Arts Etc. – July 22, 2022

Writing Your First Novel: A Six-week Online Creative Writing Programme With Ross Raisin

Save 15% on all full price standard tickets by entering the code MAY15 at checkout, subject to availability. Hurry, this offer ends at midnight on Tuesday 30 May 2023.

Finding the headspace to nurture and accomplish a creative project can be difficult, particularly in the chaos of our current moment. As any seasoned writer will tell you, writing a novel for the first time is a challenge – but it can be done, with the right blend of stamina, skill and inspiration.

If you're looking to develop your idea for a novel, or you've already started writing one, this six-week online programme with award-winning novelist Ross Raisin – featuring an innovative mix of live workshops, a supportive discussion forum and one-to-one tuition – will furnish you with the structure, confidence and technique you need to get writing. And be fearless about what you can achieve long after the course ends.

Over six consecutive, high-impact weeks, you and other aspiring writers will learn how to craft your story page by page, covering everything from creating vivid characters, and writing sharp dialogue, to drafting and editing.

Each Wednesday evening, Ross will explore a key aspect of writing through nuanced analysis and practical activities in live workshops, giving you feedback and advice throughout, as well as an exercise to keep you going through the week. Taught sessions are complimented by a dedicated Slack workspace, owned by you and your fellow writers and moderated by the Guardian Masterclasses team, where you will experience constructive discussions and exchange work with your peers. Stretching your capacity for giving and receiving productive feedback will not only equip you with a deeper understanding of the art of fiction, but also means you will leave the course with a unique and supportive writing community to guide you in your next steps.

If you've got an idea for a novel, or have already started drafting one, this inspiring programme for writers embarking on their first major work will empower you with a new creative direction, as well as a toolkit of skills to unlock your true potential - and pursue the book you know you're capable of writing.

Pre-course preparation

This six-week programme provides the perfect environment to develop your idea for a novel.

You will be sent a selection of text extracts before the course, to be read during the weekly sessions and discussed with analytical guidance from Ross. You will also be encouraged to complete a light-touch exercise, writing a short outline of an idea for a novel that you would like to develop, ready to share in the first class. The outline you bring doesn't need to be fully formed and shouldn't be more than a page long. There will be valuable opportunities to progress your idea, in small-group discussions, during the first two weeks of the programme.

Week 1: Creating characters

Characters are at the heart of all good fiction. Ross has created some memorable and distinctive characters, among them Sam Marsdyke, the solitary young farmer in God's Own Country (shortlisted for nine literary awards), and Mick Little, the former shipbuilder in Ross's critically acclaimed second novel, Waterline.

This first session is a fantastic chance to learn from Ross's experience as a writer, and will see you receive expert advice on developing vivid and memorable characters for your own novel. What makes them tick? What are their motivations and fears? How can you ensure they are realistic and relatable in some way?

In the second part of the session, you will turn to your synopsis, for the start of a group project that you will continue in the second week.

Week 2: Developing your idea

Developing and managing your plot is the key to establishing the flow of your novel. During this second session, you will learn how to build your idea into something that has narrative momentum.

Then, following on from the previous week, you will fine-tune your story outline, and have the opportunity to share your burgeoning idea and receive constructive feedback.

Week 3: The writing process: drafting, re-drafting and editing

Writing is rewriting - and every writer must find their own way to revise their work. Many writers struggle with this stage, but in this third session, you will learn not only how to complete your first draft, but how to re-draft and edit your writing to bring out its strengths. The techniques learned in this session will last you a lifetime, enabling you to become a more confident and skilful writer.

Week 4: The secrets of writing great dialogue

What do we mean by 'great dialogue'? The ways in which your characters speak demonstrates how convincing they are, as well as the credibility of your novel; it can be all too easy to write in dialogue that's wooden, expositive, or excessive.

During this session, you will learn a range of techniques that will help you to strike a balance that works for you and your book, while also engaging your readers and advancing your story.

Week 5: Style

Take a look at any handful of novels and you will see that language can be used to create different effects. In this session, you will examine the crucial relationship between style and content, and how to find your own unique style. You will also look at three very different extracts of fiction, in which different styles match perfectly to content.

Week 6: Wrap-up, plus advice on getting published

This final session is an opportunity to look at everything you've covered during the six weeks, and refresh your mind about key learnings – as well as to celebrate how far you have come since beginning.

You and your peers will receive invaluable advice from Ross about the business of writing, including tips on the publishing process and how to approach literary agents with your novel.

