Part One: Sketching Ideas

YOU'LL NEED:

• Inklings Lab: Design a Novel Workbook
• Pen or pencil
• A stack of Post-its
• Old magazines, scissors, tape, and/or glue (optional)

In Part One: Sketching Ideas, you'll stretch your creativity, playing around with ideas, tapping into your improvisational and divergent thinking.

Next, you'll review and sort those ideas, sketching a concept for your novel, focusing on possibilities for characters, setting, plot, and theme.

Finally, you'll take the concept you've created and shape it into a concrete vision for your novel.

In Part One, there are three chapters:

Chapter One: Exploring Possibilities

Chapter Two: Sketching the Concept

Chapter Three: Clarifying the Concept

If you are beginning Design a Novel with a general idea for your novel, or maybe you've even written a portion of your book, you may choose to only skim through this first part of the course. We encourage you to especially take a look at Chapter Two, which may give you an opportunity to view your novel idea through a new lens. Chapter Three gives you a chance to more clearly define your overall novel concept. Especially if you've previously leapt into drafting without much planning, the activities in Chapter Three may help you sharpen your understanding of your novel, and ultimately save you time as you continue to draft.