Online: Year of the Novel with Amy Lovat

Missed out on enrolling in our flagship Year of the Novel program, or ready to dive deeper into your work-in-progress? You can now join Phase 2 – Online with Amy Lovat as a stand-alone course.

Over eight weeks, you’ll focus on developing the heart of your novel, exploring structure, character, voice and narrative drive, while connecting with a cohort of writers working to turn their ideas into fully realised books. (While the three phases of Year of the Novel are designed to build on one another, each can also be taken as a stand-alone unit.)

Course Overview

In this second phase you will start developing your novel, by considering structure, style and theme, and going deeper with character, voice and plot. You’ll also talk about how to stay focused and motivated to see this thing through to the end.

Each week during the course, a new lesson will be posted online. Participants will have the week to work through the content and post responses to exercises designed to put the theory we’re learning into practice. Participants will engage in giving and receiving peer feedback on writing exercises and receive some limited tutor feedback. 

Participants will meet with the tutor each week on Zoom to ask questions and discuss the online lesson content. Sometimes, those Zoom sessions will involve a guest speaker talking about their writing life. 

As you work through the lessons online, you’ll also be working offline to write your novel. To this end, you’ll be encouraged to set specific, achievable writing goals each week and have the opportunity to share your successes, discuss your challenges and help others with theirs, in our class forum. 

You should come to the first class with a specific work-in-progress or idea for a novel. Sharing and discussion will be encouraged, and there will be ample opportunity for you to speak to the group about how various techniques and lessons may be applicable to your specific project. However, one-on-one detailed feedback from the tutor will be limited.

To benefit from this course, you should be working on a novel and have an existing writing practice. You can contact us with any questions before enrolling.