Flannery O’Connor wrote, “Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.” Writing a novel can be challenging, but it can also be exhilarating and rewarding—unlike anything else you will ever try to do. If you have ever dreamed of writing a novel, this course will help you get started.

Writing a novel is a long journey; this course is about the start of that journey: producing early material and developing a relationship with the work. Emphasis will be on the novel’s potential as displayed in the opening 25 pages—the novel’s point of departure. The professor will lead students through a “pre-writing” process of conception, character development, setting, point of view, narrative structure, inciting events, obstacles, turning points, and voice. Students will have opportunities to workshop and revise the early pages of their novels. We will also read two contemporary British novels and “reverse storyboard” them, i.e. read them actively to figure out their blueprint, thereby demystifying some of their “magic.” The task of building your own novel seems slightly less daunting once you have taken apart other novels and reassembled them. The professor will share his own process with novel writing, hoping to illuminate strategies and challenges, as well as demonstrate that all novelists, whether beginners or published authors, go through similar journeys filled with promise, excitement, and doubt.

A Writer’s Retreat takes us into the beautiful rural landscape between England and Wales. Here, we will visit Tintern Abbey, made famous by Wordsworth’s poem, and explore the wealth of used book shops in the idyllic town of Hay-on-Wye.  

Professor: Nicholas Montemarano, Professor of English, Franklin & Marshall College nicholas.montemarano@fandm.edu