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: 5
Week 1: Where to go from here? Revisiting your story outline and beginning. Adding backstory as necessary and relating it to the main story. Identifying subplots and minor characters. Planning the middle.
Reading: Revisit "Great Gatsby" outline. Read chapter 4 of "Great Gatsby."
Identify the major complications of the main plot in the beginning and middle. How do the complications relate to character and situation? How is backstory introduced? How is the protagonist progressing on his or her "journey"?
Besides plot complications, note how minor characters, symbols, and themes are introduced. What do the they add to the story "universe"?
Writing: Add backstory and subplots as necessary. Outline your middle and write as possible your next pages/chapter(note the amount of writing is approximate as students move at their own pace in writing their novels.) Identify three or more complications for your middle chapters
Week 2: Developing the story universe and your protagonist's entry into it. Developing added dimensions to your protagonist. Adding symbols, themes, and minor characters. Building the scenes for the character's journey toward the climax.
Reading: Read chapter 5 in "The Great Gatsby." Study how the scenes rise in tension and build on each other logically, including a "mini climatic" moment on the way and suspense.
Writing: write the next pages of your story. Include at least one scene that shows complications. Add symbols and themes as possible.
Week 3: Heightening the tension. Tension should build steadily to the climax. Weaving in the subplots related to minor characters also building toward climax.
Reading: Chapter 6 of Gatsby. Note how the complications grow increasingly more serious. Build in backstory and subplots as necessary to connect to the main story complications against the backdrop of the story universe created.
Writing: Write the next pages of your story. Show the increasingly dire circumstances of your protagonist as well as those of minor characters. Build against the story universe.
Week 4: Crisis. All the complications of the main plot and subplots lead inevitably to the climax.
Reading: Study chapter 7 of "The Great Gatsby." Identify the climax and what leads to it. Also note the heightening tensions related to the subplot and to the setting.
Writing: Next pages of your novel. Build the complications of the main plot and the subplots to the climax. Include details of the story universe.
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.