Novel Architecture, Part 1 

About This Training

If you were to draw a simple diagram of the plot of your novel-in-progress, what would it look like? How about a more detailed drawing? Using examples from classic and contemporary novels together with various forms of graphic visualization this class will take a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of narrative structure in the novel. In Part 1, we’ll begin by discussing the basic model of classic story progression: inciting incident, conflict, progressive complications, crisis, climax, and resolution. From there, we’ll look at the essential structural elements of the modern novel: external story and internal story. We’ll discuss essential aspects of each, including dramatic need, stakes, story value states, internal conflict, and misbelief.

About Tim Weed

Tim Weed is the author of four books of fiction. His recent novel, The Afterlife Project, was named a best book of 2025 by Library Journal and the Toronto Star. His work has won multiple Writer’s Digest Annual Fiction Awards and been shortlisted for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, the Fish International Short Story Award, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for a Novel-in-Progress, the New Rivers Many Voices Project, and many others. His essays and articles have appeared in Writers Digest, Literary Hub, The Revelator, The Millions, The Writer’s Chronicle, Talking Points Memo, The Good Men Project, and elsewhere.

Tim serves on the core faculty of the Newport MFA in Creative Writing and is the co-founder of the Cuba Writers Program. A former featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions, he spent the first part of his career directing international educational programs throughout Latin America and in Spain, Portugal, Australia, Iceland, and other locations around the globe.

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