Writing Your Novel – Six Months

Make your story shine on our flagship online novel-writing course.

This is a course for people who are serious about writing a novel. As well as being packed with useful content, it’s flexible so you can write and study at times to suit you. You'll join a group of 15 students for interactive online learning. Designed to be as fulfilling as the courses we run in our offices, with live industry masterclass sessions featuring agents from Curtis Brown and C&W.

We’re excited to be offering two brilliant tutors for this course – meaning you’ll get two experienced teaching perspectives focused on your work across six months. The first half of the course will be taught by author Lisa O’Donnell and the second half of the course will be taught by Simon Ings.

What does this course give you?

• Teaching videos: Across 14 teaching modules, videos and notes will be made available on our learning platform, covering a range of topics such as plotting, characterisation, point-of-view and rewriting. All delivered by our expert tutor team (see featured video speakers below).
• A community of writers: Our selective applications process means that you will be writing your novel in a peer group of 15 students working at a high level. We have developed a bespoke learning platform exclusively for our students. Here you can give and receive feedback, and discuss the week’s topics with your fellow students and tutors. Many of our former students have found their trusted readers with us – and form strong working friendships with classmates which go on long after the course is over.
• Guided teaching: Lisa and Simon will teach on a variety of novel-writing topics in our interactive online learning platform. The tutors will also set homework tasks to further your learning.
• Writing workshops: Across the course, you'll get three dedicated workshops centring on 3,000-word extracts from your novel-in-progress. These sessions offer in-depth feedback from your student group and tutor, and are also designed to help develop your self-editing skills.
• 1-to-1 tutorials: You'll get two 45-minute, one-to-one tutorials (one with Lisa and the other with Simon). Tutorials will be based on 3,000-word extracts of your novel-in-progress. Use these tutorials to address your specific concerns about your writing. Near the end of the course all students will also get a 45-minute one-to-one with an experienced CBC editor or a Curtis Brown/C&W literary agent. They will read a 6,000-word extract from your novel-in-progress plus your synopsis.
• 3 industry masterclasses: These special live Zoom sessions will help demystify publishing. Leading literary agents, authors and publishers will discuss writing, editing and the submissions process – they will draw on their experience of real-life publication journeys. There will also be opportunities to ask questions.
• Synopsis & agent letter advice: We’ll draw on our expertise to give you the vital ingredients needed for a great synopsis and the all-important pitch letter. Individual feedback will come from experienced members of the CBC editorial team and/or a Curtis Brown/C&W literary agent.
• End of course submission: All students will be invited to submit the 3,000-word opening from their novel, plus a synopsis, to be shared with the agent teams at Curtis Brown and C&W as well as a select group of agents from other UK-based agencies. This is not a formal submission but a chance to give the agents a taste of your work at this stage. However, when you are ready to formally submit your novel to agents from Curtis Brown or C&W – no matter how long after your course has finished – the Curtis Brown Creative team will give you guidance and support with your submission. Full information about this free service is provided during the course.
• Alumni services: You’ll be given access to a range of exclusive writing services, available only to the alumni of our selective courses, which you’ll be able to access after your course finishes. These services include individual mentoring, editorial reports on your completed novel, submission reports on your ‘pitch package’ and coaching from experienced practitioners. Read more about the opportunities available to our alumni here.

Course schedule

Course fees

The course fee of £2,800 (inc VAT) per student is payable, in full, by bank transfer. Funds must reach our bank account before the course begins. If you are unable to pay the full fee upfront, let us know and we can arrange an instalment plan.

Ready to apply?

Please apply with the first 3,000 words of the novel you’d like to work on during the course, and a synopsis of no more than a page (both need to be in the same document, as you can only upload ONE file in the application below).

The CBC team will select applicants based on the quality of the writing sample provided. The deadline for applications is midnight, end of day Sun 31 Jul, and we will respond to applicants by Thurs 4 Aug.

We read all application material promptly after the closing date and make our selection of students swiftly at that time. However if you require an earlier response from us in order to be able to take part in this course, please email us with full details and we will consider and respond on a case by case basis.

If you encounter any problems during the application process, or have any more questions about the course, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk for assistance.