Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime
Friend sent me this link. They are offering their online classes for free until 31 May. No idea if they're any good. I'm going to take a look at the memoir class.
https://shewritesuniversity.com/free/
Comments
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses
Can the person running it see you, and do you have to interact?
Yes, I like Future Learn, heather. I might have a go at one.
I had never even heard of a webinar until I looked at the shewritesuniversity link. I haven't gone any further than identifying a course I might be interested in. I'm a little put off by the fact that a) they're gender discriminatory, and b) american. If it also means I have to directly interact via camera and microphone then that is a definite downside, especially given time differences.
I see that some of the teachers have written only one book, which in my opinion isn't enough qualification teach.
WEA have lots of free courses available at the moment. Those I've enrolled on are not video lessons. They're Zoom meetings,
What qualifications would be enough, in your opinion, GeraldQ?
I've written 5 books. I have an MA (with distinction) in writing. Does that give me the ability to teach? No, it doesn't. In fact I can teach one-to-one in my genre but it would not in my opinion qualify me to teach multiple people in a group who might all be writing in different genres and for different reasons. And it doesn't mean, even if I had experience doing that, that I could teach WELL.
However, I am pretty sure that there are people out there who have one book published who can teach because they are born teachers, inspirers and managers of groups.
I would dread being taught by someone if it was evident that they didn't know their stuff, or if they weren't inspirational. My favourite bit about teaching was seeing their little faces light up when they were fired up about a topic, or the penny dropping that moment of understanding.
I have joined several free courses over the last few weeks, and am enjoying them all bar one. There is one tutor I don't find inspiring, so I've dropped that course. It's great having the time to do courses. Not having to pay for once, is brill.
Writing one book isn't, in itself, automatically a qualification to teach writing. Most first novelists struggle a lot with a first book. If they've written it in multiple drafts over years, they may not even be sure how they actually did it. They may not yet have a process.
Sure, they can share some useful experiences, and the fact of being published means they are at a level where they can teach craft. I taught on an MA course where two other lecturers had written one published novel apiece, and while they were capable of teaching craft, they were hazy on structure and process (essential for writing a novel).
Students would ask how to plot or how to plan character arcs and these two lecturers would say something like "Oh, just go with the flow," or "It just comes together." Such comments are not helpful and students complained to me. They wanted to learn about plot movements and how to use chapters but these lecturers had written their own books haphazardly. It can be done, but it can't really be taught.
I think a good writing teacher is someone who has written at least two published novels, but who is also a person that is able to explain the process beyond the solely personal. It's important to understand the struggles writers go though as they try to understand narrative perspective, for example.
I started teaching professionally after having three novels published and two others completed. I'd had seven years of full-time teaching experience before that and I was also working as an agency journalist.
There are many excellent writers who are not good teachers because they can't explain their process or because they're too introverted to stand in front of a class. The ideal teacher is a professional writer with the mentality of a student.
Alas, professional writing pays so little that anyone with a published book is likely to look for opportunities to capitalise on that. The danger – I've seen it many times – is that it's too easy to write one or two books and live off them forever as a teacher. I believe a really good teacher is one who is always writing and always learning.
I recall one occasion when a very famous writer came to address our MA students. Each student was allowed to present the writer with 1000 words for a verbal critique. This professional writer told one of my students that their work was excellent, and while the prose itself was very good, the student's novel was chaotic and totally unpublishable. Of course, the famous writer didn't know that. The problem: this student subsequently became unsupportable and wouldn't listen to any lecturers because "so-and-so says my work is excellent." The student went on to hand in a deeply flawed novel that was never going to be published because it was really two disparate ideas wodged clumsily together.
There are absolutely tons and tons and tons online free courses available atm.