15 Stops to Wow
Get on track to elevate your Writing to Author.
The online course to get your writing from where you are now to where you wish to go.
Who is this course for?
Whether you've already published a novel or have always dreamed of being an author, this course gives you the ideas and guidance you need to raise the level of your writing craft.
This course is dedicated to writers who wish to become authors. It offers unique perspectives on everything other than just the writing that it takes to build a novel. A successful author of four #1 bestsellers and a professional book coach, Tom Avitabile takes a fresh approach with 15 practical, not professorial, modules that address the most common issues his clients, and those who wish to create commercial fiction, face.
As a book coach, Tom has taken authors from idea to first draft, from the first draft to polish, from polish to final draft from their current book to their next book. This course will help get you to your next level of writing on your way to authoring.
Here's what you'll learn in this course:
- Practical tips on building a satisfying manuscript
- A greater understanding of commercial fiction
- How to recognize some unconscious missteps writers take
- How to keep the reader turning pages
- How to avoid a boring sequence, chapter, or book
- How to better connect characters to readers
- How to judge your writing for pace, involvement, and reader engagement
- How to recognize and control story creep or "kitchen sink" writing
- How to author rather than just write!
Course Curriculum
A Word to Writers and Authors on Authoring Your Novel
To the aspiring writer, who wishes to become a published author, I say, that you don’t write a novel as much as you discover it inside you. Becoming an author is more a matter of increasing the flow of ideas and thoughts from within you and getting it down on the page with a level of clarity and elegance that stimulates, in kind, the emotions of the next human who reads it. There have been many books dealing with how to write a novel, but as a book coach, I have found another question almost as important, when to write a novel? For many writers and authors, crafting character arcs, character development, points of view, story ideas, and story structure, establishing conflict, drawing the setting, or crafting the resolution too early would have the same effect as taking the cake out of the oven way early. Instead of a digestible treat, you get a gooey mush. And that can make you abandon the whole endeavor or worse, question your writing process or your writing skills. That could kill a nascent writing career.
Before you start writing, it’s good to wait until you are chomping at the bit to get it out. That time will allow character development to crystalize. If you are like me, you’ll talk about the story or parts of it to people. Gauging their reactions and trying out plots and plot twists can be very valuable. Or maybe posting little chunks on social media for comment could also lend a great insight.
Now I am not saying that writing classes or an online writing course, like mine at the Academy of Creative Skills, isn’t worthwhile, but it is best if you have your book idea crowning in the creative birth canal. Then the meaning and nuance of all the lessons and insights will resonate and, I believe, get you much closer to publishing your book.
I have designed my online writing class, From Writer to Author, as being neutral to whatever type of writing you are engaging with, be it sci-fi, mystery, suspense, thriller, romance, or any hybrid of those. Many of the principles are generic enough to have application in non-fiction, personal essay, memoir, or short stories. In fact, there are wonderful generic craft insights to tweak your writing skills whether you are seeking writing jobs, as a full time or part-time writer or author and whether you are seeking the self or traditional publishing route.
Danny Gardner
Publisher - Bronzeville Books
"Tom’s unique insights into culture and style helped me shape good stories into award-nominated debuts."
Aleksandra Szczepanowska
Writer | Director | Producer - Touch
"If you’re ready to graduate to the next level of writing, Tom is the guy for you."
Jeff Otis
Author - Remaking Dinosaurs
"Tom’s like a book doctor, he doesn’t tell you what you may want to hear, he tells you what you need to hear."
Your Instructor
Hi, I'm Tom,
and if I can get published, YOU can get published.
Under my picture In my senior yearbook, it could have said, “Most likely to never write a book.” Why? Because I was actually classified as ‘functionally illiterate’ in high school! Ergo, my handle as The Accidental Author.
Seven novels and four #1 bestsellers later, I have created a small business coaching folks who have written their first, second, or 17th novel. My approach is organic and totally my own take on compelling dedicated individuals to THEIR next level of writing on their way to becoming authors. I am happy and proud that I have made a difference for my clients and their craft, confidence, and ability to satisfy their need to better communicate through a higher level of craft what’s in their hearts and minds.
In my course, I will illuminate the most common issues and problematic areas that most writers (and my many clients) have encountered in their work. These ubiquitous core issues once revealed will fade from an author’s work thus making room for more creativity, invention, characterizations, and craft.
Whether you, or someone you know, wants to write a novel, are writing a novel or has finished writing a novel, these modules and exercises are sure to deliver insights, confidence, and a new way to look at your work...and help elevate you from writer to author.
- Tom Avitabile