--- title: Novel Writing description: Novel writing is the process of planning, drafting, and structuring a book-length work of fiction. Learners will understand how to manage complex plots, sustain narrative momentum, and develop extensive character arcs. category: literature-writing subcategory: creative-writing difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/novel-writing --- # Novel Writing Novel writing is the process of planning, drafting, and structuring a book-length work of fiction. Learners will understand how to manage complex plots, sustain narrative momentum, and develop extensive character arcs. ## Available Resources 3 Books • 1 Courses • 4 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Mythcreants Long-running craft blog and podcast by Chris Winkle and Oren Ashkenazi, analyzing story structure, worldbuilding, character arcs and common failure modes in published speculative fiction. Posts diagnose why specific scenes work or collapse, giving writers repeatable revision criteria. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://mythcreants.com/ **Tags:** fiction-writing, worldbuilding, story-structure, speculative-fiction, writing-craft ### 2. Writing Excuses Podcast founded by working genre novelists including Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal and Dan Wells, with hundreds of archived episodes on plot, character, revision and career. Each short episode closes with a writing exercise to apply immediately. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://writingexcuses.com/ **Tags:** fiction-writing, writing-craft, genre-fiction, revision, worldbuilding ### 3. Helping Writers Become Authors K.M. Weiland's long-running craft blog and podcast covering story structure, character arcs, outlining and scene construction. Readers get a consistent structural vocabulary of beats, arcs and act turns for diagnosing why a draft stalls and revising it. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/ **Tags:** story-structure, character-arc, creative-writing, outlining, revision ### 4. writersdigest.com WritersDigest.com is a comprehensive resource for writers, featuring craft articles, writing prompts, market guides, contests, and publishing tips to help aspiring and established authors improve their craft and get published. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://writersdigest.com **Tags:** websites, personal-development, communication ## Books ### 1. Writing the Breakout Novel **Author:** Donald Maass A craft guide from a veteran New York literary agent on what separates breakout fiction from competent midlist novels. Covers raising stakes, building layered characters, interweaving plot lines and theme, with end-of-chapter checklists for revising a manuscript. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/158297182X?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing ### 2. Structuring Your Novel **Author:** K.M. Weiland A guide to classic three-act story structure for novelists, explaining where the hook, inciting event, plot points, midpoint and climax belong, and how scene-and-sequel patterns shape individual scenes. Readers learn to outline a novel or diagnose a draft's pacing. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0985780401?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing ### 3. Save the Cat! Writes a Novel **Author:** Jessica Brody Adapts Blake Snyder's screenwriting beat sheet to the novel, laying out fifteen story beats and ten story genres, then analyzing published novels against them. Readers learn to plot a novel or diagnose structural problems in an existing draft. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1984859234?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing ## Courses ### 1. Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to the techniques that masters of fiction use to ground a story in a concrete world. From the most realist settings to the most fantastical, writers will learn how to describe the physical world in sharp, sensory detail. We will also learn how to build credibility through research, and to use creative meditation exercises to deepen our own understanding of our story worlds, so that our readers can see all that we imagine. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 1-3 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/craft-of-setting-and-description **Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/novel-writing