BEST Online Writing Courses for Creative, Fiction, and Nonfiction Writers
1) Secret Sauce of Great Writing
Secret Sauce of Great Writing is a course designed by Shani Raja. This course will teach you the four main concepts of good writing: Simplicity, Clarity, Elegance, and Evocativeness. It will also help you learn how to add those ingredients skillfully.
At the end of this online writing course, you will have a good grasp of how professional writers create powerful and beautiful prose. In this online writing course, you can quickly identify your writing weaknesses, understand the principles, and fix and improve it significantly.
Key topics:
- The Secret Sauce of Flair
- The Four Crucial Ingredients
- How I Discovered the Sauce
- The Power of Simplicity
- Simplicity Exercises
- The Power of Clarity
- Clarity Exercises
- The Power of Elegance
- Elegance Exercises
- The Power of Evocativeness
- Evocativeness Exercises
Features:
- Online video content
- Instructor Q&A
- Instructor direct message
Pricing: Free
Rating: 4.6
Duration: 41 minutes of on-demand video
Provider: Udemy
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Level: Intermediate
Link: https://www.udemy.com/course/secret-sauce-of-great-writing/
2) Writing with Impact
This course shows how to give your writing more impact, regardless of its purpose. In this course, the writer and journalist Tom Geller help you find your reasons for writing with the demonstration. The writer also gives you training about how you can use those reasons to drive the words you select and the tone you take.
The author of this course also shares his understanding of grammar and sentence structure for writing with maximum impact. After completing this free online writing course, you will be equipped with plenty of practical writing tips to make your writing clear and crisp.
Key topics:
- Meaning of writing with impact
- Learning about your Readers
- Understanding How People Read
- Write Short, Clear, and Right
Features:
- Helps you qualify for continuing education units.
- Chapter quizzes.
- Professional author instructor.
- Certificate on completion.
Duration: 1-hour on-demand video
Provider: LinkedIn
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Level: Intermediate
Link: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/writing-with-impact
3) Essay Essentials: Improve Your Academic Writing
Improve your Academic writing is a video course that helps you learn to learn how to write essay. This free writer’s course will help you find the essay writing success you deserve by learning essay writing foundations.
Key topics:
- How the writing situation, process, and classroom resources.
- Brainstorm to create and use ideas that help you to develop the essay.
- Develop and structure introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
- Write a clear, specific, and well-connected thesis.
- Understand the organization of essay paragraphs.
- How to create detailed, specific, and appropriate content.
- Proof-read spelling and grammatical errors using helpful rules and tips.
Features:
- Online video content
- Certificate of completion accredited by universities.
- Instructor Q&A
- Instructor direct message
Rating: 4.4
Duration: 1hr 14min of on-demand video
Provider: Udemy
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Link: https://www.udemy.com/course/essay-essentials-improve-your-academic-writing/
4) Craft Your Cover Letter
In this short course, you will learn to use proven writing techniques to show why you are the best person to do this job.
In these writing classes for beginners, you will also learn how to research company values, target your writing pitch, and develop an authentic story. It offers the research and writing tools you need to show why you are the best person for the specific job!
Key topics:
- Target your applications to specific opportunities.
- Students are able to understand the purpose of a cover letter.
- Write an effective introduction, body, and conclusion.
Features:
- Rich Learning Content
- Interactive Quizzes
- Instructor videos
- Learn by doing exercises.
- Taught by industry professionals.
Pricing: Free
Duration: Self-placed learning
Provider: Udacity
Certificate on Completion:
Level: Beginner
Link: https://www.udacity.com/course/craft-your-cover-letter–ud244
5) Creative Writing Specialization
This
Creating Writing specialization course covers three important elements of writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir.
In this course, you will master the techniques that any good writer uses to create a story full of memorable characters. This beginner’s writing workshop also helps you to analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. It is one of the best writing courses designed for anyone, from aspiring short story writers to established novelists.
Key Topics:
- The Craft of Plot
- The Craft of Character
- Setting and Description
- The Craft of Style
Features:
- Self-Paced learning option for students
- HD quality course videos
- Practice quizzes
- Graded assignments with peer feedback
- Quizzes with Feedback
- Programming assignments
Pricing: Free
Duration: Approximately 6 months to complete
Provider: Coursera
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Languages: English, Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Serbian, Chinese
Level: Beginner
Link: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/creative-writing
6) Writing Articles
Articles effectively communicate complex ideas and stories in a friendly, credible, and easy-to-follow way. In this writing course, you will learn how to write and publish an article of your own.
This free writing course explains how you can determine your writing approach, pitch your story to a publication, completely research your subject matter, and write and polish your article content. This course also discusses how you can submit a complete package to editors.
It is one of the best free online writing courses for new writers. It helps you to learn the skills you need to write a well-crafted article that connects with readers.
Key Topics:
- Determining Your Article Writing Approach
- Gathering Content for your Article
- Producing Your Article
- Polishing and Submitting Your Article
- Promoting Your work
Pricing: Free
Duration: Self-placed
Provider: LinkedIn
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Mobile apps: iOS and Android
Level: Beginner
Link:https://www.linkedin.com/learning/writing-articles-2
7) Start Writing Fiction
Start Writing Fiction is a course that helps you to create how to develop your ideas, which reflect on your writing and editing. This online writing class is intended for those interested in writing fiction or improving their fiction writing.
