The course consists of 32 online evening sessions (Thursdays 6.30pm to 8.30pm AEDT/AEST) and an additional evening session dedicated to the Faber Writing Anthology.

Stage One: Getting Started and Foundations

Session 1: Thursday 4 February
Orientation: Desire, Obstacles, and Stakes
In this opening session, we’ll meet our fellow writers and discuss the projects we’re bringing to the course. We’ll consider why this particular novel matters now, what questions or tensions sit at its core, and what kinds of obstacles—narrative, emotional, or practical—writers face when committing to long-form work. We’ll also set expectations for the course and discuss strategies for sustaining momentum over the next 10 months.

Session 2: Thursday 11 February
Reading as a Novelist
Strong novels are built on attentive reading. This session introduces techniques of close, targeted reading designed specifically for writers. We’ll explore how to read for structure, voice, and narrative pressure, and how to establish a personal “reading project” that supports your own novel-in-progress.

Session 3: Thursday 18 February
Story, Plot, and Structure
This intensive session explores the relationship between story, plot, and structure—and why they are not the same thing. We’ll examine a range of structural frameworks and discuss pacing, escalation, and narrative momentum. Writers will be encouraged to think flexibly about structure as a meaning-making tool rather than a formula.

Session 4: Thursday 25 February
Escalation and Narrative Pressure
With guest author Anna Snoekstra
This session focuses on how novels generate and sustain tension. We’ll explore escalation, compounding trouble, and the ways narrative decisions accrue cost over time. A guest author will discuss how they approach plot, pressure, and momentum in their own work.

Session 5: Thursday 4 March
Point of View and Narrative Distance
Who is telling the story—and from where? This session examines point of view, tense, and narrative distance, with a focus on how these choices shape authority, intimacy, and reader trust. We’ll consider point of view not just as a technical choice, but as an ethical and narrative stance.

Session 6: Thursday 11 March
The Central Character
This session focuses on the major character at the heart of each novel. We’ll explore desire, fear, contradiction, and agency, as well as the role of secondary characters in creating pressure, conflict, and witness. Attention will be given to both psychological and physical characterisation.

Session 7: Thursday 18 March
Scene, Summary, and Turning Points
What actually happens inside a scene? This session examines the function of scene and summary, how scenes turn, and how narrative energy is managed on the page. We’ll look at entry and exit points, change, and momentum at the scene level.

Session 8: Thursday 25 March
Place, Setting, and World as Force
Writing place convincingly requires more than surface description. In this session, we’ll explore how setting operates as an active force within a novel—shaping bodies, behaviour, belief, and conflict. We’ll look at how authority and immersion are built through selective detail and sensory precision.

EASTER AND ANZAC DAY BREAK

Stage Two: Going Deeper into Process, Practice and Craft

Session 9: Thursday 29 April
Dialogue: Sound, Subtext, Power
This session focuses on dialogue as both spoken exchange and narrative device. We’ll examine pace, precision, subtext, and power dynamics, as well as the difference between dialogue as it sounds and dialogue as it functions on the page.

Session 10: Thursday 6 May
Showing, Telling, and Trusting the Reader
In this session, we explore the balance between showing and telling, and how writers can develop power and subtlety by trusting their readers. We’ll look at inference, restraint, and how information is best delivered in long-form fiction.

Session 11: Thursday 13 May
Research and Description
Research is essential to many novels, particularly historical or place-driven work—but it can also overwhelm a narrative. This session explores how to research strategically, how to identify what you need to know, and how to allow the story space to breathe without sacrificing authority or credibility.

Session 12: Thursday 20 May
Voice and Psychic Distance
Voice is one of the most elusive elements of fiction. This session examines voice as a convergence of style, subject matter, and point of view, with a particular focus on psychic distance—how close or far the narrative sits from a character’s inner life, and how those choices affect tone and tension.

Session 13: Thursday 27 May
Fiction and the Self
This session considers the relationship between lived experience and invention. We’ll discuss the differences between fiction and autobiography, when to draw from memory and when to invent, and the ethical considerations involved in transforming real material into fiction.

Session 14: Thursday 3 June
Theme, Ethics, and the World of the Novel
with guest author Alice Pung
This session explores the ‘big ideas’ at work in a novel and how they surface through image, structure, and character rather than statement. A guest author will discuss writing with ethical awareness and sustaining thematic pressure across a long narrative.

Session 15: Thursday 10 June
Prose Style and the Sentence
This session focuses on sentence-level craft: syntax, rhythm, clarity, and restraint. We’ll consider how sentence choices accumulate meaning over the course of a novel, and how prose style interacts with voice and tone.

