“When [writing] works, you feel less alone on either side of it.“ —Sara Kocek
On Wednesday, May 6, Sara Kocek will teach “Jump Start Your Novel.” In this class, students will learn how to craft a strong opening with compelling tension and a vivid, distinct voice. Students will also participate in a live workshop where they can receive peer feedback. Take your manuscript to the next level!
Sara Kocek is the founder of Yellow Bird Editors and the author of the novel Promise Me Something (Albert Whitman). She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University, where she taught fiction and poetry to undergraduates. Prior to pursuing her M.F.A., Sara graduated with a B.A. in English from Yale University, where her fiction was published in the Yale Literary Magazine and where she was awarded several of the university’s top writing prizes. A former full-time editorial intern at Random House and Penguin, she now lives in Austin, Texas, where she worked for several years as the Program Director for the Writers’ League of Texas before launching Yellow Bird.
Here’s what Sara had to share with us:
Who are your earliest influences? What people and books made you a writer?
Hands down, the book that made me a writer was Harriet the Spy. I read it in fifth or sixth grade and related intensely to Harriet’s compulsive and slightly unhinged commitment to writing everything down, no matter how awkward or impolite it made things. It gave me permission to take my own observations seriously, even the strange or uncomfortable ones.
Later, in high school, I went through what can only be described as a very intense Toni Morrison phase. I wrote a lot of short fiction trying very earnestly (and embarrassingly) to inhabit her voice, which, in retrospect, is a little like a kid learning to swim by jumping into the deep end of the pool. But that’s how you learn. Since then, my literary compass has widened to the point that it’s almost impossible for me to name my favorite authors.
If I had to pick three, I’d choose Virginia Woolf for interiority and rhythm, George Saunders for his strange, compassionate precision, and Miranda July for reminding me that voice can be its own kind of plot. I like writers who make me feel like the rules are flexible but the emotional truth is not.
What writing challenges have you faced? What have these challenges taught you about your process?
I have a complicated, codependent relationship with outlining. As in: I refuse to do it, and I suffer the consequences, and then I repeat this cycle with each new book like some kind of literary Groundhog Day. I write myself into spectacular, elaborate corners and then put my project down for weeks or even months before I’m able to see it clearly enough to write my way out.
What I’ve learned is that being stuck isn’t so much failure as it is information. Some of the best things I’ve ever written came after the stuck point, born from the pressure of not knowing what comes next. The corner forces a kind of creative problem-solving that a clean, confident outline never would. That said, I now teach a method for flexible outlining. Because while I am a testament to surviving chaos, I’m not sure I’d recommend it to other writers.
From your perspective, what’s the most rewarding part about being a writer?
Well, it’s certainly not the publishing industry. (We can all share a knowing look here.)
The most rewarding part for me is getting to feel seen. For me, that’s the whole game. You sit alone in a room, trying to articulate something true about being a person in this world, and you put it into a book, and somehow it travels across all that distance and lands in another person’s chest and they think: yes, that. Exactly that. That’s the reward.
Writing can be solitary, but it’s also a bridge. When it works, you feel less alone on either side of it.
Who do you write for?
Myself. I know I just finished telling you how meaningful it feels to be seen by readers, and now I’m saying I write for myself, but I think these two truths coexist. Clichés get to be clichés for a reason. The truest version of “I write for myself” is that I write to access the part of my interior life that doesn’t show up in normal, everyday conversation. If I tried to write for an imagined reader, I’d be performing. Performance is the enemy of truth, and truth is the only thing that makes a reader feel seen in the first place. So I write for myself first and readers as a beautiful consequence.
What do you hope writers will learn from your course?
How to kick the door open.
Opening a novel is deceptively hard. You’re not just introducing a story; you’re making a promise. In this class, I want writers to understand what makes an opening work: how to build tension from the first page, how to establish a voice that feels alive, and how to avoid the very common traps that make readers quietly (or not so quietly) disengage.
But just as importantly, I want them to leave with momentum and a sense that they don’t have to have everything figured out to begin—because no one does. If students walk away with a stronger opening and a clearer sense of how to move forward (even when they inevitably get stuck), then I’ll consider that a success.
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Thanks, Sara!
Click here to learn more about Sara’s upcoming class.
