Cheshire Novel Prize Summer School - Revisit, Edit,Review Your Work In Progress
Please note that we will be confirming our Summer school dates and opening our entry portal on 1st June 2023. Please sign up to our newsletter to receive details. Sponsored places will be available for under-represented writers.
Cheshire Novel Prize are delighted to announce our summer school, 2023. This 6-week online course run by our founder and editor, Sara Naidine Cox, will help you to put your work in progress under the microscope and edit your novel with the support of weekly interactive live workshops, worksheets, an online private chat forum via an app, and recordings sent afterwards for you to keep. The weekly 1.5-hour live workshops will have an additional half hour for entrants to share work, or ask questions, meaning the total time allocated to each workshop is 2 hours. Delegates wishing to share work will be asked to volunteer at the end of each session for the next session. In addition to the 6 live workshops, we will also host two live author events (details to be confirmed), and one live agent event. These are exclusive to summer school attendees, which gives you chance to ask questions. Summer School runs from September through October 2023 and is taught during Thursday evenings at 7pm or Saturday afternoons at 3pm.
This online course via Zoom, will cover:
Week Zero – Introductions/Ice Breaker
This Zoom call will introduce all delegates on the course to each other, set objectives and goals and understand how the course works. This is also a good time for questions regarding the course. We will also have guest speaker talking about editing processes.
Week One – Plot, Story & Structure
Have you started your novel in the right place? Have you dropped your reader right into the action? Is your story strong enough to sustain 80,000 + words? Does each chapter earn its place with the right amount of dramatic structure?
Week Two – Characterisation
Are your characters worth investing in? Will your readers care about them? Do they have agency? In this session we will do a deep dive into characterisation. Is your dialogue authentic?
Week Three ‑ Voice & Point of View
Is your POV close enough? Have you chosen the right tense, POV? Have you created an authentic engaging narrative voice? This session will look at how to get this right.
Week Four – Narrative & Prose
This final week will look at how you structure your sentences. Do you have a varied rhythm of sentences for depth and texture? Are you using too many adverbs or filler words or filter words or relying on dialogue tags? In this session, we put your narrative under the microscope and learn how to make your book the best it can be.
Course includes:
1. Live workshops & recordings
2. Worksheets
3. Free private chat group for all attendees via an app.
4. Two private live author events on Zoom with published authors taking about their editing process (dates TBC)
5. One private live agent event talking about submisisons and giving you handy hints and tips for polishing your draft (dates TBC).
Timings:
Course A: Saturdays 2-4pm: September
Saturday Dates: 9th September 16th, 23rd, 30th, 7th October.
Agent and author event dates TBC
Course B: Thursdays 7-9 pm:
Thursday dates: 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, 5th October
*Please note. These days are not interchangeable. You must pick either Saturday or Thursday. However, if you need to swap a Thursday to a Saturday you may do so by emailing us at entry@cheshirenovelprize.com before the weekly class begins. However we recommend where possible to remain in your groups so that you can complete the homework and BETA read each others work.
Price £129.99 per person.
Register and pay here:
Click here to purchase Thursdays
Click here to purchase Saturdays