8 Weeks to Writing a Commercially Successful Novel Information

8 Weeks to Writing a Commercially Successful Novel is a comprehensive video course by Susanne Lakin (C. S. Lakin) designed to help novelists craft best-selling books.

A Comprehensive Video Course to Help Novelists Hit the Bestseller Charts

Get ready for a deep dive into the 8 essential elements that will help you write commercially successful novels!

This unique method of scene analysis, revision technique, and nailing genre will fast track you to success when you apply them to your book.

Fiction writers need to go beyond the obvious: compelling characters, masterful writing that nails genre, scenes that “show, don’t tell,” an engaging (preferably riveting) story, and meaningful conflict that creates tension. Hugely successful books have specific elements that set them apart and cause them to rise to the top of the pile and get readers enthusiastically telling their friends to read them.

While there are plenty more elements that novelists must master—a cast of great characters, masterful plot and structure, for example—the 8 specific elements we are going to dive deep into are often ignored or minimized. Yet, if writers nail these brilliantly, their novel will stand high above the masses published every day.

The focus of this course is on scene structure because scenes make or break your novel. Though we will be discussing the big picture of your novel’s structure, this is not a course centered on teaching you how to plot a story. By focusing on one element per week over eight weeks, you’ll nail these crucial techniques and be able to apply them to your writing.

You will learn what it takes to write purposeful scenes that are carefully constructed to accomplish the important work of advancing your plot, creating and building meaningful tension, revealing crucial character bits, and manipulating your readers’ emotions so they will feel what you want them to feel.

You will also see how to use these 8 elements to revise your scenes in a targeted way. These techniques will save you time and eliminate guesswork, and help you identify what is missing in your scenes and others’.

Here’s what you’ll be mastering:

1. High moment and character change: You have to know the specific purpose of your scene, build to a key moment at the end (last lines) of your scene, which creates change in your character.
2. Microtension on every page: All points to the secrets and twists to come. What are you not saying simmers under the surface of your scenes. This will make or break your story. Discussion of critical action-reaction cycle.
3. Nuances of deep POV: including unique voices for every character. It’s important to establish character mood, mind-set, and motivation right from the start.
4. Sensory detail: Going beyond five senses, using specific wording to set mood and tone for the scene. What the character processes through her senses should reveal important things about her and not merely convey information.
5. Emotional manipulation: You must know how you want your readers to feel and how to get them there. And you need to masterfully learn how to show emotion in three key ways.
6. High stakes: High, believable personal and public stakes that ramp up to the climax.
7. Purposeful backstory: In the right amounts and the right places.
8. Tight, distilled dialogue: It makes or break a scene. We’ll look at “on the nose” dialogue and discuss dialogue mechanics. Characters rarely say what they mean, but what they need seeps through.

This course is not about learning how to write and structure a novel. If you aren’t informed about novel structure, it’s recommended you first do some studying! Read books like Layer Your Novel and The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction so you’ll understand where your key scenes fit into your story.

What You’ll Learn In 8 Weeks to Writing a Commercially Successful Novel?

Resource Central

• Resources – Worksheets
• Resources – Videos (80:33)
• Resources – Sample Scenes

The 8 Essentials to Writing a Blockbuster Novel

• Week 1 – High Moment and Character Change (79:24)
• Week 2 – Microtension (83:52)
• Week 3 – Deep POV (88:17)
• Week 4 – Sensory Detail (74:57)
• Week 5 – Emotional Manipulation (71:55)
• Week 6 – Backstory and High Stakes (89:49)
• Week 7 – Dynamic Dialogue (72:05)
• Week 8 – Wrap-Up! (23:52)

More courses from the same author: Susanne Lakin