Feedback on your work

On top of that, the course includes a personalised tuition session with Ross, during which he will discuss up to 2,000 words of your writing on a bespoke, one-to-one basis.

You will complete the programme with the technical abilities and inspiration to write your book chapter by chapter, as well as a new support group of other writers in different corners of the world. And then, onwards to publication!

Don't just take our word for it - here's what some of our previous attendees had to say about the strength of this course…

I felt I was attending a well honed course, a product of knowledge, experience and feedback."

Ross was excellent. He asked incisive questions and gave critical written feedback. He offered a number of ideas that I had not considered which I am now using."

Ross is very perceptive and an excellent tutor."

Amazing! Ross is so good at doing what he does, he took the time to read and give really extensive, detailed and useful feedback. His demeanour is a mix between a social worker and a priest - very reassuring!"

Tutor profile

Ross Raisin is the author of four novels: A Hunger (2022), A Natural (2017), Waterline (2011) and God's Own Country (2008). Ross' work has won and been shortlisted for over ten literary awards. He won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award in 2009, and in 2013 was named on Granta's once a decade Best of Young British Novelists list. In 2018 he was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Society of Literature.

Find more on Ross, his books and teaching here: www.Rossraisin.Com. The Guardian review of A Hunger is here.

Details

Dates: Six consecutive Wednesdays, from 13 September to 18 October 2023Times: 6.30pm-9pm BSTPrice: £799 (plus £7.80 booking fee) includes one-to-one mentoring session with Ross Raisin.

Catch up recordings will be shared after each session and will be available for four weeks following the course.

This masterclass is available globally. See this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.

6.30pm BST7.30pm CET10.30am PST1.30pm EST

You will be sent a link to the webinar 24 hours and 30 minutes before the course start time. Please email masterclasses@theguardian.Com if you do not receive the access link.

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Once a purchase is complete we will not be able to refund you where you do not attend or if you cancel your event booking. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.

10 Authors Who Wrote A Movie Based On Their Book

© Provided by Collider

Movies based on books are a very special kind of film. You hear the phrase "the book is always better than the movie" quite often, but there are numerous films that prove that isn't always the case. From The Godfather to Jurassic Park, many of cinema's most beloved masterpieces are based on books.

More often than not, a new writer is brought on board to pen the screenplay based on the book in question. On a few special occasions, though, it'll be the author themselves who'll adapt their own book into an equally creative and engaging screenplay. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it tends to be a sign of guaranteed quality.

'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' (2012) — Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky is part of the even more select club of author who not only wrote, but directed a movie based on their own book. It was in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the story of an outsider freshman who befriends two seniors who welcome him into the real world.

The film is surprisingly intimate, sincere, and mature. Chbosky's steady hand behind the camera ensures that such a special kind of coming-of-age is told with the raw emotional punch and genuineness that he intended, bolstered by fantastic performances from the main cast.

'Room' (2015) — Emma Donoghue

Although Room is presented through the innocent eyes of its child deuteragonist, make no mistake: It's not an easy story to digest. Its subject is Jack, a kid looked after by his loving mother in the 10-by-10-foot space that they have been confined to by their kidnapper.

Jacob Tremblay offers one of the best child performances of recent times, and Brie Larson's Oscar-winning turn as this incredibly complicated character is incredible. But the biggest strengths of Room lie in its creatively structured, beautifully touching script. It was written by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the equally devastating novel.

'Postcards from the Edge' (1990) — Carrie Fisher

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know Carrie Fisher as the incredible actress behind the likes of characters like Star Wars's Princess Leia. What you may not know is that she was also an accomplished writer. Postcards from the Edge, based on a semi-autobiographical book of hers, is about a substance-addicted actress who's forced to go back to living with her mother to avoid unemployment.

The movie has been mostly forgotten over the years, which is an absolute tragedy. It features a couple of powerhouse performances from two of Hollywood's biggest icons, and Fisher's sharp writing is full of great lines of dialogue, clever and hilarious jokes, and profound themes keeping it all glued together.

'Gone Girl' (2014) — Gillian Flynn

The incredible David Fincher has cemented himself over the course of his fruitful career as one of the best modern thriller directors, crafting films like Gone Girl. Taut and tense, it's about a man who reports that his wife has suddenly gone missing, and the media slowly starts to pull his lies and deceits apart.

