What is a
Manuscript Assessment?
A Manuscript Assessment is an informed review of your story. It allows The Story Mentor to bring his storytelling experience and fresh eyes to your manuscript to determine whether the concept and story works as a whole.
During a Manuscript Assessment, The Story Mentor:
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Reviews your story with experienced eyes;
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Assesses the story as a whole;
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Offers suggestions on how to improve it;
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Identifies any sections that need clarification;
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Recommends what to add or remove;
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Pinpoints plot holes and errors in logic; and
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Advises your next best course of action.
When Should I Get a
Manuscript Assessment?
A Manuscript Assessment is recommended for writers with a completed early draft of their story.
Often writers become too close to their stories and struggle to recognise its quality components from its obvious flaws. If this has happened to you, then you need a Manuscript Assessment.
The Story Mentor approaches your manuscript with fresh eyes, allowing him to see clearly what works and what needs improvement.
Course Outline
Write that novel you always wanted to.
Have you always wanted to write a novel but struggled to represent what you see in your mind on the page? This 38-week course helps writers of all levels develop the techniques and skills need to do just that and more.
During each writing exercise-led session, award-winning author A. R. Levett guides you through developing different aspects of your story, such as the drama, characters, theme, setting, symbols, plot, scenes, and writing skills. By the end of the course, you will have thoroughly developed your novel and be well on your way to completing it.
Course Outcome: Understand and implement key storytelling concepts to help you shape, structure, and write your story.
Term outlines are below.
Details
When
Full Course: 4 February - 9 December 2021
Term 1: 4 Feb - 1 Apr 2021
Term 2: 22 Apr - 1 Jul 2021
Term 3: 22 Jul - 23 Sept 2021
Term 4: 14 Oct - 9 Dec 2021
Where
Online via Zoom.
Details provided upon booking.
Length
39x 3-hour classes (full course only)
Your Receive:
Several writing exercises per class
Theory handouts & exercise worksheets per class
In-class feedback on your progressing story
Cost
Single classes: $30 each
Terms 1 & 4 (9 classes each): $252 each (save $18!)
Term 2 (11 classes): $308 (save $22!)
Term 3 (10 classes): $280 (Save $20!)
Full Course (all 39 classes): $1,070 (Save $100!)
+ booking fees
Bookings & Enquiries
andrew@thestorymentor.com.au
Limited places. Booking essential.
Term 1
Premise, Conflict, Characters
MODULE 1: THE PREMISE
Week 1: 4 Feb 2021
Receive an introduction to the course in which you learn about the story premise & figure out what you want to write.
Week 2: 11 Feb 2021
Explore your story's possibilities & challenges.
Week 3: 18 Feb 2021
Locate your story's theme, its most interesting character & main opponent.
Week 4: 25 Feb 2021
Develop the story's central conflict & the protagonist's basic action.
Week 5: 4 Mar 2021
Create the protagonist's character growth, final moral choice & develop the premise.
MODULE 2: THE CONFLICT
Week 6: 11 Mar 2021
Map out your story's main events, inciting incident & climax.
Week 7: 18 Mar 2021
Determine your protagonist's self-revelation, inner weakness & central goal.
Week 8: 25 Mar 2021
Develop the strategies & obstacles the protagonist must face & the story's new equilibrium.
MODULE 3: THE CHARACTERS
Week 9: 1 Apr 2021
Give each character a story function, create a web of characters & individualise them from the others.
Term 2
Characters, Theme, Symbolism, Setting
MODULE 3: THE CHARACTERS (continued)
Week 10: 22 Apr 2021
Work out to develop the balance of power & how each opponent opposes the protagonist.
Week 11: 29 Apr 2021
Learn about archetypes, archetypal journeys, and discover which archetypes are the most and least dominant in your characters.
Week 12: 6 May 2021
Chart your protagonist's ego archetypal development.
Week 13: 13 May 2021
Determine your protagonist's soul archetypal journey.
Week 14: 20 May 2021
Create your protagonist's self archetypal journey.
Week 15: 27 May 2021
Learn about character change and how to chart your character's growth across your story.
MODULE 4: THE THEME
Week 16: 3 Jun 2021
Discover the theme of your story & how to create it through character oppositions.
Week 17: 10 Jun 2021
Further develop your story's theme through the way you utilise the first seven structural steps.
Week 18: 17 Jun 2021
Finalise the story's theme by developing it via the last seven structural steps.
MODULE 5: THE SETTING
Week 19: 24 Jun 2021
Develop symbols for your story and discover how settings are forms of symbolism in storytelling.
Week 20: 1 Jul 2021
Discover the purpose of setting in story and the meanings of multiple human-made settings.
What is a
Manuscript Assessment?
When Should I Get a
Manuscript Assessment?
A Manuscript Assessment is recommended for writers with a completed early draft of their story.
Often writers become too close to their stories and struggle to recognise its quality components from its obvious flaws. If this has happened to you, then you need a Manuscript Assessment.
The Story Mentor approaches your manuscript with fresh eyes, allowing him to see clearly what works and what needs improvement.
Term 3
Setting & Plotting
MODULE 5 : THE SETTING (continued)
Week 21: 22 Jul 2021
Discover the meanings behind multiple natural settings & weather & how to use them in your story.
Week 22: 29 Jul 2021
Determine the symbolic value of the tools and technology in your story.
Week 23: 5 Aug 2021
Uncover how using setting can help convey the protagonist's development during the story.
MODULE 6 : THE HERO'S JOURNEY
Week 24: 12 Aug 2021
Map out the first five steps of the hero's journey in your story.
Week 25: 19 Aug 2021
Develop the middle four steps of the hero's journey for your story.
Week 26: 26 Aug 2021
Work through the last three steps of the hero's journey in your story.
MODULE 7 : THE PLOT
Week 27: 2 Sept 2021
Discover how to create an organic plot & how to plot the story's opening and backstory.
Week 28: 9 Sept 2021
Learn how to implement the setting, problem, inner weakness, inciting incident and central goal in your story's plot.
Week 29: 16 Sept 2021
Develop your story's allies, sub-plot character/s, main opponent & fake-ally opponent in relation to plot.
Week 30: 23 Sept 2021
Implement a reveals sequence, first major reveal & decision, and the protagonist's training.
Term 4
Plotting, Scenes, Writing, Revision
MODULE 7 : THE PLOT (continued)
Week 31: 14 Oct 2021
Discover the opponent's plan & the protagonist's counter-plans.
Week 32: 21 Oct 2021
Determine the attack by an ally, apparent defeat & the second major reveal & decision.
Week 33: 28 Oct 2021
Develop the third major reveal & gate, gantlet, & visit to death.
Week 34: 4 Nov 2021
Implement the climax, self-revelation, moral decision, thematic revelation, & new equilibrium into the story's plot.
MODULE 8 : THE SCENES
Week 35: 11 Nov 2021
Create a scene breakdown for your story.
Week 36: 18 Nov 2021
Discover the most powerful way to write scenes for your novel.
MODULE 9 : THE WRITING
Week 37: 25 Nov 2021
Discover how to use showing to make your story so much more powerful than telling.
Week 38: 2 Dec 2021
Examine the different types of point-of-view, how to use them in a story, & which one works best for your story.
Week 39: 9 Dec 2021
Develop strong dialogue for your scenes & create dialogue tracks to give it more depth.