Writing a Novel (Online)

This is an advanced course and so not suitable for writers who’d consider themselves beginners. That said, you don’t necessarily need to have taken any writing courses before – it’s absolutely fine if you’ve been writing on your own.

As well as making sure you’ve got a good grasp of the writing basics, our online team will also want to be sure your novel idea is reasonably developed – that doesn’t mean final or perfect or entirely plotted out (and it’s fine if it starts to change as you get further into the course!), but there should be enough potential story material there that you’ll be able to hit the ground running once the course starts. If they feel you might not be quite at that point, they may suggest you try our Kickstart Your Novel course first.

Generally speaking, this shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re not going to have reliable internet access where you’re going, or your plans mean you’ll have less time available, just let the online team know in advance and they’ll be able to set up early access to the relevant session so that you can work ahead or download course materials to take away with you. If you’re going to be unable to access the course for longer or more regular periods over the eight months, get in touch so we can advise how this might impact your experience.

You’ll need to commit to at least five to seven hours each week in order to complete the practical tasks and work on your novel, and to read and give feedback on your peers’ writing.

You’ll have a lot of contact with your tutor in various forms during the course. These include three group Zoom webinars, recorded audio notes giving you one-to-one feedback on your first 2,000 words, two one-to-one Zoom tutorials, a written report on your first 15,000 words at the end of the course and three live Zoom Q&As with guest speakers and your tutor. They’ll also be in contact with the group during each fortnightly session via the forums.

We try our best to match you with a tutor with expertise in the genre you are writing in. While we take requests to work with a specific tutor into consideration, we can’t always guarantee that you will be in a group with your preferred tutor. No matter which class you’re placed in, all students will be working through the same course material.

It varies! Depending on the intake, we may recruit more tutors and add additional classes. Those teaching on the course may be different from what you see on the course page, but we make sure all our tutors are equally experienced in teaching.

There’s a mix of formats used – recorded lectures, live webinars, written handouts, forum discussions, live tutorials and written exercises.

You’ll submit 1,000 words per fortnight to get peer feedback on. And you’ll have feedback from your tutor on your first 2,000 words near the beginning of the course and then the first 15,000 after the course has finished.