The Classic Storytelling Course
Create a big story based on the secrets of the all-time bestselling classics.
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Start Writing With Our Classic Storytelling Course
Learn how to start writing a book today. Discover the secrets of the all-time bestselling stories and start writing a novel with our famous course.
What do the best-loved works of fiction have in common? How do the most successful authors come up with their ideas? What’s the ‘secret sauce’ of a great classic? Learn how to combine your unique experiences, your deepest motivations and emotional attachments with the prime-movers of the biggest classic stories to create and start writing the book only you can write – the book you’re meant to write. Be prepared to make real progress; throw away self doubt and be proud of your own work, staying focused and truly finding fun in the book writing process.
The Classic Course will ensure your story is packing all the ingredients of a plot readers will find spellbinding; from a cracking opening line that grabs the reader’s attention to ensuring their emotional attachment to complex main characters, clever plot development and writing that will capture the reader’s imagination page after page. You’ll be excited to begin spending time writing the book you’ve always dreamed of writing. You’ll never look back.
Start writing a book with The Novelry.
Our first course at a glance
55 lessons
Inspiration and guidance to get your story started with the unique course created by a Booker Prize-listed author on a beautiful online platform.
Self-paced course
A deep dive into the magic of storytelling to develop your story idea and create spellbinding fiction to take at your own pace.
Weekly online classes
Just add membership to join the world’s favourite writing group for novelists with author and agent guest events and weekly online writing classes.
A year’s access
Enjoy a year’s access to the course and add coaching sessions and further courses when you join as a member for the first phase of our writing program.
Learn the Secrets of the All-time Bestselling Stories
The Classic Course with five-star reviews.
This is the fiction writing course created by a Booker Prize-listed award-winning author to help you bring to life a bold story, beautifully told, in any genre of fiction. Come up with a cracking idea for a page-turning story! Fill those plot holes before you start writing and create a writing plan and an outline that excites you. Suitable for writers at all stages and perfect for those seeking the confidence to start writing or to explore the world of fiction and master the art of storytelling.
1. Welcome Home
Get Started With the Idea for Your Story
The course begins with lessons to help you create the space and time for your writing, and prepare your mindset for creative thinking. To write a book you need to attach emotional significance to the story. Sounds obvious? A great story happens when you combine the universal with the personal and raise the stakes. A bestselling author knows how to tap into their own experience, and then up the stakes for a gripping read. We’ll share with you the key features of a bestseller, where ideas (really) come from and what makes a book a classic.
2. Once Upon A Time
Storytelling Structure
Move beyond the conventional three act structure to discover the great story structure that lies beneath long-form storytelling and discover how big stories come from very small seeds. We’ll guide you where to find the source for your story. Clue? It’s behind you! You’ll combine your unique life experience with the best loved forms of storytelling and begin to create the structure for your story.
3. The Process
Starting to Plan a Story
We’ll give you the who, the why and the what in these lessons to help you find the hero, locate the story, and scope out the arc of the story. You’ll be looking for the hero’s problem, blindspot or flaw and we’ll be adding the antagonist for conflict that creates drama. You’ll discover how every part of who you are can serve your story. No wonder so many writers describe the course as deeply therapeutic.
4. World Building
Creating the Story World
We’ll explore the archetypal elements of great stories that good writers utilise for page-turning books. You’ll browse a rich buffet of possibilities to feed your plot as you begin to compose and outline your novel including these lessons:
A Cosy Start, The Portal, Creating Wonder, The Garden, The Homely Creature, Temptation, The Battle, The Treasure, The Villain, The Hero, Decency, The Sacrifice, The Crucial Transformation.
Writer’s block? A thing of the past with these ideas at your fingertips.
5. Heroes & Villains
The Conflict that Drives Drama
The value system that drives storytelling has two poles represented by the hero and the villain. It’s our shared values that have ensured stories entertain and enlighten readers through time. Stories connect our lives. We live and breathe stories and so do your characters. A character’s past, and sense of their own purpose and story, should drive the development of the plot. Remember! Your reader craves character development over the timeline of your story and your hero’s moral growth. It takes a villain to drive that change, and to bring the required conflict to your story to force their choices and create the light and shade of drama. Deliver proper justice via your narrative arc for a deeply satisfying reader experience.
6. The Reader
A Story Readers Will Love
For a bold story beautifully told, you need to engage your readers in your hero’s plight. Seek to entertain rather than to educate. We’ll show you how the best-loved authors befriended their readers in prose along with storytelling techniques to help you earn the reader’s trust. Remember, a novelist has questions – you don’t need the answers. The relationship with your reader is one of mutual exploration. We’ll show you how to write with unaffected and appealing honesty.
7. The Author
Why and How We Write
Understand what moves a bestselling author to write their book and how the great stories originate from the ‘wounds’ of apparently successful writers, as a way to right the wrongs and create a better world. You’ll gain the confidence to bring your authentic whole self to the page to create those major scenes that resonate and stay with readers long after they were written.
8. Farewell
The Working Plan for Your Story
Here’s where it all comes together with a simple but dazzling plan for the story you can’t wait to write. You’ll have all the ingredients to start writing a book, including a few mind-blowing surprises. We’ll be waiting to see you through writing a book with The Ninety Day Novel Course where the actual writing begins!
Your Story Starts Here
Sign up and start writing a book today.
This is the first phase of our 3-stage program, to be followed with The Ninety Day Novel Course and the Big Edit. All courses are yours for 12 months, after which it’s easy and affordable to extend access should you need to. Join us as a member for live writing classes, resources and a community by adding Membership.
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‘Mind-Blowing’
The storytelling course with rave reviews
“This is a great entryway into the world of creative writing and storytelling! I now have a clear understanding of how to start my novel, I have a way to outline my story ideas, I have a bank of character inspiration to draw from. The Classic Course is truly a world full of wonderment. I had such a wonderful time exploring familiar texts and learning about the authors who wrote them. I now feel I have a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to move forward into writing my own stories!”
—Lacy Blake-Vetter
“I’ve loved every minute. I’ve already recommended it to someone who wants to write but doesn’t know where to start. Inspiration, the opportunity to trawl the archives of my personal history, to share in all the trials and tribulations of famous writers and to look under the bonnet of their novels to discover some of the trade secrets of the craft. Life-changing in a big way and in so many small and personal ways.”
—Wayne Silver
“If you believe in magic, then this course shows you how to create it in your writing. Whether you are writing for adults or children it sprinkles glitter over necessary rules and gift wraps essential tools, then Louise Dean waves her wand and sets you free. This is more than a writing course – this is a course on how to enrich your life by really seeing what is in front of your eyes. And once she shows you how to see it you can never unsee it.”
—Trisha Smith
Our Classic Course Reviews
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