Shaping the Novel: Structure and Storyline

Structure is one of the most challenging aspects of novel writing. Great ideas, intriguing characters and an enticing fictional world will soon lose their allure if you're not sure how to shape and organise them. The questions – of time, voice, perspective and form – can become overwhelming. As a result, promising drafts are left unfinished.

Writers often find themselves with a chicken-and-egg problem. How do you shape a novel before you fully understand your material? And how do you generate material without a sense of structure in the first place?

In this class, we’ll explore different ways of thinking about structure, not as a rigid template, but as something that emerges through the relationship between your material and the choices you make. We’ll look at a range of approaches, try out a few, and address some of the specific challenges in each participant's work.

Through focused exercises and discussion, we'll consider choices relating to character, point of view, time, place and narrative movement. We'll also identify patterns and possibilities within what you’ve already written.

This is a small-group session (5–8 participants), allowing time for individual attention and discussion. It is suitable for writers at any stage of their novel, but will be most useful for those with a work in progress or at least a few chapters to work with.

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