Curtis Brown Creative has a flagship, selective, six-month “Write Your Novel” Course with alumni such as Bonnie Garmus and Jane Harper. Hundreds of graduates have gone on to be published, and many of them are represented by agents from the Curtis Brown Literary Agency and C&W.
I applied to the Curtis Brown Creative Course with trepidation and, even after being accepted, was filled with self doubt.
No-one with their head screwed on believes they write well. For most of us, our taste exceeds our ability for a very long time. That’s a good thing, because it means we have space to grow. However, if you would like to write well one day, you need to start somewhere. This is a great video to watch if you are considering becoming a writer. If “it comes out of your soul like a rocket”, Charles Bukowski’s words may inspire you to put pen to paper at last.
The most painful moment of any writing course is the first session, when the facilitator goes around the table asking each participant to introduce themselves.
In this first session our masks are on, iron clad and impenetrable. It will take months for them to slip and reveal the humans beneath, because most writers are introverts. Many of us are dealing with trauma – why else would we choose to write – and each of us honestly prefers our own company to that of a crowd.
What was particularly beautiful in the first session of the Curtis Brown Creative Course was the moment they asked us to form pairs, listen to the other writer’s story and introduce them instead of ourselves. This was an inspired way of getting us to open up, as most writers are excellent listeners and can share others’ stories far more effectively than their own. I was paired with a fabulous writer who turned out to be the life of the party. We clicked immediately and, as I shared his story, I knew he knew he had been seen. It was a great start to our journey.
The essence of putting words on the page is to make another person feel seen.
Over the next six months, we would share our inner selves with the group. Every week we read and critiqued three submissions of 3,000 words each and discussed these with the writer as a group. Receiving feedback like this makes you feel like a stink bug under a magnifying glass on a very hot day. You’re surrounded by students staring at you through the microscope and discussing the colour and texture of your shell as your antennae and tiny little feet burn to a cinder in the concentrated heat of the sun. Giving this type of feedback, in all honesty, can feel just as challenging. One must be honest, but one must also be kind – and remember to remove the magnifying class quickly when you’re done, lest the class finds itself one writer down the following week.
Most debut novels are in many ways autobiographical, and the writer must know his or her world intimately in order to write it well. We learned about each other and, more importantly, we learned about ourselves. We also – all of us – became better writers. The beginning of each session focused on a specific topic ranging from reading as a writer to character, story and narrative point of view. We also covered how to write a synopsis, get to the heart of your story and pitch to an agent. We discussed the various demerits of prologues and epilogues and how to ensure your characters’ voices sound (and are) unique and true.
Nothing can prepare you for your first one-on-one meeting with an agent.
I believe the most valuable part of the course was the moment I first met with an agent who had read my synopsis and the first six thousand words of my novel. This, in my opinion, was worth the entire cost of the course. She was deeply honest with me and not everything she said was easy to hear, but the feedback I received has been a game changer for me. I know where I’m going and, more importantly, I have a better idea of how to get there: One draft at a time.
Writing a book is not a solitary affair. You need other writers. You need readers, and mentors.
If you are writing a novel, or considering it, please do. Put your pen to paper and write and write until it stops pouring out of you and you have made it as good as you can, for now. Then get help. Go on a course or share your manuscript with trusted readers, but choose them carefully. Choose people who will be honest before they are kind. People who you respect and who have gone a little further up the road than you have. Then, listen to what they have to say. You don’t have to incorporate all the feedback you receive, but you must chew on it. Give yourself time away from your work to contemplate and change your thinking. Then go again. You are one draft closer to your destination. Then another… then another.
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