If the short story is like a photograph and the novel is like a film, the novella is like a fever.

Do you have an idea to explore? A short story that’s growing? A possible novel in progress that could do with some direction? Are you a new writer simply keen to try out a more manageable form? Or a returning student ready to create a different pick and mix from the sessions?

Novella Fever is an intensive all levels course designed to push your writing as far as you want to take it. You’ll get the opportunity to workshop your writing in a constructive setting. You’ll have deadlines. You’ll provide feedback to fellow writers. You’ll be given optional exercises and supplementary reading materials.

Each week we will focus on a different element of fiction, looking at its particular application to the novella form:

Week 1: What makes the novella unique? (writing process and practice)

Week 2: Who are they? (creating characters)

Week 3: What should you tell? (plot, structure and shape)

Week 4: How should you tell it? (point of view and voice)

Week 5: Art or artifice? (dialogue)

Week 6: Editing longer fiction

Together we will explore what gives the novella its power. We will think about the value of the instinctive in our writing. We’ll also look at what makes our favourite passages work.

Six weeks can be a long time or a short time – but with collective focus of the course, you’ll find it enough time to begin, or finish, drafting your novella.

Zoom delivery. Cost £140.

Spring term: Evenings. Wednesdays 6.30-9pm; Feb 15, 22, March 1, 8, 15, 22.