Key Topics:
- Creation of characters in fiction
- Different sources for characters in stories
- Ways of presenting characters in stories
- Reading as a writer
- Writing skill like creativity, research, observation, and editing
Features:
- It provides the freedom to keep access to any online course you’ve achieved a digital certificate of.
- It offers the flexibility to complete your choice of short courses in your own time within the year.
Rating: 4.7
Provider: Future learn
Link: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/start-writing-fiction
8) Write a Book!
Write a Book is an online writing course offered by Udemy. This course explains how to organize and begin writing a short story, novel, or nonfiction book with concepts similar for each form. This online course is ideal for someone looking to grasp the fundamentals of writing using the English language.
Key topics:
- Learn to write basics, like including punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, etc.
- Learn about advanced writing techniques.
- Learn to write short nonfiction books.
- The advanced dialog to draw the reader into your story.
- How to use MS PowerPoint to create a book cover.
- How to discover your writing style.
- Learn how to self-edit your book manuscript.
Features:
- 28 articles
- Full lifetime access for students
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of completion
Rating: 4.3
Duration: 17 hours of on-demand video
Provider: Udemy
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Link: https://www.udemy.com/course/writenow/
9) Writing Ad Copy
Writing Ad Copy is an online course that helps you create ad copy that effectively conveys your brand and drives traffic to convert clicks into sales. The course designer Michael Duquet also teaches you the rules for writing ads for different platforms.
The author of this course, Michael, explains how you can change your message and tone according to your target audience and customer personality.
In the last chapters, you will learn about some common dos and don’ts and explains about the future of advertising holds for copywriters.
Key topics:
- Rules of Ad Copy Writing
- Ad Copy Goals
- Writing Ad Copy for various media
- Understanding Your Audience
- Personas and Tone
- Do and Don’ts.
Pricing: Free
Duration: Self-placed
Provider: LinkedIn
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Mobile apps: iOS and Android
Level: Intermediate
Link: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/writing-ad-copy
10) Write A Feature Length Screenplay For Film Or Television
Write A Feature Length Screenplay For Film Or Television teaches you how to write a feature-length screenplay for film or television or web-series. In this screen playwriting course, you will also learn to break down the creative process into components. You will also discover a structured process that helps you produce a polished and pitch-ready script.
Completing this online course helps you to improve your confidence in your ideas and abilities. After learning this online course, you will feel prepared to pitch your first script and start with the next one.
Key Topics:
- Creating The Idea.
- Logline and Dramatic Question.
- Create your character profile.
- The Three Act Story Arc.
- Screenplay Formatting and Software.
- Begin your screenplay.
- Write the final section.
- Table read your entire script.
- Finishing things up.
Rating: 4.6
Pricing: Free
Duration: Approx. 93 hours to complete
Provider: Coursera
Mobile Compatible: Yes
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Mobile apps: iOS and Android
Level: Beginner
Link: https://www.coursera.org/learn/write-a-feature-length-screenplay-for-film-or-television#about
11) Online Creative Writing Classes
Skillshare is an online course platform that is focused on education. It includes various topics related to graphic design, data science, e-commerce, analytics, etc. This online course will expand your horizons to learn more about creative writing. You can try these online classes that teach about creative writing techniques, tools, and topics like character development, outlining, storytelling, creating a compelling plot, and how you can make your words more artful.
This course helps you to enhance and helps you to create character-driven stories with creative writing prompts. This online class is broken down into short lessons that include hands-on projects to complete and share.
Features:
- Learn creative writing in various genres like fiction, poetry, humor, etc.
- It helps you to find classes that are designed for real life.
- Get ideas for writing daily journals.
- Real creators teach the classes.
- You can learn from any device.
Link: https://www.skillshare.com/browse/creative-writing
12) Freelance Writing Courses
Udemy is an online platform that helps you create courses for business, writing, design, marketing, etc. You can develop new skills and achieve your goals by taking training and learning from the extensive library of various Udemy courses.
Udemy offers a wide range of writing courses. This freelance writing course can be viewed on all devices connected to the Internet. You do not require any prequalification to take this course.
Features:
- Understand different forms of writing styles and methods as per target audience.
- Learn best practices for Blog Writing.
- Learn how to do screenwriting to tell a compelling story.
- Develop methods that help you to stay productive as a writer.
Key Courses:
- Grant Writing for Nonprofits and Freelance Writers
- The Complete Freelance Writing Course
- How to Start a Freelance Writing Career
- The Complete Freelance Writing Online
- Freelance Copywriting: Write Dirty. Go Big
- How to Start Profitable Freelance Writing Business in 5 Weeks
Link: https://www.udemy.com/topic/freelance-writing/
13) English Writing Skills–Revised
English Writing skills is a free online English language course that will guide you through the most important English writing styles. It shows you how and when to apply each one verb and improve your knowledge about the correct usage of punctuation and grammar.
This online writing course helps you express yourself clearly and effectively in your writing. This online learning material also helps you fulfill your dream of becoming a professional writer or improving your English writing.
Key Topics:
- English Writing Skills
- English-Writing
- Story Writing
- Descriptive Writing
- Science Fiction, Nonfiction, Instructional, Opinionative
- Reflective Writing
Rating: 2.5
Pricing: Free
Duration: Self-placed
Provider: Alison
Mobile Compatible: Yes
Certificate on Completion: Yes
Mobile apps: iOS and Android
Level: Intermediate
Link: https://alison.com/course/english-writing-skills-revised
What are the Pros And Cons Of Online Writing Courses?
What is the best app for writing letters?
What can you expect from a Free Creative Writing Class?
