Novel Middles
Instructor: Stacia Ann (Stacia Ann)Includes a free two month upgraded membership! Details
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Duration: Four Weeks
Class Size: 7 Students
Seats Left: 3
Week 1: Where to go from here? Revisiting your story outline and beginning. Plan the middle.
Reading: Revisit "Great Gatsby" outline. Identify the major complications of the beginning and middle. How do the complications relate to character and situation? How do they lead to the climax? Read chapter 4 of "Great Gatsby."
Writing: Identify three or more complications for your middle chapters. Write chapter 4 (Note the amount of writing is approximate; some students will be able to complete this assignment in one chapter; others might require more.)
Week 2: Linking the complications to the climax. Building the scenes and transitions.
Reading: Read chapter 5 in "The Great Gatsby." Study how the scenes rise in tension and build on each other logically.
Writing: write chapter 5. Include at least two scenes that show complications that connect to each other through a transition.
Week 3: Heightening the tension. Tension should build steadily to the climax.
Reading: Chapter 6 of Gatsby. Note how the complications grow increasingly more serious. build in backstory as necessary to connect to complications.
Writing: write chapter 6. Show the increasingly dire circumstances of your protagonist.
Week 4: Crisis. All the complications lead inevitably to the climax.
Reading: Study chapter 7 of "The Great Gatsby." Identify the climax and what leads to it.
Writing: The chapter 7 of your novel. Build the complications to the climax.
Instructor: Stacia Ann
About The Instructor:
Stacia Ann is an Linguistics Lecturer and Writing Instructor at the University of California. She has a doctorate of Education, Master's of Art in English/TESOL. This instructor has taught writing classes for over ten years. She also teaches academic writing and English as a Second Language at the University of the Pacific. A published author including works of short fiction and academic nonfiction including contest winning stories.