Starting with “Chapter One” often leads to freezing up in panic long before reaching “Chapter Two.” In this workshop, we’ll will focus on crafting scenes of your story, regardless of where they may fall in the finished novel. We’ll talk about strategies for creating and sustaining tension both in scenes and across the novel, through using timelines, ticking clocks, and chapter endings. We’ll begin by critiquing students’ overall plans for their novels, and then move into critiquing individual scenes from the novel. We’ll refer to E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel.