This class focuses on how to weave your chapters together to create a book. Many unpublished manuscripts have beautifully written chapters, but because the book has been workshopped chapter-by-chapter, it reads as a series of unintegrated events, not as a story woven together as a whole. In this class, we’re going to do our best to begin to experience our drafts as books, rather than chapters. No, we will not share or read each other’s full manuscripts. Rather, through a series of generative exercises, questions, and interactive sharing (voluntarily only), we’ll begin to see—to test, really—if the chapters exist as pieces, or if they come together as a whole. It’s a challenging task, to be sure. While you will not leave the class with your manuscript magically woven together as a whole, you’ll hopefully go home with some new tools to help you weave your chapters into one integrated whole. (Note: Integrated does not mean linear, or logical. It simply means whole, a word each writer defines in their own way.)
Scheduling note: This class will meet on Saturdays and Sundays from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM MT. The meeting dates are January 17, 18, 23, and 24.
