Novel-Writing Class Best Practices
If you’d like to teach a class in novel-writing but don’t know how, have no fear. My panel is here!
David Haynes, Patricia Henley, Sheila O’Connor, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, and I have all taught the course, and we’ve compiled a Best Practices handout: syllabi, exercises, and other resources to guide you on your way.
Some of us focus on the early stages of writing a novel–generating ideas, writing a summary or treatment, studying published books as models, getting scenes on the page–while others focus on later stages and include all-group workshop of novels in progress. There’s 16 pages of material here, and we hope you find something that works for you.
Teaching
Great session yesterday, Cathy. The passion–and size–of the audience shows just how pressing a concern this is, and should be, for teachers of creative writing and administrators of MFA programs. I heard some great ideas for teaching novel writing, but also some rather funky anecdotes about how your panelists’ colleagues teach novel writing. Definitely a good session to learn about what or what not to do. Thanks for putting it together.