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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Creative Writing: The Craft of Character by Wesleyan University

4.5
stars
1,899 ratings

About the Course

At the center of a good story are the characters in it. In this course aspiring writers will discover how to build and bring to life complex, vivid and unforgettable characters. We will study the choices a writer makes to bring all characters to life on the page, and we will perform written exercises in order to develop a variety of writing and pre-writing techniques, in order to create a variety of characters. We will learn how to use our own life experiences, and the people we know (and how not to!). We will develop inner (thoughts and feelings) and outer (appearance, habits, behavior) lives for our characters and see how that can lead us to richer and more interesting stories. We will breathe life into our characters and let them surprise us....

Top reviews

SS

Aug 10, 2016

I loved this course! Extremely useful and hands on. The course instructor was really impressive, both informative and empathetic, both arty and to the point. Totally admired her style of instruction.

NM

Sep 25, 2020

The course was very well-structured and challenging. The instructor is very experienced and good, thus used relevant materials for this course, be it the guests, or the assignments, or the examples.

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401 - 425 of 569 Reviews for Creative Writing: The Craft of Character

By Yunus Ç

Jul 27, 2020

thx for all

By AnhPHBHS170129

Oct 5, 2022

very good

By Molly G

Jul 9, 2018

Brilliant!

By Patricia R

May 16, 2017

excellent!

By Lily

Jan 25, 2017

very great

By Daniel C

Dec 15, 2016

Excellent.

By Iris R

Jun 28, 2016

Thank you.

By Lilyasa T

Nov 5, 2024

thank you

By ISHIKA P

Oct 20, 2024

very easy

By Deleted A

Jul 19, 2022

Very Good

By Le D V ( H

Feb 18, 2022

rat tuyet

By Carlos L H

Jul 21, 2018

A vibrant

By Mahdi G

Oct 9, 2022

Perfect

By Narmeen H

Jan 25, 2022

AWOESOME

By Elisa G A F

Oct 21, 2020

Awesome!

By Viktoryia

Mar 29, 2017

Amazing!

By Hawraa A

Nov 28, 2021

amazing

By Diego R

Sep 17, 2020

Great!

By Xuan T

Sep 19, 2024

good

By Nguyen T T M

Apr 12, 2024

ok

By John M

Oct 6, 2016

Typically writing courses deal with either the business of writing, or the pretentious art and literature side of writing. Almost nobody deals with the science of writing. Where is the talk on motivational arrows? Character likabilities like being unrelenting? Where is the meta-analysis of good techniques in writing? meta-data is the future of defining the science of writing, but it's not mentioned here even slightly. What about will he/won't he moments? Backstory interacting and being relevant to the plot? What about fish out of water? This course doesn't even touch upon foundational pillars and tenets that make good writing. I couldn't imagine paying for this course, since I've already paid too much with my time. As it stands, I could have taught a better course than this, and maybe some day I'll be so fortunate as to move writing studies in the right direction, towards the truth that older generation teachers are unwilling to accept: that good writing is empirical, and therefore can be learned.

By Drea H

Oct 21, 2020

I really liked the contents and assignments of the course. It helped me improve my writing. Nevertheless, I think the way peer review is applied in this course needs to be reconsidered. Some people don't seem to take this very seriously or would need more examples of what helpful critiquing is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, this means one doesn't learn much from peer's feedback as quite a few people write just “good” instead of giving real feedback. It's not okay to be able to get a certificate if people don't really do the work that is necessary getting it. Also, it's quite a bummer if you have invested time to write a detailed feedback for someone and get “good” back.

By Lyn S

May 17, 2020

I am ok with everything about this course EXCEPT that I have had to critique pieces written in Spanish and just got my first "my submission" comments in Spanish--my name is not Hispanic and this should not have happened. And although I've tried very hard to be tolerant and supportive, some of the non-English as first language speakers are writing pieces that are barely passable as English. I got the feeling that first-language English speakers were a minority in this and other Creative Writing Block courses I've taken on Coursera.

Lyn Sedwick Shuster, lasmd925@aol.com

By Sophie S

Aug 6, 2018

I didn't love the videos in this course very much – they just weren't very helpful. They had some interesting thoughts, but for the most part they felt repetitive and for someone who hasn't written much creative writing.

However, I really liked the assignments and peer editing. This course challenged me to create characters I wouldn't have otherwise, and made me think more about how the heart of a story is really in the character's hands. I got a lot more out of challenging myself with the assignments and getting surprising feedback than watching the videos.

By Abdelkader A K

May 23, 2020

I am deeply grateful for Coursera, as they approved my financial aid request for this one. This is why I am being kind of generous with the rating. Unfortunately, the course did not live up to my expectations. In comparison to the Craft of Plot, this course spoke very vaguely and did not use other well-known books to elaborate on the ideas. I was also expecting we delve into the types of characters in this one: round, flat, etc. and get to know how to use and create such characters.

Nevertheless, I thank Ms. Amy for her efforts and experience put into it.