Imaginative Storm Writer Training
A 10-Week Writing Course Built to Transform Your Practice
How the 10-Week Writer Training Works
Each week, James Navé leads a live Zoom session built on the Imaginative Storm method. This is a live online writing class, not a library of recorded lectures. You write in real time, share your work, and receive craft instruction grounded in what actually emerged on the page rather than generic advice handed down from a slide deck.
Sessions are intimate by design, small enough that every writer is seen and heard by name. You return to the same group each week, which becomes its own quiet engine: the familiar faces, the shared progress, and the gentle accountability of people expecting you to show up. Across the ten weeks the skills accumulate instead of scattering, and writing starts to feel less like effort you have to summon and more like a habit you simply keep.
What You Will Learn in Our 10-Week Creative Writing Course
Most creative writing courses teach you what to write. This one changes how you write, and how you see yourself as a writer. Over ten weeks, you will move through the core skills of storytelling, voice, narrative, character, setting, and form, and you will practice each one rather than simply hear about it.
That is the difference. Every session pairs generative writing with real craft instruction, so theory never floats free of the page. You learn a principle, then you use it the same hour, on your own work, in your own voice. Of all our writing courses, this is the one designed to build range and confidence at the same time, which is why writers often describe it as the point their work finally moved.
After 10 weeks of Imaginative Storm Writer Training, you’ll have written 40 new pieces and developed a creative habit that lasts. You will know how you work best, how to begin when you are stuck, and how to finish what you start. Some writers arrive with a project in mind and leave with a real draft of it. Others arrive with nothing but the itch to write and leave knowing they are writers. Either outcome fulfills the purpose.
Week-by-Week Course Curriculum
The course unfolds in a deliberate arc, each week building on the one before it, from finding your voice in the early sessions to shaping and finishing real work by the end. Nothing is busywork, and nothing is wasted. Here is what the ten weeks cover:
-
Ground yourself in the Imaginative Storm method. Start retraining your inner critic.
What you'll learn:
● How to invite your imagination to play
● How to make your writing authentic to your experience, your perspective on the world, and your voice
● How to maximize your chances of writing well without trying to write well
-
Rant! Release your inhibitions. Discover new freedom and humor in your writing.
What you'll learn:
● What may have been holding you back
● How to find comedy in intense feelings
● How to imbue your writing with tenderness
-
Explore the sensations of your physical body to add immediacy and emotional power to your work.
What you'll learn:
● How to make your reader's mirror neurons fire
● How to focus on the details that matter
● How to make your writing pack an emotional punch
-
Discover ways to use setting to give a scene emotional resonance.
What you'll learn:
● How to describe an event with immediacy and emotional impact
● How to avoid a "know-all tone" in your writing
● How to imbue past and future into a present moment
-
Connect with the natural world and make symbolic connections in your writing.
What you'll learn:
● How to make connections with the natural world in your writing
● How to rack focus between micro and macro
● How to enrich your observations so that nothing is ordinary
-
Explore the unspoken language of human interaction.
What you'll learn:
● To notice and interpret “Socialese”
● To track the undercurrents of a situation
● To suggest aspects of your characters' lives outside the facts of your story
-
Discover what drives a person's actions and create strong, multi-dimensional characters.
What you'll learn:
● How to understand what drives a person's actions
● How to create multi-dimensional characters: good and bad
● How to honor the individuality of minor characters
-
Examine your own life and explore what you don't know about yourself.
What you'll learn:
● How to identify and develop the deep story of your memoir
● How to write about yourself without seeming egocentric
● How to know which events are part of your story and which aren’t
-
Discover what makes a strong narrative and how to give your story momentum.
What you'll learn:
● The building blocks of a strong narrative
● How to know where your story begins and ends
● What gives a story momentum—and why momentum sags
-
Experiment with framing scenes and characters with contradictions and paradoxes.
What you'll learn:
● How to play in the paradox sandbox
● How to balance a scene on the fulcrum of an opposition
● How to flip your conception of a scene upside-down
-
Take the Imaginative Storm into your future.
What you'll learn:
● How to keep you writing momentum going
● How to explore the Imaginative Storm method more deeply
Meet Your Writing Instructor
James Navé, original creator of the Imaginative Storm method (even before Allegra came on board), personally leads all the sessions. That access is rare in a creative writing course of this size, and it shapes everything about the ten weeks.
