Creative Writing Courses

I'm doing an MA, best thing I could have done for my writing. There are many different aspects to writing and creativity in general that could seriously develop your skills in various artistic forms. The workshops between your classmates makes room for critiques and advice and the lectures from established writers are a continues source of inspiration/motivation.

I highly recommend it if you have the funds and time. (Most courses should be 1 day a week)
 
I met with someone doing my local MA last year, to explore whether to do it, but the outcome was that between crits here, editorial services and a regular writing group, I was probably doing enough.

I did a postal course some years back, which I found of limited use. Honestly, the best thing for me has been a writing group of peers.
 
I did a one evening a week creative writing course, spread over 8-weeks, at a local college / adult education centre. I was petrified that it would be 'Here are some gold painted pine cones, write a 10K essay.' but actually it was full of very practical advice such as; Don't start with the weather, have a good hook, adverbs are bad, etc. However, there wasn't much time to go into any depth. There were lots of challenging assignments and critiques.

It also covered a lot of stuff about the publishing industry and the submission process, how to write a query. Very well rounded in my opinion and I got a lot out of it.

At the start there were about 20-people on the first day, which was down to 6 by the end. Then we formed a writing group out of the last 4 of us (including the teacher). That was 3-years ago and we're still going strong.
 
I did a London Citylit course for one day a week for about 3 hours, over about 8 weeks. The guy that did it also taught on an MA and he was very much 'what works for you', and sometimes the MA isnt it. He also did an online course at Citylit about scifi creative writing, he's probably doing another one so keep an eye out for it. Id highly recommend it, his name was scott bradfield.

It was really useful and he knew alot about Scifi and its history. I would say that what i took away from that course besides the writing tips are that I need to read alot of the greats.
 
I did an MA in Creative and Critical writing at Sussex University, and it was soooo intellectual, that some of the creative part became stifled in theory. Derrida can only be studied by intellectuals, apparently, according to him, but the creative bits were excellent.

tbh: I just squeezed in before the fees went up... couldn't consider it now, but I'd look for the kind of course Verse talks of, as a starting point.
 
springs said:
I call them Baron Plot-hole (recently promoted from Lord drop-comma), Lady Point-of-view and Queen-Voicey-who-asks-awkward-questions. :D
Click to expand...

And we'll all be performing in Dick Whittington at the Palladium until January 31st!

Oh yes we will!


(In answer to the OP, I haven't done any. There was a writers' workshop here for an afternoon recently and I considered it, but life got in the way. I do feel the workshop would have to be open to SFF if I were to do it, though)
 
I did the open university creative writing course. My advice would be to avoid this one. It was 5 years ago, but it was HEAVILY focused on .. shall we say.. feminine topics, seemed to be geared more towards those wanting to emulate Mills & Boon. A lot of the exercises and assignments revolved around such exciting topics as "750 words, write a piece about a mother, on her daughter's wedding night - try to show what she and others might be feeling".

It's also marked in a highly subjective way. I wrote a piece based on a real life event (although I didn't mark it as such) and the tutor marked it down saying he felt the situation needed more humour. I didn;t bother challenging him on it but I was at said event and I am pretty sure it wasn;t very humorous...
 
I did an part-time MA in Creative Writing (no critical element, unlike Boneman's) and thought it was superb. It wouldn't have suited someone only interested in SFF, though. (Not that it was anti-genre, but it most rewarded those prepared to explore as widely as possible.) Nor was it particularly informative on novel structure, etc.
 
I'm currently doing a BA in English and Creative Writing at RHUL - the Creative Writing part is excellent: half of it is writing and looking at writing and editing and other writerly pursuits and the other half at the moment is on writing theory from people from Plato to Burke to Freud etc. The rest of the CW degree is fiction/playwriting/poetry and other theories - not as in depth as an MA but it is pretty good. Got some excellent tutors, published authors, poets etc. University degrees are expensive though worth it if you can afford it I think.
 
I have an MFA in fiction. (Masters of Fine Arts.) Here in the states, the MFA is a 3-year degree (at most universities) and is what they call a terminal degree. It's treated like a Ph.D. in terms of gaining tenure.

I also have a B.A. in Fiction. It was a sub-major of "Literature," though, so it was super lit-heavy. I thrived under the MFA structure. Wrote about it here on my blog if anyone is interested. It speaks more to the degrees, though, than individual classes: LINK

As for classes, I've taken some wonderful classes. We have a few great local writing communities. Here is a link to one class offered online through a local site:

Online Classes | Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers

The top one, "The Top 10 Things Movies Can Teach Novelists," is one I took 2 years ago and it was one of the best gifts I could have given myself as a writer. I learned more about plotting and structure in that class that I did in the full 5 years I spent learning writing at an academic level. (I, Brian--they utilize some great "Save the Cat" materials.) I think anyone could register for it. No matter where you live, btw.

I love taking workshops like this, classes that let me pick and choose specific topics.

As for general creative writing classes, well, I have some experience from both the student and instructor perspective. I've taught creative writing for a time now, at the university and through local programs and such. I'd be happy to share a syllabus with you--just to give you an idea of how I planned my units and what was covered in a basic introductory course (college level).