Fincher's suspenseful directing makes the atmosphere of Gone Girl utterly engrossing, but it's Gillian Flynn's writing that pulls audiences in in the first place. Her character writing is flawless, and her capacity to generate tension with very simple elements is unparalleled.

'Hellraiser' (1987) — Clive Barker

It's quite surprising that a simple horror novella served as the basis for one of horror's biggest and longest-running franchise, but that's exactly what Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart did. He wrote and directed the adaptation himself: Hellraiser, where an unfaithful wife encounters her dead lover's zombie while the demonic Cenobites pursue him.

Barker had been dismayed at previous movie adaptations of his work, which is what led him to choosing to make Hellraiser himself, and the result couldn't have been better. With a macabre atmosphere and themes not often seen in horor films, the writer-filmmaker made one of the best horror book adaptations ever.

'Akira' (1988) — Katsuhiro Otomo

Akira needs no introduction. It revolutionized both anime and animation in general, thanks to its breathtaking action set pieces and some of the most stunning visuals that cinema has ever seen. In it, a secret military project turns a gang member into a rampaging psychic that only a ragtag crew can stop.

Katsuhiro Otomo, author of the manga that the movie is based on, agreed to make a cinematic adaptation only if he retained full creative control. Fans are thankful that he did, because the result is one of the most thrilling animated action movies of all time.

'The Exorcist' (1973) — William Peter Blatty

If you're even the least bit familiar with the horror movie genre, surely you've heard The Exorcist be referred to as the scariest film of all time at least a few times—And it's a well-earned title, as the film tells the nail-biting tale of a mother who enlists the help of two priests in order to free her possessed daughter.

William Peter Blatty managed to keep the plot of his book more or less the same in his adaptation into a screenplay, while also succeeding at narrowing its focus and making the whole thing even more terrifying.

'Goodfellas' (1990) — Nicholas Pileggi

There's plenty of good reasons why many consider Martin Scorsese the best filmmaker working today, and Goodfellas is one of those reasons. A riveting character study, it explores the life of Henry Hill and his tumultuous life as a gangster.

Many say that Goodfellas is the best crime movie of all time, and Nicholas Pileggi is largely to thank for that. In collaboration with Scorsese himself (who doesn't write many of his movies), he turned his book into a fascinating screenplay full of memorable characters, quotable dialogue, and many of the genre's greatest scenes.

'Jurassic Park' (1993) — Michael Crichton

The legendary Steven Spielberg has made some of cinema's most important and memorable landmarks. One of the best is Jurassic Park, about a mogul who has created an island full of living dinosaurs—Which quickly takes a turn for the worse.

Spielberg's directing is outstanding and the groundbreaking special effects have aged like fine wine, but Michael Crichton's sharp writing was just as important to the movie's success. He turned one of the most acclaimed sci-fi novels into one of the most acclaimed sci-fi films, proving that a great concept with a great writer behind it can work in any medium.

'The Godfather' (1972) — Mario Puzo

The story of the making of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, arguably the greatest American movie ever made, is one so famous that pretty much all cinephiles know about it. This is a fascinating crime drama about an aging mafia boss who has to transfer control to his reluctant son, and the journey to getting it made is as fascinating as the film itself.

Mario Puzo wrote in the novel of the same name one of the pinnacles of its genre; and then, when he adapted it into a screenplay for Coppola's film, he exceeded all expectations again. A famous story says that when Puzo decided to learn about screenwriting after making The Godfather, he bought a book whose first chapter read "Study The Godfather". It's hard to disagree.

KEEP READING:10 Beloved Animated Movies You Didn't Know Were Based on Books

Liberating A Palestinian Novel From Israeli Prison

Wisam Rafeedie. (Courtesy of the author)

When Wisam Rafeedie was imprisoned in Askalan prison, he received a letter from the Palestinian prisoners' movement leadership in Nafha prison that contained a curriculum for prisoners. Rafeedie was surprised to find his own novel, The Trinity of Fundamentals, listed in that curriculum. The Trinity of Fundamentals is a fictionalized account of his nine years of hiding from the Occupation in Palestine, which ended in his capture in 1991. He wrote it during his imprisonment at Naqab prison in 1993, a few years after he was captured by the Israeli occupation army. Throughout the process of writing his novel, Rafeedie distributed excerpts of it through the clandestine system of circulation established by the prisoners, which moved materials and information across cells; various sections were transferred via pieces of bread dough or pill capsules that were thrown across cells. Eventually, his attempts to smuggle his novel out of the prison through this method was thwarted by the interception of the prison guards who subsequently confiscated it the year it was completed.

