One Year Adventure Novel: Week 1

This year for my birthday I asked for the One Year Adventure Novel writing course, even though I graduated high school last year (in November, since I’m from Australia). I wanted something to occupy my time in the coming year—aside from work—but didn’t want the pressure of a university course. OYAN suited my needs perfectly.

The One Year Adventure Novel (or OYAN) is a writing curriculum for students in grades 8-12. It guides students through the process of writing a structured, compelling adventure novel over the course of one school year (for more information, see here).

I discovered OYAN back in 2011 when I first decided to extend my writing beyond fan fiction. However, at the time, I was attending grade 10 at a local high school and didn’t want to overextend myself with a home schooling course. Instead I chose to do NaNoWriMo that year (which also happens to be the only year I’ve won so far). The following year, I revisited the site and ordered a demo disk. BIG mistake. Now I had to get it. The problem was, I still had another year of schooling to go. Fast-forward another year, to yesterday.

After almost two weeks of obsessively checking the USPS tracking site, the course arrived. Since I knew the only help my parents would be giving me is feedback during the second half of the course, I decided to read the first few chapters of the Teacher’s Guide. 

(Notice the strategically-placed red slip?)

 (When researching about OYAN, I really wanted to know the size of each book. The top 4 things are standard-sized dvd cases as a reference)

From a teaching perspective, this curriculum is a breeze. There are 78 pre-recorded lessons that come with the course, as well as a textbook (The Compass), a workbook (The Map), a novel (The Prisoner of Zenda), and a resource disk with weekly quizzes. First the student watches the lesson (that usually goes for around 10min), then they read a page or two from the textbook that helps reinforce the lesson, and finally they work through some questions in the workbook (or during the second half of the year, they work on their novel). Some days there are assigned chapter readings from The Prisoner of Zenda, or a quiz to complete (the latter at the end of each week).

Lesson Topics Include:

1 The Heroic Quest

2 Point of View

3 The Synopsis

4 The Five Elements of Story
5 Someone to Care About
6 Someone to Care About, pt 2
7 Something to Want

8 Something to Want, pt 2

9 Something to Want, pt 3
10 Something to Dread

11 Something to Dread, pt 2
12 Something to Dread, pt 3
13 Something to Suffer

14 Something to Suffer, pt 2
15 Something to Suffer, pt 3
16 Something to Learn

17 Something to Learn, pt 2
18 Something to Learn, pt 3
19 The Supporting Cast

20 The Villain
21 Synopsis, pt 2
22 Conflict
23 Disaster
24 Dilemma
25 Acts and Scenes


26 The Four Defining Chapters

27 Chapter One: The Inciting Incident
28 Chapter Three: Embracing Destiny
29 Chapter Nine: The Black Moment
30 Chapter Eleven: The Showdown
31 The Novel Outline: Formulas, Plots and Subplots
32 Chapter Two: Promises, Prophecies, Predicaments
33 Chapter Four: The New World

34 Chapter Five: The Middle Cycle

35 Chapter Six: Failure

36 Chapter Seven: Lessons

37 Chapter Eight: Achievement & Atonement

38 Chapter Ten: The Coming Storm

39 Chapter Twelve: Denouement
40 How to Write a Chapter
41 Creating Emotion 

42 The Illusion of Reality 

43 Summary (Telling)
44 Detail (Showing) 

45 Narrative Order 

46 Dialog
47 Gestures 

48 To Be or Not To Be 

49 Too Many Modifiers
50 Sliding Eyes & Grasping Hands 

51 Symbols 

52 Flashbacks
53 I Saw, I Heard 

54 Raising the Stakes 

55 What’s Likely to Go Wrong?
56 Falling Bodies (What to do when stuck)
57 The Character Interview
58 Setting
59 Character Masks
60 Character Handles
61 Unexpected Humor

62 Unexpected Tragedy
63 Unexpected Grace
64 Clichés
65 Irony
66 Cliffhangers
67 Voice
67 Transparency
68 Double Disasters
70 Writing the Climax
71 Setups & Payoffs
72 Deus ex Machina
73 Loose Ends
74 Parting Words
75 Revision & Rewriting
76 Revising by Verb
77 Formatting Your Manuscript
78 Sharing & Publishing Your Novel

 Yesterday I worked through lessons 1-3, simply because they felt more like introductory lessons. If you’re like me and looked up every resource you could find about OYAN, then these lessons may feel a little repetitive—but don’t worry, it speeds up.

When the time came for me to write a short synopsis, I struggled. A LOT. The story I have is really complex (remind me not to write about time travel in the future) and doesn’t fit well with any of the contexts supplied. Think Warm Bodies / Doctor Who / Time traveller’s Wife / Merlin / Futurama, and you’re still just brushing the surface. At the moment I’m trying to break away the complex exterior to find the underlying story beneath.

I’m not sure how often I’m going to blog about my novelling adventure. This is more for my own benefit, but you’re welcome to come along for the ride =)

Until next time,
~SeriousShadow