James Navé has spent more than twenty years guiding writers through exactly this kind of work. A poet with an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a seasoned creative mentor and coach, he brings warmth and rigor in equal measure, pushing you to your best writing without ever making you feel exposed.
The course curriculum was developed by Navé along with Imaginative Storm co-founder Allegra Huston; their book Write What You Don’t Know forms the basis of this course. An Oxford-educated bestselling author and former Editorial Director of London publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson, she is, as she says, the poster child for the Imaginative Storm method, which enabled her to realize her passion for good writing without the blocks and self-doubt that come with trying to write well.
In this creative writing course you will learn from Navé what Allegra learned from Navé: how to achieve your best writing not by trying to write well, but by approaching the page curiosity, playfulness, and ease.
Who This Creative Writing Course Is For
This online writing course is for writers who are done waiting for the right moment and ready to build a lasting writing practice. It is for the memoir writer with fragments that need shaping, the fiction writer who keeps starting and stalling, and the beginner who has always wanted to write but never found the right spark.
It is also for more experienced writers who want to sharpen their craft inside a supportive, creative writing workshop rather than work in isolation. What it asks of you is simple: ten weeks, a willingness to write, and the nerve to be read aloud. If you can offer that, this course was built for you. If you are looking for a one-off session with no follow-through, this is probably not your fit, and that is by design. The whole value here is in the arc, the way ten weeks of steady practice does what a single class never can.
If you’ve half started and stopped a long-form project and just can’t keep momentum, this course is for you. Over the ten weeks, you’ll build a sustainable practice that helps you overcome self-sabotage and insecurity so you can stop feeling regretful about your writing and start feeling proud and purposeful with it. Each week is another opportunity for the “a-ha!” moment that helps you improve your craft.
What Past Participants Say
Ten weeks is long enough to change how a writer works. Here is what past participants say the training did for them.
-
![]()
“You have a jewel here; the world needs Write What You Don't Know! It took me into seeing things so much deeper and from different angles. This experience has been beyond anything I could have imagined.”
— Krista Thornburg, North Carolina
-
![]()
“This course has been transformative for me. It opened a gate to a kind of expression that I can't shut again - and I wouldn't want to. There's something about the Imaginative Storm process that evokes extraordinary depths from each of us.”
— S. K., New York City
-
![]()
“I appreciated how the Write What You Don't Know course focused me. That first leap was like I had to jump over a canal, and then I was on the other side, and writing! This course has been really helpful, and it's been valuable to be part of a community.”
— Raechel Bratnick, San Miguel de Allende
-
![]()
“The course was full of rich, dense, and thought-provoking content. It was less like a class and more like an experiment in humanity. My limitations never limited me."
— Arlene Shapiro, Los Angeles
-
![]()
“Because of this course, I'm on a roll now. I've got momentum. More than anything, the Write What You Don't Know course has kept me sane in a crazy time and helped me make some sense of a lot of nonsense.”
— Katerina Tana, Los Angeles
-
![]()
“When I started, I didn't have the path I have now. My writings in this course have revealed what I want to do with my writing. I haven't written like this before!”
—Kelsey Walters, Oklahoma City
-
![]()
“This has really been valuable. For me the best thing was learning how to develop plot—something I've always struggled with. The variation and quality of writing in the group were amazing.”
— Kaye Roll, Torrance, CA
How to Book Your Taos Writer’s Retreat
Small groups are at the heart of how the Imaginative Storm method works. This is an intimate writing workshop in Taos, not a crowded event, so every writer gets real time and real attention from the facilitators. Seats are limited, and they tend to go fast.
If a retreat in Taos has been waiting for you to finally say yes, book your place early for the next available date and bring whatever you have been meaning to write. The town has been ready for a long time. The only thing missing is you.
Fill out the form below and we will email you when the dates of the Taos retreat are confirmed.
10-Week Writer Training: Pricing & Enrollment
Next 10-Week Writer Training:
September 14 – November 23, 2026
11 sessions, Tuesdays, 3–5:30 pm PT / 6–8:30 pm ET
● Direct personal support from James Navé by phone or Zoom.
● Lifetime access to private Zoom recordings of every session
● Limited to 10 participants to ensure that everyone gets personal attention
$645. Payment plans available.