Online | Fiction | Novel | Workshop

12-Week Online Novel Draft Generator

This course is timed to better serve writers based in Africa and Europe, but is open to all.

In this twelve-week master class for writers at every stage of the novel-writing process—from the first couple of chapters to finished draft—we will dissect the craft and creation of the novel, with the hopes of better understanding how to write our own. To ensure that every student gets focused and rigorous attention on their work, this class is limited to six writers.

In the first six weeks, we will workshop 50-100 pages of your existing manuscript, with a commitment to writing 500 words per day. We welcome all fiction subgenres and all forms of novels; we will come to each project on its own terms, considering the aims and goals of the writer. To that end, each week’s workshop will be supplemented by published excerpts in conversation with the piece up for discussion, chosen by the instructor.

In the latter six weeks, we will workshop new or drastically revised work, up to 50 pages, and work on craft assignments in the first section of class before we begin our discussion of each other’s work.

Writers will leave this class most of a novel draft completed as well as the necessary tools to revise their novel into its clearest and most powerful form. To celebrate their graduation from the course, writers will be invited to a special agent roundtable chat, where they will have the chance to ask literary agents about the debut publishing process.

To apply for this class, please submit what will be your first workshop submission (between 50 and 100 pages). The instructor will review these submissions and begin planning what published texts might be in conversation with it.

Class meetings will be held over video chat, using Zoom accessed from your private class page. While you can use Zoom from your browser, we recommend downloading the desktop client so you have access to all platform features. 

*No Class May 27th

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

- Thinking about your manuscript structurally, with a clear idea of how to finish your first draft.

- Forming a community of readers.

- Developing a daily writing discipline.

- 10% discount on all future Catapult classes

COURSE EXPECTATIONS:

Students will submit twice throughout the course. We will read a 50-150 page submission per week and 20-60 pages of assigned texts. Students are expected to write weekly letters of critique (approximately 500 words) for their peers. They will also commit to writing 500 new words daily for the first six weeks of workshop. In the second half, they will work on craft assignments.

COURSE SKELETON:

We will begin each class by discussing the weekly text or craft assignment. The rest of class time will be dedicated to workshopping one piece. 

Ayşegül Savaş

Ayşegül Savaş is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer based in Paris. She is the author of the novels Walking on the Ceiling and White on White. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, The Yale Review, among other publications.

Testimonials

“Ayşegül Savaş is an enormous new talent who writes with the rigor of Didion and the tenderness of Sebald. Walking on the Ceiling holds the immediacy of youth and the depth of long-earned wisdom at once. Its elegant voice is sure to summon old memories and longings from each reader, relighting them anew.”

Catherine Lacey author of PEW

“An original, mesmerizing story...a beguiling tale of two cities which expertly illuminates ‘the devious ways of memory.’”

THE ECONOMIST

“[Savaş] writes with both sensuality and coolness, as if determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of existence.”

Sarah Lyall THE NEW YORK TIMES