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The University of New Mexico

Jo-Ann Mapson - Beginning the Novel

Jo-Ann Mapson

Beginning the novel can be both scary and exciting. You’ve already written short stories and you’re ready for the next step…and the blank page is right there, the cursor blinking, ready for you to fill it up with a story so unforgettable it will be published immediately and hailed a classic. But how do you start? How do you know you’re on the right track? In this workshop for beginners you’ll learn how to begin, how to keep going, and how to plan a second novel. 

Jo-Ann has an exercise for every aspect of the novel. They de-mystify novel-writing, create a community, and give you lots of information that will keep you going after class is over. Beginnings, Endings, everything that comes in between.

In this eight-week workshop, we’ll use exercises and writing examples to:  

  • January 8--Create dimensional characters
  • January 15—Show versus Tell
  • January 22—Intro to Plot
  • January 29—Use setting to create layers in fiction
  • February 5—Write dialogue that reveals your characters
  • February 12—Point of View
  • February 19—Returning to Plot—the story arc
  • February 26—What constitutes a Chapter, Revising
  • March 2—Farewell and words to go on

Bonus exercises:

  • Recognize and strengthen your style
  • How to finish what you start
  • Plan for subsequent novels 

All of which is easier than it sounds, but we’ll make it fun.

Link to Instructor Letter.

Jo-Ann Mapson is the author of twelve novels, including: Solomon’s Oak, winner of the ALA RUSA award, LA Times Bestseller Bad Girl Creek, Blue Rodeo (a CBS movie for television), and Owen’s Daughter, winner of the NM/AZ Best Novel and Best Book of the Year 2014. She writes contemporary women's fiction, and has several times been an Indie Bound selection. She has taught graduate level Creative Writing for fifteen years at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and is currently Core Fiction Assistant Professor in the Low Residency MFA in Writing Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Her former students include Heather Lende, Judith Ryan Hendricks, Earlene Fowler, Joyce Weatherford and Michael Howarth. Her papers are being collected in Boston University's Twentieth Century Jo-Ann Mapson Collection. She lives just outside Santa Fe with her artist husband and several rescue Italian greyhounds, and is at work on a new novel. Her website is joannmapson.com.


Register here: http://ce.unm.edu/professional/business/rananim.php