Plotting the Novel 10-Week Online Workshop with Ethan Chatagnier, Starts Monday, March 2nd, 2025
Begins Monday, March 2nd, 2025
Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.
Taught by Ethan Chatagnier, whose novel Singer Distance (Tin House Books) was a best book of 2022 at NPR and PopSugar and a most anticipated fall book at LitHub, Gizmodo, Vulture, Tor.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ALTA, Debutiful, and DailyHive. Ethan’s short stories have also appeared in the Pushcart Prize anthology, the New England Review, Georgia Review, Colorado Review, Story, and other journals.
Learn more about Ethan in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.
Plotting is one of the most difficult parts of writing a novel, and also the part least often taught. Even writers with a sophisticated sense of prose writing, setting, and characterization often lack a strong feel for plotting. This class is for writers who want that toolkit: an understanding of inciting incidents, plot points, beats, reversals, A and B story, driving questions, dramatic and thematic potential, and more.
We’ll begin by learning the plot formulas used by screenwriters and genre-fiction writers, but proceed by deconstructing those formulas into the forces that make them work. In that way, we’ll learn to manage the techniques that keep readers guessing, questioning, and most importantly, turning pages.
The course will also include a variety of plotting assignments and exercises, which students can use to get feedback from the teacher and their peers on the plotting of a project they’re working on or an idea they’re developing. If you don’t have a project you’re working on, don’t worry–we’ll give you a sample idea to play around with.
COURSE SCHEDULE:
WEEK 1 - Deconstructing Plot Formulas - Part 1
WEEK 2 - Deconstructing Plot Formulas - Part 2
WEEK 3 - Letting the Characters Drive the Plot
WEEK 4 - Outrunning the Reader: Reversals and Twists
WEEK 5 - Plot Points, Acts, and Narrative Potential Energy - Part 1
WEEK 6 - Plot Points, Acts, and Narrative Potential Energy - Part 2
WEEK 7 - Hooking the Reader: Suspending Narrative Questions
WEEK 8 - Complicating Things: B-Stories and Subplots
WEEK 9 - Navigating the Murky Middle
WEEK 10- Finding the Right Ending
COURSE TAKEAWAYS:
- Outlines of a novel from multiple perspectives: classic plotting, narrative questions, reverals, narrative potential, and thematic potential.
- Instructor feedback and guidance on all outlines.
- Tools for mapping a novel’s subplots, navigating the middle, and crafting a satisfying ending
- Understanding the elements of plot and how to use them to create a compelling narrative
- Techniques for developing characters and their arcs
- Strategies for building tension and pacing in a story
- Ways to use setting and description to enhance a plot
- Tips for crafting an effective beginning, middle, and end to a novel
- Methods for revising and editing a plot for maximum impact
- Approaches for creating subplots that enhance the main plot
- Understanding of the use of symbols, motifs and theme
- Techniques for avoiding common plot pitfalls and cliches
- Practice in writing and analyzing different types of plot structures
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS:
"This class really opened my mind and give me an actual process for mining for ideas that I can use on a regular basis. I feel like I know how to look at, read, or hear anything in the media and come up with not just one but multiple story ideas from it. I had never thought about how to look for questions, conflicts, and characters like that before. It feels like learning how to "flip the script" and find angles like in journalism, but from a literary perspective -- which is something I feel I've drastically needed in my journey as a writer!"
"I was very excited going into the class, and it exceeded my expectations. Ethan's feedback was generous and insightful, and I thought the assigned reading was very well-chosen. I appreciated the opportunity to look at novels and screenplays alongside each other-- it helped me understand storytelling from a more well-rounded perspective."
"This class was encyclopedic in a great way! The course is excellent and extremely in-depth! I so appreciated Ethan's expertise and depth of knowledge."
"I went into the novel-plotting class with a mess of half-written drafts, and I left with a sense of real clarity and direction about the story I want to tell. Ethan was a kind and insightful teacher, and I found his generous feedback invaluable. I'm so impressed with how much information he was able to pack into our 10-week class-- I really feel as if I understand the foundations of storytelling in a way I never have before."
ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:
This class is entirely asynchronous which means you complete the weekly assignments on your own schedule. There are no set meeting times in order to allow for greater participation; your cohort will consist of writers from across different time zones, which allows for a wonderful diversity of voices.
Along with your weekly deadlines there is plenty of interaction with Ethan and your peers within Wet Ink, our dedicated online classroom. Craft materials, lectures, reading assignments, and writing prompts are all available through the online classroom. Students also post work and provide and receive feedback within the online classroom environment.
You can get the work done as you see fit week-to-week, so it is perfect for any schedule. There are discussion questions each week inspired by the assigned readings and topics in the lecture notes. Students are encouraged to take these wherever is most compelling and/or useful for them. Ethan engages with these discussions throughout the week and you will receive feedback from all assigned writing activities.
HOW DOES WET INK WORK?
Wet Ink was built and designed specifically for online writing classes. Wet Ink is private, easy to use, and very interactive. You can learn more about the Wet Ink platform by Watching a Class Demo.
Tuition is $695. You can pay for the course in full or use Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.
- Instructor: Ethan Chatagnier
- Class starts Monday, March 2nd, 2025
- Course is fully ONLINE; students can work according to their own schedule within weekly deadlines. Once you have enrolled the instructor will send you a link to our online classroom, provided via Wet Ink.
- Tuition is $695.
Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this class.