result in a 50,000+ word draft. Remember, though, that 50,000 words doesn't even qualify as a novel; The Great Gatsby and Silas Marner are about 80,000 words long, and the typical novel is over 100,000. Of the words you produce, only 25-50 pages will be revised and polished and turned in as your final. Our focus this term is on quantity, not quality; process, not product. Yes, I just said that. This course will be very different from what you're accustomed to. 

The form of your big thing can be a novel (the whole thing roughly sketched, or just a part of it more polished), a novella, or a novel in stories, but it cannot be a collection of unrelated stories. Preferably, your big thing should be fiction, but I will also allow nonfiction, since all long-form prose writers are concerned with similar questions about sustaining a longer narrative arc, about moving from stand-alone stories and essays to book manuscripts.

Note: There will be no all-group workshop. Yes, I just said that. You will not read everyone's work, and they will not all read yours. You will get feedback as the semester progresses, but not from every member of the class, only your small writing group. You will not always get feedback from me, as it would be humanly impossible (and counter productive) for me to read and respond to all the unvarnished words that will come out of your head this semester. Also, we will not be directly participating with National Novel Writing Month, although you are welcome and encouraged to do so on your own.

[More to come. I suppose I'd better talk about why I decided not to connect the course with NaNoWriMo this time.]