Skip to content

Course: me write pretty one day

Course Summary:

This course emphasizes developing a sustainable writing practice, understanding story fundamentals, and being able to critically revise your own work. Learn how to produce stronger writing and develop the mindset of a professional writer.

Instruction: 

  • Reading craft-focused texts
  • Story analysis
  • Drafting and revision practice exercises

Core Units: 

  1. Authorship and writing practice: understand the writing life and build sustainable writing habits.
  2. Story building blocks: learn the architecture of storytelling.
  3. Prose craft: develop personal voice and style.
  4. Editing and revision: learn methods for refining and strengthening a manuscript.

Course Learning Goals: 

  • Set a consistent and sustainable writing practice
  • Develop a personal prose style
  • Critically evaluate and revise writing
  • Create a complete, polished manuscript

Ongoing Activities: 

  • Create and use a writing habit tracker
  • Complete close readings of published works
  • Collect writing exercises in one place
  • Work towards completing a manuscript
  • Write weekly reflections on current reading/writing

Final Project: 

Apply the principles of this course to revise at least two drafts of a small-town sapphic romance novel manuscript.

Weekly Plan: 

  • 10 hours per week
    • 5 hours studying
    • 5 hours writing

Unit 1: Authorship and writing practice

Unit 1 Summary: 

Develop writing habits, understand the creative process, and build confidence in drafting.

Unit 1 Learning Goals: 

  • Establish a consistent and sustainable writing routine
  • Practice drafting without perfectionism or editing

Unit 1 Activities: 

  • Apply principles of Reading Like a Writer while reading fiction
  • Experiment with different writing routines and setups

Unit 1 Materials: 

  • On Writing – Stephen King
  • Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
  • Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg
  • Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose
  • Craft in the Real World – Matthew Salesses
  • Several short sentences about writing – Verlyn Klinkenborg

Unit 2: Story building blocks

Unit 2 Summary: 

Explore narrative structure, pacing, and plot mechanics.

Unit 2 Learning Goals: 

  • Understand story structure 
  • Analyze plot structure in published works

Unit 2 Activities: 

  • Build detailed beat-by-beat outline for Project: XP
  • Map story beats for published novels

Unit 2 Materials: 

  • Save the Cat Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
  • Story Genius – Lisa Cron
  • The Anatomy of Story – John Truby
  • Romancing the Beat – Gwen Hayes
  • On Writing Romance – Leigh Michaels
  • The Heroine’s Journey – Gail Carriger
  • Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird – Henry Lien
  • Writing the Other – Nisi Shawl

Unit 3: Prose craft

Unit 3 Summary: 

Develop personal prose voice with interiority, subtext, and symbolism.

Unit 3 Learning Goals: 

  • Develop distinctive narrative voice and style
  • Understand how/when to apply interiority, subtext, and symbolism vs. dialogue and action
  • Strengthen emotional depth in scenes

Unit 3 Activities: 

  • Write the same scene in multiple tones, styles, or structure
  • Write scenes with vivid descriptions

materials: 

  • Anatomy of Prose – Sacha Black
  • Sin and Syntax – Constance Hale
  • Steering the Craft – Ursula K Leguin
  • The Art of Subtext – Charles Baxter
  • The Emotional Craft of Fiction – Donald Maass
  • The Art of Fiction – John Gardner
  • A Writer’s Guide to Active Setting – Mary Buckham

Unit 4: Editing and revising

Unit 4 Summary:

Learn structured approaches to revising scenes and preparing manuscripts for outside feedback.

Unit 4 Learning Goals: 

  • Evaluate writing for clarity, structure, style, and pacing
  • Identify strengths and weaknesses in scenes

Unit 4 Activities: 

  • Conduct multiple revision passes on final manuscript

Unit 4 Materials: 

  • The Language of Fiction – Brian Shawver
  • The Artful Edit – Susan Bell
  • Self-Editing for Fiction Writers – Renni Browne and Dave King
  • Developmental Editing – Scott Norton
  • Intuitive Editing – Tiffany Yates Martin
  • Refuse to be Done – Matt Bell
  • Revising and Self-Editing for Publication – James Scott Bell

Course note from Opal

Yes, this is a lot of books. I am a vibes reader, so I am preparing myself with options and alternatives for when I (soft) DNF books. I don't have a set timeline for my courses; they take as long as they take.