We'll start with you, the author, and make a plan for the book you'd really love to write. The course begins with guided consideration of your writing life so far, whether published or not, to ensure we have a solid base for success. The lessons are structured intuitively for developing your next novel step-by-step. We'll drill down into what you're uniquely placed to write to deliver a novel that draws on your super-strengths and captivates readers too.  

A story often begins with the Main Character poised on the brink of a life-changing crisis. Find out how ensuring they are not superficially like you, allows you the author to use aspects of your experience more freely. Look for the concealed part of you and dig there. Know the Big Question the reader is reading to find out. Create a credible Setting with just five core components to establish a sense of place. Formulate a Theme with a positive and negative pole and use it to organise your story. Consider the Narrative Perspective best for telling your story. Who's left standing? What axe does your narrator have to grind? From what time and place are they telling this story and why? Start working on Story Structure with examples from the works of Patrick Rothfuss, Liane Moriarty, Daphne Du Maurier, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Meg Rosoff, Mark Haddon and more. (7 lessons)

We'll outline an exciting Plot and begin Casting to ensure you have a story packing action and drama. Our plotting begins with the Character Arc for your hero, and is often usefully driven by conflict. What the main character wants is not what they need, and we'll put in place the principles to organise the polarities of your theme. We'll show you how the Advance/Block and Peek-a-Boo techniques that can help you construct a plot that's articulated by the Midpoint. Discover the Four Personality Types for casting our principal players. You'll want to cover these bases and ensure you have a north point on the moral compass for the reader. Consider the best Treatment for your story, why the first person tends to lend itself to stories about exceptional people and the third person tends to deal with exceptional situations. Write The Plan for your novel with all the key prime movers on one page and go from stage to page trialling the choices you have made to serve your story. (7 lessons)

Louise Dean, Booker-listed author of four novels published worldwide.

Louise Dean has won The Society of Authors Betty Trask Prize, was winner of Le Prince Maurice, a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, and the Costa Coffee Books Short Story Award, and longlisted for The Dublin International Literary Prize and The Booker Prize. Her last novel was an Oprah Book of the Week and she has been praised as a writer by the Wall Street Journal and many other titles and by the Nobel Laureate for Literature J.M. Coetzee.

We'll take absolute control of the material to flesh out and pace the plot, adding the Second Character and sub-plot or B Story. First, we're going to reveal the true nature of your main character by pushing them to extremes in No More Playacting. Until now, they've been engaged in a charade. We're going to find out who they are and what they need with a plot (and players) stacked against them in the first half of your novel. We'll create the role played by the agent provocateur, the Second Character in exposing our hero. We'll look at the way their long-seated wound organises their life and get them to come clean. We'll look at the way the B Story accelerates their progress towards change and amplifies your theme. We'll widen the casting to include minor players who serve the theme of your story, unreliably and credibly and we'll show you how their monomaniacal thinking, perhaps counterintuitively, gives them dimension. (7 lessons)

Ever wished you could have an outline for the logic path of a brilliant chapter, blow-by-blow? Discover the preferred chaptering formats of authors from Agatha Christie to Sally Rooney with The Bullet-proof Chapter. Dive into Opening the Story with economy and style. Raise your game and save yourself an edit with the lesson Cut to help you keep your writing lively, bold and on point. Discover some advanced craft magic tricks from great authors. These unique insights, and sleights of hand, will have keep readers glued to your pages. (8 lessons)

Explore bonus content with guidance on what to write, and what not to write and matters of cultural appropriation, and career advice from our publishing editors and author tutors. You'll enjoy bonus recorded video lessons from your course companion, bestselling author Kate Riordan as she takes the course to write her next novel. 

If you select The Second Novel Course Plan, you will be able to work with the author tutor of your choice and schedule one-to-one author coaching sessions by Zoom that work for you available in all time zones to stay on track as you write your novel.

Join us optionally as a member, and you'll enjoy the support of our community and be able to drop into author guest sessions to hear more about their writing process and career and reassure yourself that every writer has their ups and downs and writes a few drafts to achieve their success!

Watch recorded writing classes with bestselling authors at our Catch Up TV area for member writers. We offer a phenomenal selection of resources for writers of every genre of fiction and memoir. Join the special group for published authors and write in good company!