Novel Mentoring
Maybe you’ve spent ages circling a great idea for a novel, and you’re not quite sure how to get started. Or perhaps you recently reached the half-way point of your draft, only to feel the motivation drain out of you.
Writing a novel is hard. But if it’s direction and consistency you’re struggling with, you might benefit from working with a mentor: someone to guide you and keep you accountable throughout the drafting process as the book takes shape. A mentor can be a sounding board, a critique partner, a troubleshooter, or all of the above. Mentoring can look like different things with different projects, but what doesn’t change is that you get an ongoing, 1:1 relationship with a writer who has been where you’re sitting now.
Mentoring is for writers working on drafting a novel. You bring me a batch of fresh words to review each month, and I’ll help you through the messy business of writing your book: one month at a time, until you’ve got a full manuscript. You’ll get the most out of mentoring if you’re looking for long-term support as you develop your work in progress.
If you’ve already finished writing your novel, mentoring probably isn’t right for you. If you’re after an honest perspective on your finished draft, then I’d point you in the direction of a manuscript assessment. And if your words are all there, but they aren’t working as hard as they might, then I’d suggest hiring me as an editor. Manuscript assessments and editing are shorter-term, one-off engagements, whereas mentoring is about providing the long-term support you need to get a first draft over the line.
Who Mentoring Is For
Why Me?
Because I’ve been there.
I know how many hard yards go into drafting a book, and I’ve benefitted from being mentored myself. I was lucky enough to lean on a more experienced novelist while I was working on Season (which has since been shortlisted for major literary awards including the Nero Book Award and the Betty Trask Prize).
I learned back then what a great mentor can do: they draw out the heart of the work, they’re patient yet exacting, and they take the author (and the work) seriously. This is the philosophy I seek to embody with my own clients.
Mentoring is, by default, an entirely confidential process. Each month, you’ll send me the latest 10,000 words of your work in progress in advance of a scheduled, online 1:1 meeting. I’ll mark up your pages with my comments and critiques, and I’ll bring actionable feedback to our meeting: what’s working, what isn’t, and how to fix it going forward.
I won’t be getting hung up on tiny details or obsessing over the work at the sentence level. At this stage, it’s about fixing any serious problems which keep cropping up, answering the big questions posed by your novel, and pre-empting challenges which might arise down the line.
This ongoing relationship will keep you accountable, keep you improving as a writer, and help you shape your work in progress. The aim is to keep you on track while making sure each 10,000-word batch is better than the last.
How It Works
Pricing
For £499 per month, I’ll evaluate and mark up the latest 10,000 words of your work in progress and discuss it with you in an hour-long 1:1 call.
This is a pay-as-you-go arrangement, so there’s no up-front fee, no block-buying, and no contract to tie you in. You work with me for as long as you find it helpful, and when you’re done, you simply walk away on your own terms. Because mentoring is so personal, and because the quality of the relationship is a key predictor of how much you’ll get from it, it’s important to me that my ongoing clients are happy with the fit and enjoy working with me.
For this reason, I only work with a limited number of mentoring clients at any time.
If you want to work with me, start by sending an email to georgeharrisonwriter@gmail.com. Tell me about the book you’re working on (or the book you want to write), and let me know how far through the process you are already.
I’ll schedule a short 1:1 to talk about your project and make sure we’re the right fit before you commit to anything.