Online writing courses provide flexibility.
Creative writing lends itself very well to the medium of the Internet. You can take undergraduate or graduate degree programs or nondegree programs online, and you can join online writing groups that connect you to other writers anywhere in the world. You can also start a website or blog to share your writing and gain feedback. It requires considerable discipline to complete coursework independently or to create a website with worthwhile content, but it's a terrific way to develop you creative writing, especially if your geographic location does not offer easy access to schools and writing groups.
Instructions
Do Creative Writing Courses Online
1. Inventory your writing skills and experience and determine what you need to learn. Starting from scratch requires one type of course. If you have years of experience and just need coaching, a more advanced course may be suitable.
2. Decide what kind of course you want. As yourself if you want a degree or a non-degree course. Assess how much time you have to devote to the reading and writing assignments.
3. Determine your budget. There is online creative writing education priced from free into the thousands. There are major universities offering free courses, but keep in mind that these are usually at the beginner level and don't include instructor feedback.
4. Find a provider of the type of online creative writing course you want. When you evaluate its quality, look at the profile of the institution and the instructors. Gauge how much feedback you will get from the tutor, and how often, if any.
5. Perform an Internet search on comments and see if certain teachers or institutes have gotten good or poor reviews. When you're satisfied, download or follow the course, if free. Apply to the institution with any existing writing samples, if applicable.
Get Tips and Information or Join Writing Groups
6. Perform an online search. Use combinations of specific key words to find what you're looking for. For example: "fiction + characterization" or "poetry + imagery." You may find online writing groups, or online writing discussion forums on sites such as Writing.com or Writing.ie. These sites also offer tips and advice.
7. Vet the website to determine the quality of the information, advice and writing groups. Use criteria such as the qualifications of the person or persons giving advice. Make sure they offer examples. Be clear in your own mind if the information makes sense to you and is actionable.
8. Incorporate tips and advice into your writing. Some sites offer free creative writing exercises. Use these to work on your writing. If joining one of the site's groups, be clear up front about the format of the group and how often you have to read others' works.
Start Your Own Website
9. Determine the content of your site. You may post only fiction, poetry, literary criticism or a combination of all of these. Websites can have multiple pages, so you could showcase different types of work on each page. Since this is your website, you are free to choose. At this point, also think about how often you will be posting content to your site. Examples are rarely, weekly or daily.
10. Choose a host for your site. Options include Wordpress, Blogger, Posterous and many more. These types of "blog" sites are free. If you have technical knowledge you may choose to design your own website and have it hosted on a remote server. The server hosting will incur a fee.
11. Design your site. Even if you are choosing a hosted site where all you have to do is configure colors and pages, this will take some time so plan for it.
12. Post your content to the site. Keep in mind that some text editors may skew the formatting of text pasted from Microsoft Word documents. For poems with irregular spacing and indentations, you may have to paste them into the text editor and add formatting by hand, line by line.
13. Advertise your content or it may not get read. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon and others may help you in your quest to gain a readership. Also share your news with writer communities who may share your interests.