"It's a good novel," one of the intelligence officers told Rafeedie, who, in response, demanded that the guard return it. Of course, the Israelis refused. Rafeedie, who had poured his experiences into the novel, was unable to reproduce it and eventually accepted that it had been stolen. As a consequence, and until the moment of receiving the letter in 1996, he figured that his novel was exclusively in the hands of the occupying enemy.

But as it turned out, The Trinity of Fundamentals was being widely read across the Occupation's prisons. Another copy had been made, unknown to both Rafeedie and the prison guards. Through the novel's secret journey across prison cells, one of Rafeedie's comrades in prison, moved by the words, had decided to hand-transcribe it in its entirety. The preservation of the text in the face of Zionist suppression and its subsequent dissemination was made possible by his fellow imprisoned comrades, who liberated it under the very nose of the prison administration. The novel's liberation was made possible by a clandestine physical journey—from its passing between one prison cell to the next, all the way to its exit from prison and its first official 1998 publication in its Arabic original.

Today, The Trinity of Fundamentals is now reaching English-language readers by way of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), an organization of young Palestinians and Arabs whose vision is to mobilize Palestinian youth in exile, to strengthen their role and assume responsibility and accountability to the Palestinian national liberation struggle. The first English translation—done by Muhammad Tutunji and collectively reviewed by a group of 14 PYM members—as part of the organization's political education committee, the Popular University, will be published later this year by 1804 Books. By disseminating this text to an English-reading audience for the first time, the publication of the novel carries on the tradition of defying Israeli attempts to intercept, destroy, loot, and criminalize Palestinian knowledge production.

The Trinity of Fundamentals tells the fictionalized story of Rafeedie 's experience of evading the Occupation between 1982 to 1991. It is written and told from the perspective of Kan'an Subhi, a 22-year-old Palestinian man who forgoes the most fundamental aspects of life—including human companionship and his engagement—in order to serve the Palestinian revolution as a leader in hiding. The novel places Kan'an's decision to go into hiding within a larger historical context: as part of a strategy of the Palestinian movement—following its exile from Lebanon in 1982—to protect leadership from imprisonment and repression at the hands of the Israeli state.

This strategy marked an important transitional stage: The movement needed to build new and different tools and tactics of struggle and organization after 1982. The tactic of going into hiding in Palestine was unheard of at the time, and Kan'an faced the difficulty of explaining this decision to both his fiancée and his mother, who did not understand why he would not just turn himself in and serve a few years in prison as he had already done and as was the common approach at the time.

The continuous cycles of imprisonment, however, disrupted the capacity for resistance in the homeland: If resistance could continue underground free from the Occupation's repression, then the revolution could more effectively build organizational capacity, longevity, leadership, and experience. This work was made possible by and supported various forms of popular resistance across the homeland, including the intensification and expansion of popular institutions into new areas. For nine years, no one in Kan'an's family knew he was alive besides his mother, who kept this secret from the Occupation and was the only familial connection he had throughout.

Current Issue

Firmly situated in this history of political strategy is Kan'an's deeply personal account of his political experience: the internal contradictions between what Kan'an calls his "trinity of fundamentals": the three pillars that define Kan'an's life in hiding—love, revolution, and life.

The novel begins the day that Kan'an is captured in 1991, with the craven sounds of soldiers attempting to break into his safe house—what he calls the "primitive ritual" of Israeli bombardment. Kanan's narration quickly moves back in time to 1982, the year he went into hiding. Shifting back and forth between the story of his capture in 1991 to his memories over the past nine years, the novel recounts both the experiences of Kan'an and the Palestinian national liberation struggle: the pain of breaking his engagement, the events of the First Intifada, Palestinian university politics and the student movement, his loving relationship with his mother, the first Gulf War, and more. Far from dour or heavy, the book is enlivened by Rafeedie's humor and incisive social and political critique.

Given its historical and political content and themes, The Trinity of Fundamentals is a novel that fits into many genres. It is a prison novel insofar as Rafeedie wrote it in captivity and it became a staple of Palestinian prisoners' curriculum; it is a historical novel insofar as it narrates a significant period of Palestinian, Arab, and global history, including the popular uprising of the First Intifada, the strategy of establishing a secret guerrilla movement in Palestine, the Soviet Union's collapse, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; it is an epic novel, insofar as it documents the thrills of Kan'an's experience of underground resistance without romanticizing the challenges he faced and his sacrifices; and it is autobiographical fiction, as it is based on Rafeedie's life between 1982–91, and so shares a lot with with autobiographies from other national liberation struggles, such as Malcolm X's and Assata Shakur's.

