4 Amazing Online Courses that Will Strengthen Your Writing Skills
Writing is one of those subjects that can take a lot of time to learn. Not only is your skill based off the perspective of your audience, but most of your skill is going to come from simply practicing.
In order to practice, you either need a creative inspiration or a reason to write that you are obligated to, such as assignment. While practicing is the most effective way to improve your writing skills, other aspects such as technical skills, grammar, sentence structure, character creation, etc., still need to be learned. Here’s a list of online writing courses to help improve the technical—and creative—side of your writing skills.
1. MasterClass
MasterClass is an online digital course program that runs off a monthly subscription base. Although MasterClass has a very large variety of subjects and courses, their writing courses are some of the best that are offered.
The biggest perks of strengthening your writing skills through MasterClass are the instructors. You have the opportunity to take writing courses from world-renowned authors such as James Patterson, Margaret Atwood, and R.L. Stine.
Each instructor teaches from a different viewpoint, from various experiences, and for a different purpose, so there’s a course that will work for everyone. You can learn something unique from each instructor. If you’re wondering about MasterClass and is it worth it, you can always check out online reviews to find out more about their services.
2. Skillshare
Skillshare is likewise an online learning community based off a monthly subscription. Skillshare is a little bit cheaper than MasterClass at $15 per month. However, while the instructors are well-experienced and well-known within their industries, they are not world-renowned famous people such as the instructors in MasterClass.
One perk of Skillshare is the activeness and communication between the students and the instructors. Much like a real course, many of the online courses on Skillshare have “projects” that need to be completed and turned in in order to complete the course. On top of that, many of the course instructor’s offer feedback and will let you know what is good about your project or writing assignment and what needs improvement.
Also, if you’re looking to gain skills outside of writing, Skillshare has courses in a variety of subjects such as graphic design, video editing, and photography.
3. The Triangle Method of Character Creation
The Triangle Method is catered specifically towards creating characters in creative writing. However, it can be applied to anyone looking to improve their character creation and building.
The Triangle Method course includes two-hours of video instruction throughout twelve videos with a PDF accompanying each of these videos as well as a step-by-step guide to character creation. A few of the techniques you will learn in the Triangle Method is “The Likeability Factor,” or how to create characters and convince your audience to like or dislike them.
You will also learn seven unique techniques on how to describe characters, how to create a dialogue that showcases charterer personality effectively, and five tips to creating complex characters.
4. Scribble
Scribble is geared towards beginner writers looking to generally become a better writer over all formats. The price for Scribble is free, and students mainly focus on learning about grammar, sentence structure, topic sentences, and research papers.
The duration and starting dates for the Scribble writing course are flexible, meaning you start and finish the course when you would like and work at your own pace. Scribble is perfect for beginner writer looking to hone and improve their basic and core writing skills. For students looking into majoring in English through a university, this will prep them for their writing courses and save the hassle.
You can find hundreds of thousands of online writing courses ranging from simple two-hour free courses focusing on one specific skill to full-on online degrees that come with a price tag but also a huge payout.
By the time you’ve mastered all of your skills, you’ll be ready to self-publish, which is yet another topic you can find many courses on for techniques, marketing, and design. You can find general tips on how to self-publish a book from bestsellers here.
