Recently finished the 10-week novel writing course "A Novel Idea" - the society recently…read morereorganized the structure of their novel courses so the experience of others may be slightly different in future. The society also offers a wide array of classes and services, so I can only offer a review based on my own short experience with this particular class - which was extremely positive, and naturally subjective based on the instructor we drew and the students who decided to sign up for the course.
With all those caveats out of the way, some context. I have a BA in communications and have been published in non-fiction, including two books by publishers in Ottawa and the U.S. (very minor works on Canadian military uniforms) as well as a number of magazine articles sold to various periodicals. Like a lot of people I have a fiction work gestating and decided it was time to seek some professional guidance. While it is possible to obtain free advice via internet and any number of good professional books (my favourites are Jack Bickham's "38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes" and Sybil Johnson's "the Longman Guide to Fiction Writing for Beginners") the thought of taking a class appealed to me.
The short review: the class is the best thing I've done in a very long time. While some of the information was little different than that presented in books or online, there was much opportunity to discuss aspects of writing with other writers (and no two websites or books seem to agree on many points). And, of course, critique (more below) and become more involved in the writing community, learning about local resources, etc.
Our instructor was Susan Calder, who is a published author with experience in all phases of writing and getting published. Moreover, she had an easy-going command of the classroom, always showed up early, was always prepared to speak on planned topics, able to go off topic if the conversation went that way, had prepared hand-outs, emailed others to us to read, had exercises planned out in advance, and managed very well the group discussions. The format of the class was that instruction on topics of interest would take up the first hour or so of class, and the last half would be critiques of 2 or 3 student readings submitted the previous week. Each reading was a 10 page chapter from the student's manuscript.
For any author who has not had the chance to submit their work to others to read, the class is especially useful. I pestered friends and coworkers in the distant past to read copy but long ago gave up since it rarely garnered useful feedback. They either didn't bother to read it, gave it glib praise, or else didn't have the ability to review it with an eye for helpful, constructive feedback - through no fault of their own. Our classroom environment was extremely positive and despite a wide divergence of interests and experience levels, I always felt a number of good (and entertaining) discussions ensued which benefited everyone, not just the author of the day.
Our group was diverse - the instructor commented this after the last class - in terms of subject matter, with historical fiction,fantasy, science-fiction, crime, mystery, and literary fiction all finding their way to the table. As with any group, the diversity did not always mesh perfectly - some writers weren't able to relate to all the other genres and therefore didn't always provide detailed critiques, and some writers had progressed further with their manuscripts than others giving them more polished work to deal with in class. I think we lucked out though in having a mature group of people who seemed to enjoy the class and the discussions regardless.
Why isn't this a 5-star rating? I don't normally rate 5-stars, though I am tempted to do so here. If I want to be true to what a review is, though, and that is a description for others who are thinking of utilizing the service, I would mark down for a couple of things, albeit possibly unfairly. Our classroom was in the basement, and crude by most standards. I didn't mind but others might hate sitting on hard chairs for 2.5 hours. There was no audio-visual support to speak of - we didn't need it (and for a class about writing, I was ok with just reading off the printed page). Handouts were well organized but perhaps as the courses are developed over time, we might see a textbook or a recommended book - always wondering if something else might have been missed - though to be fair I think we covered a lot of content that would not be reasonably expected to be found between the covers of any one single book - particularly the stuff about Canadian agents and publishers.
I have already signed up for the next course at AWCS and obviously would recommend the society's classes to others. Was a great experience, though the personalities involved no doubt had much to do with that. Will find out as I take more classes if they are all as good or if I happened to luck out with this one.
