The Novel Development Course

Where motivation meets method. Get ready to write with ten short but sweet lessons.

• Discover the big hack that will change your creative life
• Get guidance on creating the time and mental space to write around a day job
• Learn the one characteristic great writers need and how to nurture it
• Harness your changing moods to boost your creativity
• Start with the essential single ingredient that makes a story a page-turner

An intense month to get the groundwork prepared for writing your novel.

• Learn how to write your novel in an hour a day
• Get the infallible one-word secret to creating drama
• Take it steady with step-by-step guidance to prepare a one-page plan that packs a big plot
• Understand how the difference between what your hero wants and what they need drives the narrative
• Meet your writing coach to check the plan for your story and use the constructive feedback and advice to embolden your outline

A big thumbs up from your writing coach who will sign off on a story you love. Say goodbye to writer’s block. A good story (almost) writes itself and we will ensure you have an exciting storyline in place to get off to a cracking start.

Two weeks to find the warmest writing waters for technique, where style meets substance. 

• Follow in the footsteps of famous writers of bestselling novels who wrote their books in less than 90 days
• Get expert craft skills and insider techniques to quickly improve your writing style
• Find your ‘voice’ and discover what makes your writing special
• Learn how to pace a story using elements like perspective and setting to drive the plot
• Build your confidence as your word count passes the 10,000-word mark

Now you are using your new craft skills to boost your confidence and assume absolute control of your storyline.

A fierce and fabulous phase to power you through the middle of your novel.

• Banish bad habits like backstory and overwriting
• Keep your eye on what the reader wants to stay on track with your plot
• Discover some game-changing writing power tools
• Raise the stakes in your plot to head towards the midpoint, going from the old world of your main character’s problems into a new world of opportunity
• Learn how to use the best and worst parts of yourself as a source of creative material

Here’s where you fall in love with your story.

Game-changing daily insights to elevate your writing – from the work of a Nobel Laureate to enable you to make a great leap forward.

• Get the inside story on one of the greatest award-winning novels of all time to craft your novel and look under the hood to see how it works
• Nail your title and make a chaptered outline to reach The End
• Allow your fully-developed three-dimensional characters to drive the story in unexpected directions
• Apply some new master strokes to fulfil the promise of your story
• Discover the deft and economical touches that give the reader those ‘a-ha’ moments

You’ll see the proof on the page that you’re mastering the craft skills.

Here’s where it all comes together with the last 15 lessons combining the key elements of storytelling: theme, character, dramatic irony, narrative arc, and sub-plots working in harmony for a satisfying ending.

• Bring the things you love to the novel to give it an authentic and personal beauty
• Reward yourself with the knowledge that you now possess your own unique secret storytelling code; your brand as an author
• Write the perfect ending for this story delivering what your main character needs, rather than what they want
• Get advice for the next steps to take this draft to publishing standards
• Celebrate! Your writer coach and community will be cheering when you write The End. You will have a certificate of completion, a manuscript in your hands and a story readers will love.

Our step-by-step process for editing a book begins with raising your standards to those required for submission to traditional publishing houses before you begin work so that you can take pride in your own work as you begin self-editing. An author never sends out any work that falls short of their standards. Your standards are ‘your brand’. Prepare for the publishing process by learning how to format your document the way a professional editor at a publishing company or a literary agent would wish to receive it.

A professional edit begins with taking the first step towards a great hook or elevator pitch, looking at the theme of the entire story and how to best serve the story with the structure. You’ll consider the narrative arc, character development, the midpoint and more, working towards a chaptered outline and a (pain-free) synopsis.

Then it’s time to book your first session with our developmental editors. In your recorded session we’ll review the pitch, the main character, secondary characters and the storyline, looking at each plot point in turn, and filling any plot holes so that you can edit your own book with fresh eyes and new enthusiasm.

Our editing checklist will guide how to use the developmental edit to fill the plot holes, reviewing character development, all the way through to line editing, your line by line style. You’ll become your own copy editor, reworking your chapters and drilling down into sentence structure and word choice. You’ll use active voice over passive voice, eliminating crutch words and overwriting, and creating enough tension and momentum to keep your reader engrossed for hundreds of pages. You’ll learn how to apply our unique technique for advanced prose skills and language usage: Lucid Compression ®. In the final stages you’ll be shown how to eliminate grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and punctuation errors line by line. All of these small things contribute towards the reading experience. The finer points of punctuation and grammatical rules are more important than you may think. 

Then, it’s time to get feedback on your own writing from beta readers at our online community. With hundreds of serious writer members worldwide, you’ll find the perfect beta reader at The Novelry. 

With the substantive editing and line-editing complete, our professional editors will guide you on how to prepare for submission to literary agents, and a career as a published author.

Then it’s time for your second session with a professional book editor to review your pitch letter, synopsis and first three chapters, and make a plan for you to enter the publishing process with world-class literary agency representation.

Your year is structured in two stages to 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 write your novel with The Ninety Day Novel. Next, you will be guided how to raise your book to publishing standards with The Big Edit.

This is a self-paced program, with over 150 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. One hour? You deserve it.

We suggest you allow 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 Ninety Day Novel.

Before your first coaching session, we’ll guide you on how to create an outline for a 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). One of the perks of The Novelry is that because our systems and records allow us to stay on track with your story development, it makes hand-off between coaches seamless so that you can work with any writing coach you wish and benefit from advice from experts across the fiction and memoir genres.

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 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.

A first draft should allow you to find the story, to be experimental and fearless. 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-to-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.

Once you join us for the course, you can purchase Paid Feedback Sessions for £350 or $425 for a 5000-word submission with options to upgrade and add more word count at checkout. 

You may choose to book a Paid Feedback Session to get a ‘voice-check’ on your writing at any stage of your year with us or to ask for help with any specific questions on the writing from either your writing coach or an editor.

The feedback sessions offer detailed feedback on your writing in a report and a live Zoom session recorded for you to keep.

If you need or would like more comprehensive feedback on your manuscript, we’d suggest you choose The Finished Novel program which includes a full assessment of your entire manuscript.

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

You may wish to book with an author experienced in the genre you are writing. Don’t worry, we will guide you in your course on how to settle the matter of genre, whether it’s straight or cross-over (a combination) and we'll explain more about choosing your coach before you book that first session.

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, unlike any other writing course, 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.

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.  

This is a flexible writing course you can take at your own pace around your other commitments. We suggest you consider taking 3 months to write for an hour a day in the first phase The Ninety Day Novel. The remainder of the year will be spent raising your novel to publishing standard with The Big Edit process in which you’ll want to work in longer chunks of time, when convenient to you. 

The time it takes to complete a book depends on the time you can set aside, but with an hour a day we know it’s possible to comfortably complete your book in a year.

However, we fully understand that sometimes life can get in the way – so if you need more time, you can extend your course and roll over your coaching calls with our affordable extension plans or remain as a member from just $29.99 or £24.99 a month.

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 offers a speak-aloud option too. Learn more here.

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 7 days after purchase. Just email us and let us know.