Courses

A foundation course on the character-first approach, from plotting to pacing to prose style. Three sessions guide you through the highlights of this comprehensive approach.

This collection of interviews and lectures is your comprehensive guide to the craft, habits, and marketing of fiction. Hand-selected from the first two years of DDW's summits, these talks will guide you through detailed, in-depth, pivotal topics in the art of storytelling and novel-making. It's like a complete education in fiction writing, delivered by working writers and award-winning teachers: all in one place.

This is your step-by-step guide to mastering plot. Through the character-first method, you'll level up your plotting skills and create engaging, compelling stories.

This is your low-stress novel reading club: a way for you to improve your craft skills and build your understanding of how stories work -- by reading great stories. Each month in the reading club, we focus on a fun, interesting, well-written novel, and you are able to read it alongside me, or just read part of it, or simply follow the craft analysis of particular moments or plot developments.

At the heart of the club is the weekly newsletter. Every week, I send out to subscribers an email discussing a particular moment or scene in that month's novel, pointing out what we can learn from it. This is an upbeat, positive, craft-focused examination of the story -- not a book review or a critique -- and each email assumes that every successful novel has something to teach.

Your guide to designing great scenes and compelling chapters. Learn the secret to pacing, heightening tension, and making the reader feel part of the story.