Online Class: Creative Writing for Beginners

Creative writing is a form of artistic expression.   While the painter uses canvas and the sculptor uses clay, the writer uses pen and paper – or computer and keyboard in today's world.    This course is designed to teach you the tools and mechanics of creative writing.   You'll learn about writing fiction, poetry, screenplays, and even nonfiction.   It doesn't matter if you're already writing or if you want to learn more about it so you can start.    This course teaches you the basics that you need to know and gives you the skill sets you need to start creating your written works of art.

You'll learn:

• The different forms of creative writing
• The true value of creative writing
• Reasons why you should write
• The tools you need to write excellent fiction
• The different types of nonfiction
• How to write memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies
• How to write articles for newspapers, blogs, or journals
• How to overcome writer's block
• How to write poetry
• And how to get your work recognized and published

There are fifteen comprehensive lessons in this course. After each lesson, you'll find exercises that will help you review what you've learned.   You'll also find a dozen writing assignments that you can use to get the ideas flowing and start writing.

This course is the perfect introduction to creative writing.   It will teach even the newest writers how to successfully take their ideas and put them onto paper.   Even if you've never written anything before, this course will get you started – and you'll be amazed at how well you can actually do once you've finished.

There are 15 lessons in this course. Each lesson is broken down in order to address a form of creative writing, and to explore the tools and mechanics that pertain to it. After each lesson, you will find exercises. These are simply a way to gauge what you have learned and help you reinforce what was covered in the lesson. The exercises are mandatory, and they are what you will be graded on for this course.

• Fiction . Of course, fiction is the most recognized form of creative writing since the stories begin in your imagination.
• Journals and diaries .  Most people don't think of this as creative writing, but keeping a journal or diary (for personal or family history reasons) is just as much creative writing as any other form.
• Blogs .  Let's face it. Blogs have changed the way we read the news and also given us insight into the things that interest us and the lives of those people who interest us.
• Articles . Articles may contain facts, but creativity is put into constructing and writing them in a way that will interest the reader.
• Screenplays .  What's the funniest movie you ever watched? Did you ever think about the writer who created the screenplay?
• Nonfiction . It's the same as it is with articles. The facts inside a nonfiction book or story may be true, but a lot of creativity goes into making it fun and interesting to read. It's a safe bet that you've never read a nonfiction book that put you to sleep.  
• Memoirs .  Whether you're writing your own or someone else's, this is another form of creative writing.
• Poetry .  Poems are probably one of the most artistic forms of creative writing, because of the imagery they evoke when written well.

It's a great thing if your goal is to become a published writer, or even a well-read blogger or journalist. But that should not be your only reason for writing. The writing world is highly competitive, and it's extremely critical. Even the best-known, most popular authors papered their walls with rejection slips, or lived as an unknown for years before they rose to popularity. That said, anyone who starts creative writing simply because they think their writing is so different or special that everyone will instantly fall in love with their words is headed for heartbreak.  It's a long road to that point, and it's filled with potholes.

The real value of creative writing lies in the enjoyment you get from it, as well as the enjoyment the people closest to you will get from it. You can publish you own blog and only have 20 people who read it faithfully.Guess what? That makes you successful if you enjoy writing it, and those that read it (no matter how many or how few) enjoy it as well.  

Creative writing is our escape from our worlds. It's also a way to document the things that go on around us. Even a short story you write, then cram into a drawer, will have value to those who read it years from now. It will tell them a story about you, the things that were on your mind, and the world around you at that time. Think of the classic books from writers such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Think of nonfiction biographies like that of Ann Frank.  Even if your work is never widely read or published, it will have value to those who read it now – and even more value later as a historical account. 

But more than anything, as we said before, the true value of creative writing is the enjoyment that you get from it.