Session 16: Thursday 17 June
Taking Stock
At this point in the course, we pause to assess what is on the page. This session focuses on diagnosing narrative gaps, pressure points, and areas of avoidance, and on understanding what the novel is becoming.

COURSE BREAK

Stage Three: Editing and Revision

Session 17: Thursday 29 July
Beginnings Revisited
This session returns to the opening of the novel with fresh perspective. We’ll examine common types of beginnings, the expectations they create for readers, and how openings change meaning once the whole book is in view.

Session 18: Thursday 5 August
Theme, Imagery, and Symbolism
This session explores how a novel’s deeper concerns are translated onto the page through recurring images, symbols, and motifs. We’ll focus on coherence rather than cleverness, and on allowing meaning to emerge organically.

Session 19: Thursday 12 August
Design and Pattern in Narrative
Not every author’s project follows the shape of a three-act dramatic structure. What if your story is more of a spiral, a circle, or a constellation of fragments? This week we will look at non-traditional methods of structuring long-form fiction.

Session 20: Thursday 19 August
Structural Editing
Structural editing requires a different kind of attention than line editing. This session focuses on big-picture revision: order, emphasis, pacing, and narrative logic. We’ll explore strategies for reshaping material rather than simply refining it.

Session 21: Thursday 26 August
Close Editing
This session turns to sentence-level revision. We’ll focus on clarity, rhythm, word choice, and precision, and discuss strategies for editing without flattening voice.

Session 22: Thursday 2 September
Editing as Collaboration
With special guest editor Nadine Davidoff
This session demystifies the relationship between writer and editor. We’ll explore how editors read, what they look for, and how collaborative revision works in practice.

Session 23: Thursday 9 September
The Close Edit (Workshop Intensive)
A practical workshop session devoted to polishing work in progress, consolidating revision strategies, and preparing manuscripts for submission or further drafting.

Session 24: Thursday 16 September
Language, Detail, and Texture
This session revisits the use of detail, metaphor, and figurative language, focusing on how texture enriches narrative without overwhelming it.

Stage Four: Revising, Polishing and Looking Outwards

Session 25: Thursday 21 October
Endings
How do you know when a novel is finished? This session explores resolution, echo, and the final promises a book makes to its reader. We’ll examine different kinds of endings and how to achieve satisfaction without tidiness.

Session 26: Thursday 28 October
The Big Picture: Hooks, themes and what actually happens in your novel
In this session we encourage you to make sense of the wood, and not the trees. Do you have a compelling hook at the heart of your novel? What is the nub? What is the central theme? Can you summarise what actually happens in your story in a simple sentence? Is this the novel you set out to write, or has it become something else? Knowing these things will make your life easier when it comes time to pitch your novel.

Session 27: Thursday 4 November
Blurb, Synopsis, Pitch
How do you pitch your work in the most effective way to professionals in publishing? In this class we will work on a pitch for your novel, practice it, and learn how to write a compelling synopsis.

Session 28: Thursday 11 November
Guest Literary Agent
This session, we will meet a literary agent who will speak to you about the publishing industry and their role in it, and their relationships with their clients.

Session 29: Thursday 18 November
Articulating Your Project
In this session, you will meet a skilled presenter who will teach you performance skills for festival appearances, readings and pitching. We will also discuss approaches to being interviewed, as well as how to contribute meaningfully to panel discussions in public settings.

Session 30: Thursday 25 November
Publishing Pathways Now
With guest publisher Gen Buzo
This session offers a clear-eyed view of the contemporary publishing landscape, including acquisitions, submissions, timelines, and author–publisher relationships. You will have the opportunity to practice pitching with esteemed publisher Alex Craig and hear her thoughts on the industry and what makes a novel desirable in today’s publishing climate.

Session 31: Thursday 2 December
Promoting Your Work
How do you organise a book tour? What promotion is expected of an author, a publicist and a publisher in 2027? How do you plan a career beyond the first book? We’ll tackle these questions and more at our penultimate class.

Session 32: Thursday 9 December
Final Readings and What Comes Next
In our final session, writers will share excerpts from their work and reflect on the progress they’ve made. We’ll discuss sustaining writing practice beyond the course, next-draft strategies, and possible pathways forward.

Please note the exact course content could be adjusted according to the experience and concerns of the group and availability of guest writers. The detail of the course is at the discretion of the Course Director and Faber Writing Academy at Allen & Unwin.