Creating a story is like putting a puzzle together, one with missing or misleading pieces.

This course is based on David Farland's book, The Million Dollar Outline. In it, David walks you through the steps to develop an outline for your novel, giving you information for each step from Setting, Characters, and Conflicts to building your plots, working on theme and treatment of your story.

You’ve read stories that absolutely swept you away into another world, stories that made you forget you were reading and ultimately left you changed. In our first lesson, we’ll teach you how to communicate through writing on such a deep level, you can do that with your own stories.

What are the nine most common weaknesses that keep new authors from publishing successfully? This course will help you identify these problems and overcome them, strengthening your own writing through education and practice. Each topic is addressed in a taped lesson, followed by learning material, recommended reading, and a writing assignment. Learn to take your writing from “okay” to “powerful” and then “mesmerizing” in this first Writing Mastery course.

In Writing Mastery 2, the focus will be on your story, which means that you will spend more time brainstorming scenes and working to build your story as a whole. Many of these exercises are designed to help you see your story in a new way, brainstorm new scenes, and then begin writing them, so that you build on the existing framework of your novel. Settings that can give birth to incredible societies and characters, plus how to take those characters’ cores and generate enthralling conflicts for your plot.

In this workshop you will learn why you need to become your own editor. You’ll learn why it’s important to make multiple passes while editing, and Dave will help introduce you to some of the best tools to guide you as you revise your novel.

Think you’re ready to begin your novel? The new author is faced with a lot of tasks: introducing his world, his characters, and building his story. For most people, starting well is a struggle. This workshop will help guide you through the process of writing that difficult opening.

For many writers, the most difficult part of a novel to write is the middle. Even professionals who outline well will often find that at the midpoint, they tend to second-guess their work, sit back and analyze their opening, consider their ending, and try to figure out how to get there in a way that will be entertaining and powerful.

Just as the title says, in this course we will explore how to expand our writing to appeal to more than just one type of person.

More than 65 years ago, Robert Heinlein gave a few simple rules about how to approach your writing career. The advice is considered timeless, but a few things have changed since then, and maybe it’s time for some revision.

Dave has helped numerous authors hit the New York Times Bestseller lists, so one of his most frequent questions is “How can I break into writing quickly?” In this series of lectures, Dave talks about some of the steps you need to take in order to build a successful career as a writer. This goes especially well with his book Million Dollar Book Signings, also included in this bundle.

Many new writers put together a great book proposal, then send it to a lousy agent or publisher. By doing that, they may set their own career back by 5 years. So in this seminar, I talk about how to vet agents and publishers, how to meet them, and basically get a leg up on a stellar career. Just as importantly, I’ll give advice to help you decide whether to go Indie, because in some genres, you might not even want a publisher, and getting one could hurt your career.

All writers need to take time to recharge their creative battery when they're worn out. In this lecture, David Farland discusses the best, most productive ways to re-energize, so that you can get back to writing faster and with renewed spirits.

In this lecture, Dave takes you through the fundamentals of worldbuilding in science fiction and fantasy, explaining the basics of how to create planets, new life forms, civilizations, and magic and power systems, in order to bring your world to life.

Dave has helped launch the careers of or train such notable writers as J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and James Dashner. Many of these people write for the middle-grade and young adult genres, audiences which have their own particular needs. In these lectures, Dave talks about some of the special considerations for these audiences and tells why they can be so hard to break into, but also so lucrative.

Designed to help you as a writer get in the mindset to write, this exercise will help you activate your brain to its highest writing potential and get you started working on your book right now.

Want people to care about your stories? You can tell your readers what’s happening or you can hypnotize them, pull them deeper and deeper into your story. Let them hear what’s going on. Show them the world you’ve created. Help them smell the earth, taste the air. It’s your choice of course to make the best choice now and learn the mystical arts of master storytellers. Isn’t it? Forrest guides us through processes that draw your readers into your stories, hypnotizing them, transporting them into pure imagination.

In Powerful Endings, you will learn how to write the final struggle for your protagonist, how to handle the last try/fail cycle and the reversal, how to create a redemption or suitable fate for your contagonist. In this nine-part course, you’ll also learn about the denouement, how to bring closure to a story with surprising twists and stack scenes so that the conclusion is more impactful than the sum of its parts.

Years ago, David taught this writing class focused on helping writers become successful in the industry.

New York Times Best Selling Author David Farland talks about adding wonder to your science fiction and fantasy novels!

Forrest Wolverton is a motivational speaker and personal trainer who helps writers get past the "blocks" that keep them from being the best writers they can be.

Apex members can watch all previously recorded live Apex strategy meetings here!

Apex members can watch all previously recorded live Apex conference calls here!

Forrest Wolverton's NLP applied to writing

Do your want to write an epic novel, either a huge fantasy or science fiction book? In this workshop, you'll study some of the best books and films on the topic. Dave will teach how to write epic fantasy and science fiction novels in particular.

Do your want to write an epic novel, either a huge fantasy or science fiction book? In this workshop, you'll study some of the best books and films on the topic. Dave will teach how to write epic fantasy and science fiction novels in particular.

In this seminar, learn about how to create a cast where each character perfectly compliments the others.