Where I taught, it went like this:

Intro to Creative Writing (1st class)
Intermediate Creative Writing (Fiction or Poetry specific)
Advanced Creative Writing (Fiction/Poetry specific)

These three are pretty "staple" at university level for completing a creative writing degree. The rest you usually fill in with literature courses, rhet/comp courses, linguistics, technical writing and so on.

The Intermediate and Advanced creative writing courses were workshop heavy. Meaning, you spent 3/4 of your time workshopping students' stories. The rest of the time you read short fiction and analyzed the craft within.

At the MFA level, we had to take 6 workshops (one per semester), 3 literature courses, a theory course, a form & technique course (dedicated to a specific craft element), and pertinent electives.

Again, just holler if you want to see what an introductory class might look like (at university). Most are literature heavy at times. You read a lot. But I tried to have my students write a lot in class as well.
 
I think any kind of course would be beneficial. You can usually tell the people who have done some kind of course from the people who have not when you read their writing. My writing improved ten fold after doing a few but I feel no desire to go the degree route as it would entail too much studying of things and areas that I have zero interest in.
 
I took one and the only thing it was good for was the incentive to bang out some words. Of course, it WAS with a bunch of other high-schoolers, most of which couldn't care less about writing and were shoved into the class. Feedback/critiques were crap, and the teacher didn't really teach us anything. I learned more from reading books, both about writing and respected authors.

That said, I'm sure there are better ones out there, and am willing to take a few when I get to college.
 
In my experience the value of creative writing courses largely depends on who is running them and your fellow students, both of which can vary incredibly. I've been on evening classes, studied writing as part of an English BA and also completed half a Creative Writing MA course.

The evening class held at a local college was amateurish in the extreme - it was run by a writer of verse who had a few pamphlets published by a local press but little else, and the students on the course were more interested in telling everyone about their life stories than discussing writing. It was more like a coffee morning. I toughed it out four sessions before quitting.

In comparison, the writing component for the BA English course was very, very good. The professional writers on the course were encouraging, generous with their advice, and the students were like minded (all naïve, but very creative and enthusiastic, just like me!).

It was for that reason I followed my BA with an MA in Writing at the same university, which was a different experience. The students weren't entirely like-minded, and it was difficult to form any friendships with them as it was a part-time course (2 hours per week). I had one good tutor, a guy called Danny Broderick, who was brilliantly encouraging, again generous with advice, and with the faculty supporting him, he was able to bring in publishers and editors to give talks to the students.
Bu then things went downhill after we were passed on to another professional writer who appeared more interested in their own writing than the students they were teaching. I spent a whole term having to correspond with my new tutor by e-mail and post since they refused to come to the university to conduct seminars and 1-2-1 tutorials. Not good. After a few weeks of this, I saw no more value in the MA and I left without completing the final year.

In terms of costs, the evening class at the local college was about forty quid, so I didn't really lose much sleep over it, but the costs for a degree and/or an masters ran into the thousands of pounds.

Most writers will tell you that you can't really teach someone to be a good writer; and that bit is very true, mainly because there is no such thing as "good writing", it's just an opinion and one that can be as different as night and day if you consult with any number of writers. And the basics of storytelling, such as plotting, characterisation etc. can be self-taught by reading plenty and picking up books such as the Robinson writing-bibles by Orson Scott Card and others (I learned more from these than from an evening class, a BA and an MA).

However, what you can get from a course that you don't get from reading books, is that encouragement and belief from others, that your writing is good enough to succeed; if it wasn't for those professionals hammering home that I was good enough to be published, I might not have persevered. And having a good group of writers around you while you struggle is no bad thing either.

Ultimately, what you need to ask yourself is this: "can you recreate good advice (books), professional encouragement (any published writers you know) and that social element (Chrons) without having to spend thousands of pounds on fees?" If you can, a piece of paper with a qualification maybe overvalued.
After all, the only qualification an aspiring writer should seek is to be published, in my honest opinion.
 
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I have taken the creative writing/advanced creative writing as part of my degree in English Language and Literature, and while it's been good, and I would certainly recommend doing an introduction if you're a new writer.

However, I have also learnt much more from taking part in online forums and writing/critiquing over the years as part of the learning process.
 
I think MattC is onto something. It can really depend on the instructor and the student dynamic. Fortunately, I only had one truly negative experience in academia. First intro-to-creative-writing teacher was a drunk who came to class wasted and told us all, "None of you will ever get published, so f**** off if you think that's possible." I dropped that course and took it from another instructor the next semester. Had a great time.

The BA was exactly what it needed to be. I developed a "craft" vocabulary that helped me critique better--and examine my own work with more thoughtfulness.

The MFA was workshop heavy and while a few of my "group" were utterly useless, I met some amazing friends with whom I still talk to today. It was a traditional program, so no genre was allowed, but those who DID write genre outside of class were the ones who became successful after graduation.

Only one lit-fic writer really nailed a writing career after, but that's because he rocked. :)

I DO learn a lot online. Still. I'd never consider myself such an expert that I'd refuse to open myself up to learning. It's everywhere.
 
Question; is writing a gift or a skill? don't know if Tom Clancy,J.K Rowling or Michael Crichton focused so much on attaining writing degrees. I can see how workshops can be helpful in the mechanical aspects of creative writing.
 
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