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A four-week workshop for novelists. The first chapter is a promise. Here is how to make one you can keep.
Instructor
Tyler Lyman
$150
December 1, 2026 to January 1, 2027
Most writers know they need a strong opening. Very few know how to diagnose why theirs is not working. This course teaches the principles behind first chapters. Not rules, but the underlying logic. By the end you can write an opening that earns the reader's trust on page one. Four weeks of close reading, diagnostic work, and one full workshop round on your revised first chapter.
Week 1: What a first chapter has to do. The promise, the trust, the tension.
Week 2: The four diagnostic problems. Wrong moment, no stakes, wrong distance, no voice.
Week 3: Rewriting the opening. Starting in the right place, building tension without action, holding the register.
Week 4: Workshop. Each writer's revised opening read and discussed by the cohort.
This is a test
December 1, 2026 to January 1, 2027. $150. Once it fills, it fills.
Enroll by November 17
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