Writing Your Novel – The Next Chapter

It may be the end of the 30-Day Novel Writing Challenge but it’s the beginning of the Intrepid English Novel Writing Course! What can you expect from this next chapter? Intrepid English Teacher and course leader, Thomas, explains in today’s blog post.

Vocabulary

  • Upcoming (adj) about to happen; forthcoming.
  • Foreshadowing (verb) be a warning or indication of (a future event).
  • Repetition (noun) the action of repeating something that has already been said or written.
  • Tension (noun) mental or emotional strain.
  • Non-binary (adj) denoting or relating to a gender or sexual identity that is not defined in terms of traditional binary oppositions such as male and female or homosexual and heterosexual.
  • Mimic (verb) imitate (someone or their actions or words), especially in order to entertain or ridicule.
  • Feat (noun) an achievement that requires great courage, skill, or strength.
  • Limit (noun) the amount of something that is enough or not too much.
  • ‘Knows no bounds’ (phrase) to have no limits.

The end of the Novel-Writing Challenge

All good things must end. And sadly, that good thing is the 30-Day Novel Writing Challenge. I want to start by thanking everyone who took part. Your comments and enthusiasm were a huge encouragement and I loved talking to all of you about your stories and views on writing.

The launch of the Novel Writing Course!

There is so much to discuss about novel writing, too much in fact that we didn’t have time for it all in November. That’s why the Novel Writing Course is upcoming. It will include all of the prompts and discussions we had through the month of November, so if you haven’t had time to complete them all then not to worry. But, more importantly, the course will also contain brand new material.

As well as extra prompts and new forms of inspiration, we will investigate specific techniques (such as foreshadowing, repetition, building tension, etc.) We spent a lot of time looking at character this month – learning how to describe them physically, how to show their personality and even how to write gender non-binary characters. Character is hugely important to making a story real. That is why in the Novel Writing Course we will explore character even further.

What to expect from the Novel Writing Course

The point of the 30-Day Novel Writing Challenge was for you to write every day. Even if you were writing for a minute (or ten) you were still writing and that’s the most important part. In order to be a writer, you must, as Philip Pullman says in agreement with Stephen King, ‘read a lot and write a lot.’

We all grow through a phase of mimicking the voices of writers we love. This is part of the process. First, we must absorb the writers we admire and write as them before we find our own voice. It took me years to find a voice that sounded like me, that actually seemed to reflect my personality and my desires as a writer. This came from practice, dedication and, above all else, experimentation.

We’ve experimented a lot in the past month, so the Novel Writing Course is your chance to use those skills you’ve learnt and put them into action. Like all art, writing takes a lot of work. It’s not an easy feat but if you’re committed and hardworking, you’ll do it. That’s also why we’re creating the Novel Writing Course, so you have all of the encouragement and support you need. But also, remember this: enjoy yourself. Have fun. Your imagination knows no bounds.

The Novel Writing Course is now live in the Intrepid English Academy for all Intrepid English Members.


If you have any questions, or you would like to request a topic for a future blog, you can contact us by leaving a comment below, or email us at Intrepid English.

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