The Finished Novel Course

Your year is structured in stages to create, write and edit your book, allowing you the chance to work step-by-step through each phase and take any breaks you need between them. You will begin with The Classic Storytelling Class to come up with the idea for your novel and plan your story, then you will write your first draft with The Ninety Day Novel. Finally, you will be guided to raise your book to publishing standards with The Big Edit, before you submit your work for The Ultimate Manuscript Assessment and onward toward submission to literary agencies.

This is a self-paced program, with over 200 lessons served on our beautiful online platform by video and text. Enjoy the lessons on any internet-connected device. Watch the video, read the text and use the ‘speak aloud’ feature to listen. You’ll need 30 minutes for each lesson and probably some thinking time to capture your thoughts and ideas as you start writing. This might be a good opportunity to start setting aside an hour a day just for you and your writing, and you’ll come to love this special time.

We suggest you allow 1–2 months for The Classic, 3 months for The Ninety Day Novel, and the remainder of your year, 6 months or more, for The Big Edit. But as the course is self-paced, you can take each phase at your own pace, according to your lifestyle, holidays, vacations and commitments.

You can book your coaching sessions at any time during your year on the course.

Your coaching begins after the first week of the second phase of your program, The Ninety Day Novel, where you will write and refine your draft novel alongside a currently published bestselling author in your genre of fiction.

Before your first coaching session, we’ll guide you on how to create an outline for a commercially viable novel. You’ll be nudged in the course to use our interactive tool to submit that to us (on a regular basis as you develop your story). We’ll look at your planned storyline as a team, and if we think another writing coach would be best suited to your story, we’ll drop you a line, but you’ll be able to make the final decision (and can always swap coaches later if you wish).

Every writing coach reviews your storyline in advance of the session via the interactive tool we call ‘The Plan.’

Your first coaching session begins with your writing coach understanding your intentions and aspirations for your book and writing career. That’s your brief to us, and allows us to give you the dedicated and personal guidance and support you need to achieve your ambition.

The coaching sessions are 45 minutes online, and you’ll find that’s plenty of time to get help with story development and troubleshoot any problems to stay on track with your writing. All sessions are recorded for you to keep. You may schedule your coaching sessions whenever you wish during your year with us and will be able to browse our diaries to select a time that works for you, in your time zone. Some like to stay on track with a coaching session every two weeks of their writing period, for example, and others like to pace themselves with one a month or get more help up front or more guidance and advance later on. You can get the support you need when you need it.

During the writing of a first draft, our focus is on your storyline, and we work with you to creatively develop and expand the story together, reviewing development in every session and answering your questions for your story.

You can, additionally, book Paid Feedback Sessions which include a report and a live debrief. We suggest you leave getting feedback on your work until later in your program, after the first draft.

Unlike other writing courses, we advise you don’t share or ‘workshop’ the novel at this stage where your confidence and the story are still vulnerable. Some courses have first-time writers on first drafts advising others in their position, and we think this is a bad idea and at best a waste of your very precious time.

At The Novelry, we’ll keep you and your story safe within a one-on-one relationship of trust and care with wise guidance from a published author who cares about your success and will believe in you and your story.

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You can browse our writing coaches and find the author you would most like to work with, then book your coaching session from your Library.

You may wish to book with an author experienced in the genre you are writing.

Another great way to consider who you want to write with is to take a peek inside the first pages of their published books on Amazon and see whose writing style appeals to you most strongly.

The wonderful thing about The Novelry is that you can work with the writing coach of your choice but also book sessions with any other writing coach whenever you wish. So if things change for your story, say you swap genre, or need more help on specialist technical matters from another coach, we’ve got you covered.

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Yes! This is a flexible writing course you can take at your own pace around your other commitments. The time it takes to complete a novel depends on the time you can set aside, but with an hour a day we know it’s possible to comfortably finish your novel in a year.

If you need more time, you can extend your course and roll over everything including any unused coaching, editorial, or manuscript review sessions.

The cost of another full year is $599 (USD) or £499 (GBP) or you can pay monthly (cancel anytime) at $55 or £45 a month.

Alternatively, you can remain as a member only for just $29.99 or £24.99 a month.

The Ultimate Manuscript Assessment will give you the ultimate feedback on your novel! Plus, you will get feedback on the first three chapters in The Big Edit, and feedback from the community too.

You can also purchase Paid Feedback Sessions for $425 or £350 for a 5,000-word section of your manuscript.

The feedback sessions offer a detailed report and a live editorial debrief recorded for you to keep.

We don’t believe in feedback or workshopping a first draft. It can kill it.

But we do believe in giving feedback on second draft and beyond where you’re working with us toward publishing standards. Once you know what you’re keeping, it’s time to finesse and only then. So you’ll work with publishing editors formerly of the Big Five publishing houses at that stage. We follow a carefully managed process based on our combined industry experience of how great novels get made.

We will take great care of you and your novel, with every step at just the right time for your development.

You will work with publishing editors from the major Big Five publishers like Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan, who will guide you in the Big Edit phase of your program on how to raise your work to publishing standard for submission to literary agents and onward to publishing. You may work with the editor of your choice.

See our team of experienced professional publishing editors here. These senior editors are known and trusted by literary agents.

We’ll be able to advise you if you can’t find an obvious fit by reading the profiles of our editorial team. Our Editorial Director reviews all bookings and we will be sure to suggest the very best editor for your storyline and genre.

Yes, we are all for Happy Writing. You can review our terms and conditions here. If for any reason at all the course is not for you, you can get a full no-questions-asked refund within the first seven days after purchase. Just email us and let us know.

Our courses are suitable for people with visual or auditory impairment, dyslexia, and for those with English as a second language. We offer an app which translates the course into 99 languages and a speak-aloud option too.