Edit and Submit Your Novel - Faber Academy

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Edit and Submit Your Novel

w/ Sophie Cunningham + Guests

Equipped with a reader’s report on your full manuscript, author and editor Sophie Cunningham will lead you through the process of re-drafting your novel, by focusing on key ideas and strategies from plotting to characterisation and style. Over six fortnightly sessions, you’ll workshop your re-drafts and stress-test the decisions you’ve made, exploring what works and what could be made stronger in your novel.

April 1, 2025 – June 10, 2025

Online

$2500/ $2125 alumni

Apply Now

Have you finished a draft of your novel – maybe even the second or third draft – and have a niggling feeling that it’s not quite there yet? Have you stared at your own work so closely, for so long, that you’ve started to lose perspective?

In Edit and Submit Your Novel, we start by matching your manuscript with one of our experienced editorial consultants who will read through your novel and provide you and your tutor a reader’s report explaining what’s currently working well and what could be stronger. In the first session of the course, you will be provided with this report which will inform your roadmap to redrafting.

Over the following five sessions, in an intimate class of twelve fellow writers, author and editor Sophie Cunningham will lead you through the process of re-drafting, by focusing on key ideas and strategies from plotting to characterisation and style. You’ll workshop your re-drafts and stress-test the decisions you’ve made, exploring what works and what could be made stronger in your novel.

The course will conclude with an Industry Weekend where you’ll hear from a variety of agents and publishers, and have the opportunity to pitch your manuscript.

Writers you'll be working with:

Sophie Cunningham

Sophie Cunningham has worked as an editor and publisher at McPhee Gribble, Penguin Books, Allen & Unwin, Lonely Planet and Meanjin. She established the Faber Writing Academy’s Melbourne chapter in 2011 and most recently taught in the WAN stream with Emily Bitto and Miles Allinson. She has written nine books and edited one. The most…

Course outline

Session 1 Tuesday 1 April 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Introductory session where students receive their reader’s reports and work with their tutor to plan what they need to prioritise in a redraft of their novels.

Session 2 Tuesday 15 April, 6:30 – 8:30
Introduction to structural editing.
Workshop 1: students will be put in groups of 3 and workshop re-drafted material.

Session 3 Tuesday 29 April, 6:30 – 8:30
Charting sub-plots and themes across a manuscript.
Workshop 2: students will be put in groups of 3 and workshop re-drafted material.

Session 4 Tuesday 13 May, 6:30 – 8:30
Character arcs. Who are the characters driving your novel? What are their motivations, backgrounds, how can we make them compelling in the worlds we create? Will they tell us how they feel or will we gauge how they feel through their conversations, their physical expressions, ways of moving, their actions – or in all these ways?
Workshop 3: students will be put in groups of 3 and workshop re-drafted material.

Session 5 Tuesday 27 May, 6:30 – 8:30
Introduction to line editing.
Close consideration of sentence structure and patterns of rhythm and imagery across a full manuscript.
Workshop 4: students will be put in groups of 3 and workshop re-drafted material.

Session 6 Tuesday 10 June, 6:30 – 8:30
Preparing a publishing submission.
Identifying your novel’s place in the market and comparable titles.
Final beta-reader pairings: your tutor will group you in small groups of three, and you will be walked through the steps of beta-reading two of your peers’ re-drafted manuscripts.

Industry Weekend: Saturday 4 October & Sunday 5 October
Over two days, you will have the opportunity to pitch your novels to a variety of agents and publishers.

How to Apply