The Secrets of Storytelling
32-Week Course
Unlock the Secrets of Master Storytellers
A 32-week online course with award-winning author A. R. Levett is offered in 2026.
Gaining the structural tools used by best-selling authors, weekly classes will motivate you to start, or finish, that novel you want to get on the page. Working alongside peers in a supportive, encouraging environment your work will develop, layer by layer, over four structured terms.
Classes will deliver:
1. Discovery of techniques used by writing masters;
2. Examination of popular stories and how they work;
3. Development of these for your story;
4. Professional guidance for your individual story.
The course is an ongoing, 32-week commitment for new, emerging, and experienced writers to develop their stories and writing practice, with the option to join a private mentoring group upon completion. Payment options are available.
Course Outline: Term 1
Module 1: Premise
Class 1: 8 Feb 2026
Receive an introduction to the course, learn why it's important to write about something important, and explore your story's possibilities and challenges.
Class 2: 15 Feb 2026
Locate your story's theme, its most interesting character, their central goal, and the main opponent.
Class 3: 22 Feb 2026
Establish the main characters' values, the central conflict, the protagonist's final moral choice, and create your premise.
Module 2: Conflict
Class 4: 1 Mar 2026
Map out your story's main events, inciting incident, and climax.
Class 5: 8 Mar 2026
Determine your protagonist's self-revelation, inner weakness, and central goal.
Module 3: Characters
Class 6: 15 Mar 2026
Determine each character's story function and begin to individualise them from each other.
Class 7: 22 Mar 2026
Continue to individualise your characters and use four-corner opposition to determine how each opposes the others.
Class 8: 29 Mar 2026
Explore a series of archetypes, and discover which ones most affect the protagonist and when during the story.
Course Outline: Term 2
Module 3.1: Character Change Arcs
Class 9: 3 May 2026
Chart your protagonist's character change arc by establishing the lie they believe, their wants and needs, and their past.
Class 10: 10 May 2026
Keep determining your protagonist's character change arc by creating their characteristic moment, their normal world, their state in the first act, and the first plot.
Class 11: 17 May 2026
Continue mapping your protagonist's character change arc by looking at who they are during the first half of act 2, at the story's midpoint, the second half of act 2, and the third plot point.
Class 12: 24 May 2026
Finalise your protagonist's character change arc by determining who they are during act 3, the climax, and resolution.
Class 13: 31 May 2026
Explore how you can use a flat character arc to plot out your characters journey through your story.
Class 14: 7 Jun 2026
Examine how the negative change character arc works and determine if it fits your protagonist and story.
Module 4: The Theme
Class 15: 14 Jun 2026
Discover the theme of your story & how to play it out through character oppositions.
Class 16: 21 Jun 2026
Use structure to determine how you can play out your theme throughout your story's various moments.
Course Outline: Term 3
Module 5: Symbols & Setting
Class 17: 26 Jul 2026
Develop symbols for your story and discover how settings are forms of symbolism in storytelling.
Class 18: 2 Aug 2026
Discover the purpose of setting in story and the meanings of multiple human-made settings and tools and technology.
Class 19: 9 Aug 2026
Discover the meanings behind multiple natural settings & weather & how to use them in your story.
Class 20: 16 Aug 2026
Uncover how using setting can help convey the protagonist's development during the story.
Module 6: Plot
Class 21: 23 Aug 2026
Discover how to create an organic plot & how to plot the story's opening and backstory, setting, and problem.
Class 22: 30 Aug 2026
Learn how to implement the inner weakness, inciting incident, central goal, allies, and sub-plot character in your story's plot.
Class 23: 6 Sept 2026
Develop your main opponent, fake-ally opponent, reveals sequence, first major reveal & decision, and the protagonist's initial plan.
Class 24: 13 Sept 2026
Discover the long sequences of opponent's attacks & the protagonist's counter-plans as well as the attack by an ally and apparent defeat.
Course Outline: Term 4
Module 6: Plot (continued)
Class 25: 11 Oct 2026
Determine the second major reveal & decision, further attacks and counter-plans, third major reveal & decision, and the gate, gauntlet and visit to death.
Class 26: 18 Oct 2026
Implement the climax, self-revelation, moral decision, thematic revelation, & new equilibrium into the story's plot.
Module 7: The Scenes
Class 27: 25 Oct 2026
Create a scene breakdown for your story.
Class 28: 1 Nov 2026
Discover the most powerful way to write scenes for your novel.
Module 8: The Writing
Class 29: 8 Nov 2026
Discover how to use showing to make your story so much more powerful than telling.
Class 30: 15 Nov 2026
Examine the different types of point-of-view, how to use them in a story, & which one works best for your story.
Class 31: 22 Nov 2026
Develop strong dialogue for your scenes & create dialogue tracks to give it more depth.
Class 32: 29 Nov 2026
Learn how to revise and edit your and other people's work and how the following year's critiquing group works.
"Empowering stuff. I’m going to be able to write stories more easily now."
— Lynne Deperas
Details
When
Sundays 1.00pm - 5.00pm
Term 1: 8 Feb - 29 Mar 2026
Term 2: 3 May - 21 Jun 2026
Term 3: 26 Jul - 13 Sept 2026
Term 4: 11 Oct - 29 Nov 2026
Where
Online via Teams.
Links provided one-week before class.
Payment Options
$60 per class / $55 Peter Cowan Writers' Centre members;
or $430 per term (save $50)
or $1,600 for full course (Save $320!)
Bookings
https://events.humanitix.com/sos26/tickets
Booking essential.
Limited to 6 places only.
Bookings close 31/01/2026.
Enquiries
andrew@thestorymentor.com.au
Flyer
"A great opportunity to flesh out and focus in on a story idea."
— Garry Winterton