Faber Academy Kickstart your Novel review

*Originally posted on 7 January 2021

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It’s been a while since I posted on the blog! I had about a month away from writing after finishing my course to think about next steps. I’m now back to focusing on my writing and my novel. 

I finished the Kickstart your Novel course in November and thought I would post a review up on here. I think it’s a fairly new course (my cohort was the second lot) and as it’s all done online it’s great for these pandemic times we are living in. 

The course is meant as a precursor to the well-known 8 month long Writing a Novel course. Originally I applied for the Writing a Novel course but was unsuccessful. The tutors recommended that I take Kickstart your Novel instead (which is not selective) to work on my novel idea.

I found the course fantastic. It was 8 weeks long but I felt I progressed so much. The people on the course were all at different stages. Some had ideas and some had started writing their novel. I would say everybody that came to the session had an initial idea. I don’t think it’s necessary to already have a novel idea but it will make the exercises easier and you will benefit more from having other people comment on your work

The course covered the basics of writing and also included a session on writing a synopsis with tutor feedback (which I found invaluable). It does involve 5-7 hours a week of work but this can be more or less depending on how long the writing takes you.

After finishing the course, I applied for the Writing a Novel course and am pleased to say I got a place. I definitely think my novel is in a much better place now and I will benefit from the course more. I start at the end of January and can’t wait! 

I hope my review was helpful and if anybody is thinking about doing the course feel free to comment or message me on my Instagram. I would encourage people to go for this course if they don’t quite feel ready for the longer commitment. These courses are a lot of work alongside a full-time job - it’s better to gauge how you would cope with the work with a shorter course rather than being tied to 8 months.