Creative Writing Program
Learn How To Write A Great Story
Online lessons with private instructor and personal critiques.
This program is designed to develop your unique writing talents, whether you’re interested in short stories or novels, fiction or non-fiction, or writing for children. Finally, you can write that book to boost your business and showcase your expertise. Or you can write your memoir for future generations. Or perhaps you’ve been considering writing a mystery novel. Often, getting started is the hardest part. During this program, not only will you get started but you can be well on your way to getting it done!
Discover new techniques to enhance your creativity and fine-tune your writing skills. Develop believable characters, create realistic dialogue, and add impact with sensory writing to all your work. You’ll create several pieces of writing throughout the program, which will receive personal critiques from Susan.
Over the course of the program, you’ll receive:
- A new lesson each week (see outline below) with handouts, audio instruction, and transcript.
- A weekly quiz to help improve your writing skills.
- Exercises to enhance your writing style.
- A weekly assignment of 500 words each.
- One larger writing assignment of up to 1,500 words.
- Weekly reviews/honest critiques of all writing assignments.
- Reference list for your Writer’s Library.
- Private weekly 20-minute check in calls with Susan (by phone or Zoom) to address your questions.
- Email support as needed.
- 52 writing prompts to keep the momentum going for the next year.
To register, let’s talk today!
The curriculum for this program has been taken from the content I created for my Creative Writing students in the Continuing Education Department at Fanshawe College, London, Ontario.
Week One: Jumping In
What are your writing goals? We’ll start by discussing writing habits, types of writing, and how to find ideas, and store them.
Week Two: Creating Believable Characters
No matter what kinds of stories or articles you write, more than likely they will contain people or characters. You’ll learn to describe a person so clearly that anyone could easily recognize him or her in a crowded room.
Week Three: Setting & Plot
A story must have more than a convincing central character; it must have a character with a problem to solve. Conflict makes your reader wonder what will happen next.
Discover the “Twelve Point Process for Plotting” and how to “make sense of your senses.”
Week Four: Viewpoint & Dialogue
Your story can be written from various points of view. Learn various techniques to give your story a different feel. And we’ll make your characters come alive with realistic dialogue.
Week Five: Moving from Scene to Scene
This week we talk about tips for using effective transitions and flashbacks. A transition connects one scene to another, helping the reader make a change in time, place, or mood.
the ,Week Six: Short Stories vs. Novels & Writing for Children
The difference between a story idea and a book-length idea is the scope of the main character’s problem. Scope is also the deciding factor in determining whether an idea is suitable for an article or a non-fiction book. Find your voice for children and learn about the various word lengths acceptable depending on the age category.
Week Seven: Editing Your Work
Revise, revise, revise! Have you written a story or just an incident? We’ll fine-tune your work to get rid of clichés, eliminate weedy words and weak modifiers, and learn to recognize common errors.
Week Eight: Creativity in All Your Writing
From creating titles to writing a dynamic lead, you’ll learn how to hook readers quickly to keep them reading. Plus, we’ll work on creating catchy titles to grab the readers’ attention.
Week Nine: Marketing Your Manuscript
The business of writing: Learn how to prepare your manuscript for submission and how to find a publisher. Should you query? What is a story synopsis? Learn everything you need to know about submitting a manuscript, and then dealing with rejection – and what to expect when your manuscript is accepted! Or if you prefer to self-publish, options for doing so will be explored.