At its core, however, The Trinity of Fundamentals is a revolutionary novel. It depicts an uncompromising commitment to a cause, confronting colonialism, the individual and collective choice of resistance, political sacrifice, the relationship between the revolutionary and revolution, and the endurance of revolutionary optimism in the face of the movement's setbacks.

The novel destabilizes idealistic illusions or shallow romanticisms pertaining to revolutionary struggle, depicting the internal conflicts between political commitment and personal need. As Kan'an asserts, we should "beware of romanticizing my world, my revolution is anything but. Neither is my experience. My experience is about daily revolutionary action that is tiring and exhausts one's nerves, the same as the experiences of thousands of Palestinian revolutionaries." Since its publication in Arabic, The Trinity of Fundamentals has carried significant political meaning for the Palestinian movement.

If a significant element of the Palestinian struggle in diaspora is waged at the level of ideas, then this English translation and publication aims to intervene in that arena by upholding the tradition of Palestinian resistance. The fact that The Trinity of Fundamentals is being published in English only further reaffirms the act of resistance that has led the novel from a prison in the first place: It represents an effort to produce, preserve, and popularize Palestinian literature and knowledge as a collective national endeavor. When PYM first approached Rafeedie about translating his novel, he enthusiastically encouraged the project. He wanted to put this novel in the hands of the Palestinian people and those who stand with them. Access to The Trinity of Fundamentals is a right, which has only been guaranteed through the efforts of the Palestinian prisoners' movement and Rafeedie's comrades in and outside of prison during the 1990s. The repeated attempts to destroy, steal, and suppress this novel, have for decades been countered by collective refusal to allow this story to be lost. Now, three decades later, the translation will arm future generations with the tools to reinforce a commitment to Palestine, despite any geographical distance.

Palestinian prisoners are at the heart of the Palestinian national liberation movement, and for this reason their knowledge and writing faces unimaginable recrimination by the Occupation. As Rafeedie himself wrote to his family in 1992 from behind the walls of al-Khalil central prison after nine years of living underground and immediately following four and a half months between interrogation rooms, torture cells and solitary confinement:

I am confident that, regardless of the terrible days that have passed, the future is yet bright. My conviction of a better, brighter future is overwhelm­ing. For me this conviction of a better future is like the conviction of a young child knowing that his mother will feed him when he becomes hungry. The ultimate future that history holds for our people is bright and flourishing. No matter how long it takes, the suffering of our people will be abolished…. On the personal side, I am going to attempt to address the questions that I can anticipate your asking: marriage, family life, and my studies. Let me be very clear and up front with you from the beginning, that the road I have chosen is a road of deep conviction. It is a road that I do not plan to diverge from until I am in my grave.

Rafeedie's message to his family represents the conviction of the Palestinian prisoners' movement, who are still at the forefront of the Palestinian peoples' struggle. We encounter this very conviction in the novel's character of Kan'an. For Kan'an, it is ideological conviction which allows him to remain steadfast, no matter how difficult: "My life is not enjoyable, but I was molded to endure hardship. Man has immense potential which is expanded by ideological conviction."

Armed with this ideological conviction and vision, Kan'an maintains Palestinian revolutionary optimism even in the face of defeat and capture. As Kan'an boldly says in response to a list of consequential political setbacks for Palestinian liberation:

Those are the headlines of our times—we are in the stage of retreat and collapse. But we were here before the Intifada broke out, and we will still be here after it is over. The people who made the Intifada and made the revolution after it can renew it with even greater vigor. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) may go where it pleases but we will go only to one place: towards our national objectives. In order to get there, we must hold on to the only correct and sound logic, that of the revolution.

The Trinity of Fundamentals teaches anyone committed to the Palestinian cause what Palestinian liberation requires: conviction, organization, and vision. In the face of relentless attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause, this novel is a testament to these requirements. Throughout the novel, Kan'an affirms that "being revolutionary means swimming against the tide, not making peace with the current state of affairs." The delivery of Kan'an's story as a liberated gift from Israeli prisons to all those who stand with Palestine upholds this principle: the refusal to make peace with the present state of things.

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