Five Free Online Creative Writing Classes
Signing up as a full-time student isn’t the only way to access degree-level Creative Writing tuition! The Open University’s Open Learn programme offers a range of free self-paced online courses, from Level 1 for beginners, Level 2 for those with a bit more writing experience, and Level 3 which is equivalent to Postgraduate standard.
To access the courses, simply sign up for an account with Open Learn, choose the course or courses you’re interested in and you’re all set to start writing! They even provide a Statement of Participation on completion of each course, which could be a helpful addition to your CV if you want to pursue a career in publishing.
Obviously these courses don’t give you a real-life classroom experience, tutor support or access to feedback on your writing, but the quality of the content is high and they’re certainly worth considering if you want to develop your writing and critical reading skills. Each course is interactive with plenty of exercises to practise what you’re learning, and written, audio and video materials are all provided to suit different learning preferences.
Level 1: Start Writing Fiction
12 hours of study
Find out more here: Start Writing Fiction
Want to have a go at writing fiction but not sure how to start? This introductory course gives you an insight into how authors create and portray their characters, and provides tips on character creation and settings. It will also give you an introduction to the different categories of genre fiction, from psychological thriller to magic realism.
By the end of the course you should be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a fiction writer, discuss fiction using basic vocabulary and demonstrate a general awareness of fiction writing.
Level 1: Start Writing fiction: Characters and Stories
24 hours study
Click here for course details: Start Writing Fiction: Characters and Stories
This beginner level course is perfect if you’re interested in starting to write fiction or already have some experience and are looking to improve. The course offers a practical, hands-on approach, focusing on the central skill of creating characters and no previous experience is needed.
You’ll have the opportunity to listen to established writers talk about how they got started, and consider the rituals of writing and the importance of keeping a journal.
Throughout the course you’ll be encouraged to develop your own ideas as well as reflect on the writing and editing process, discover how other writers approach their research, and consider ways of turning your own life events into a plot.
By the end of the course you should be able to create characters for your own stories, understand the importance of keeping a writer’s notebook, generate and develop new ideas in writing your own fiction, reflect on your writing and edit your work appropriately and analyse and discuss creative writing.
Level 1: Writing What you Know
8 hours study
Click here for course details: Writing What You Know
Would you like to improve your descriptive writing? This course will help you develop your perception of the world around you and encourage you to see familiar everyday things in a new light. You’ll also learn how authors use their own personal histories to form the basis of their work.
The course modules include Writing What You Know, The Everyday, Memory and Narrative and The Senses.
On completion of the course, you should be able to articulate the notion of ‘write what you know’, write ‘blind’ descriptions of known objects and note new observations, have an enhanced ability to list sensory perceptions, and write short texts about a personal memory of either a place or a character.
Level 1: What Happens When You Read
3 hours study
Click here for course details: What Happens to You When You Read?
Have you ever wondered about the psychology of literature or stories, or how a certain narrative might change our attitude or perspective? A good story can entertain us, develop our creativity and imagination, and transport us to different fictional worlds, but you’ll also learn how stories can change us psychologically.
The course explores our relationship with books and the ways in which engaging with fiction in particular can change readers, as well as how the activity of reading can bring benefits to our wellbeing in challenging times.
You’ll have the opportunity to carry out both reading and writing activities and experience for yourself what happens to you when you read.
On completion of the course you’ll have a greater understanding of some of the psychological processes happening when you read, how reading positively impacts your mental wellbeing, and the ways in which reading books can potentially transform you.
Level 2: Approaching Prose Fiction
20 hours of study
Click here for course details: Approaching Prose Fiction
This is the perfect course if you want to get more out of your reading experience. This intermediate level course is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary texts, and you’ll learn about narrative events and perspectives, the setting of novels, types of characterisation and genre.
Course materials include extracts from novels Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Portrait of an Artist by James Joyce and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and the short stories Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf and Gazebo by Raymond Carver.
At the end of the course you should be able to recognise and discuss selected library texts from the Renaissance to the present, approach literary texts in terms of genre, gender and the canon, engage in close analysis of narrative and poetic language and apply technical analytical terms, engage in comparative work, draw general conclusions and use textual evidence to argue a case, as well as understand and use academic conventions, referencing and bibliography.
Level 3: Creative Writing and Critical Reading
8 hours study
Click here for course details: Creative writing and critical reading
This Advanced level course explores the importance of reading as part of a creative writer’s development. You’ll gain inspiration and ideas from examining other writers’ methods, as well as enhancing your own critical reading skills.
The course covers point of view, character, style (including rhythm, sentence structure, imagery, idiosyncrasies), voice or tone, structure, plotting and themes.
Drawing on a diverse range of examples, you’ll cover the genres of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and scriptwriting. You’ll have the opportunity to listen to professional writers discussing the creative process in relation to their own reading habits, and apply the insights you’ve gleaned to your own writing by producing a short creative piece in your chosen genre.
By the end of the course you’ll be able to understand the importance of critical reading as part of a creative writer’s development, and how to use it as a source of inspiration and ideas. You’ll also learn to engage analytically and critically with a range of literary and media texts in the genres of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and scriptwriting, and use your own writing practice to deepen and develop your ability to engage with postgraduate modes of reading.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course MA in Creative Writing.
If you want to learn more about Open Learn and the courses they offer, click the link below
