Writing Co-Lab

This competitive, year-long online writing class is your opportunity to finally finish your novel. During this 12-month intensive fiction workshop, you will focus on all aspects of novel writing, from drafting to revision, and finally publication. The goal is for you to complete—or be well on your way to completing—a full draft of your novel.

This program is for fiction writers who are serious about completing a full draft of a novel ready for publication. Whether you're working on a first draft and feeling stuck or you've already drafted a manuscript and are hoping to shape it into a finished work, this year-long novel writing workshop welcomes writers at all levels.

This one-of-a-kind creative writing course will be tailored to your specific needs. If you've started a novel recently or have a detailed idea for one and need the time and focus to get the words down, this workshop will provide the space for that. If you have been writing your novel for years but feel "stuck," the class will help you identify what is making you feel stuck and help you break through. If you feel you made a wrong turn somewhere along the way but can't figure out exactly where—a point in novel-writing that almost all novelists encounter—we'll help you retrace your steps and find your direction.

The class combines a rigorous and intimate workshop with generative writing prompts tailored to your individual project, close reading of short stories and novel extracts by masters of the craft, and advice about the best writing habits and routines to support a long-term project. 

TCourse Structure:

Phase 1: Exploring the Fundamentals of Novel-Writing (June – August, 6 meetings)

• Initial workshops focused on identifying strengths of the novel as well as areas for revision. 
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• Craft lessons on different fundamental aspects of novel-writing, including characterization, point of view, voice, and more. 
• Readings of published work by George Saunders, Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith, and more. Close-reading of stories and novel extracts in order to understand how they work.
• Discussion of the routines and habits of published writers. Tips on getting over initial writer’s block and fear of the blank page.
  
• A series of generative prompts to help encourage creativity, experimentation, and exploration in this initial phase of novel writing.
  
• Individual meetings with Omer to discuss your novel, the writing process, and any questions after your workshop.
  
  

Phase 2: Building Your Novel (September – October, 6 meetings)

• This second series of workshops will be focused on the larger, structural questions of writing a novel. The focus will be on plot, structure, and shape.
  
• Readings will focus on structure and shape, including craft essays by Charles Baxter and Jane Allison. Discussion of traditional story structure as well as alternative, experimental shapes for novels.
• Craft lessons will focus on novel structure, plot, pacing. Reading of published work by Joyce Carol Oates, Claire Keegan, Colm Toibin, and James Baldwin.
• Generative prompts that will help address the ‘middle-of-the-novel’ block. These prompts will focus on keeping the writing momentum going.
  
• Individual meetings with Omer to discuss the progress of the novel and your workshop.

Phase 3: Bringing the Novel to Life on the Page (November – December, 6 meetings)

• Workshop will be devoted to identifying places that slow the reader down or take away tension in the novel, and exploring ways of creating narrative urgency.
• Craft classes will focus on setting the scene and immersing the reader in the world of your novel. Discussion of scene vs summary, narrative time, conflict and tension.
• Generative prompts that will help you stay in-scene, immerse the reader, be specific and precise, with a focus on setting and place. 
• Individual meetings with Omer to discuss your novel and plans for revision.
  

Phase 4: Revision on the Sentence Level (January – February, 6 meetings)

• Workshop will focus on prose style, editing, and polishing your work.
  
• Live edit sessions focusing on revision at the sentence level. Close-reading of your work to solve prose problems. A focus on dialogue, description, and detail.
  
• A special revision class devoted to reading early drafts of writers like Nabokov, Carver, and Joyce and comparing them to their later drafts.
• Individual meetings with Omer focused on revision, work on the sentence level, and next steps.

Phase 5: Polishing and Publishing (March, 1 meeting)

• Individual meetings with Omer about polishing your manuscript to get it ready to send out, querying agents, and the publishing world.
  
• Publishing Q&A with Omer: querying agents, attending writing residencies and conferences, publishing in literary magazines.
  

Course Readings:

Excerpts will be provided by the instructor. Readings will include: "A Temporary Matter" by Jhumpa Lahiri, "Crazy They Call Me" by Zadie Smith, "Mastiff" by Joyce Carol Oates, "The Other One" by Tessa Hadley, "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro, "Edgemont Drive" by E.L. Doctorow, Foster by Claire Keegan, "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" by Jonathan Safran Foer, "Found Objects" by Jennifer Egan, "Unzipping" by Etgar Keret, "Axolotl" by Julio Cortázar, "Wednesday's Child" by Yiyun Li, The Death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy, "Your Duck is my Duck" by Deborah Eisenberg, "Career Move" by Martin Amis, Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, and A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez.

Participant Takeaways:

• Five 1:1 meetings with the instructor throughout the year.
• Four workshop opportunities to receive peer and instructor feedback.
• Two live edit sessions that will focus on revision at the sentence level.
• A supportive community of dedicated fiction writers.
• Writing tools, strategies, and many generative prompts to help you keep writing.
• Craft lessons with detailed handouts on different aspects of novel-writing from the instructor.
• Substantial progress toward a complete, revised, and polished novel manuscript.