This was the first academic course I enrolled for creative writing and it did complete justice to what I expected to learn. The instructors are really good in explaining the concepts and they surely helped me to explore my imagination as well as writing skills. The assignments were challenging yet fun at the same time ! Overall a very detailed course for those who wish to indulge and improve their creative writing.

The course has helped me a lot in giving structure to my thoughts while putting them on paper. It is enlightening to understand how a narration can be interesting to a reader and to get to try the tested method by writers was a interesting experience. Mr. Brando Skyhorse is a great teacher, I love his examples which flowed with every explanation. In the end, the readers are intelligent, hence "show, don't tell".

This was a good primer for starting out with creative writing. I wish there was a better format for the peer grading of assignments. especially if someone needs to resubmit. Begging people to look at your work seems silly given that most of it is subjective. If people give a non passing review they should then get a notification to re-edit a reposted revision. Either way it was a stressful part of the course.

This was a great start to the creative writing specialization! The videos only took up about 30 minutes per week and most of the time was focused on writing and doing peer reviews. That was good in the sense that it didn't take up too much of my time and felt very do-able, but I think the course could benefit from some more instruction or learning content (even if it's not required). The instructor was great!

It's so great to be part of this course in Creative writing: The Craft of Plot. I appreciate Brando Skyhorse for sharing his knowledge and skill on how to write the plot. Its so exciting to know that I am honored to have an opportunity to listen to profound teachers an award winning novelists Amy B and Salvatore Scibona during their shop talk. Happy to have received a certificate from Wesleyan University.

This course was really informative and useful. I was surprised by how much I learned and how good is for advising writers-to-be. Before this course I had done one in another oganisation, and I can't believe how well this course is structred and how approchable it is. The lecturer was really good. I'm really happy with this course, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to dive deep into creative writing.

The content was broken down into manageable segments. The dialogue below the video was helpful for notetaking. The writing process and assignments were basic enough for a beginner, yet challenging. The word constraints on the assignments forced the writing to be crisp. Learning about the five point structure, scenes, and the twenty-one point review and editing process were all all great foundational tools.

The instructor really gives the nitty-gritty of how to write a plot that will intrigue readers. He explains what a plot is (and it may not be what you think! The assignment is much harder than it looks! Believe me, it took three days for me to get mine done, sign of a good assignment as I can typically write 250 words in a snap (this review for example!). If you want to write, this is a good beginning.

This was a great introductory course in creative writing. It taught me some of the techniques that authors use to construct a well-paced story that is interesting to the reader. The videos were interesting, particularly the "Shop Talk" segments with published authors, and the writing assignments were carefully constructed to force students to grapple with the concepts from the module in their writing.

Excellent course! Someone like me with zero skills in writing fiction/stories is now able to draft interesting stories by simply following the instructions in this course. The course is very well structured, good explanations, good examples, and very useful tips. Many thanks to course instructor and guest faculty. It was my dream to learn to write fiction. Am so gald I took this course, thank you!

I love how the course helps you come to understand developing a novel. I would say reviewing peers is difficult, because in some ways, your peers do the assignment, but they don't always do it correctly. I think if it is a one point assessment, then that should be based on completing the assignment. There should be opportunity to assign more points based on the quality of the assignment.

Before taking this course, I had no idea how stories were structured. Brandon Skyhorse is a wonderful professor who comes off as professional and knowledgeable. The videos are interesting, and I love it when he interviews actual writers and draws on his own personal writing experience. I am actually writing pieces whereas before I had all these ideas but no knowledge of how to express them!

I really enjoyed the course. It was perfect, not too much homework but enough. I like the videos as well, it gave me the feeling that I was in class. This was my first writing class and the course was great for a beginner like me. I know I still have a long ways to go but it is a start and I will be taking more classes since this one panned out and I learned some stuff. Thank you so much.

I have enjoyed this course very much. Now I feel confident that I can create a compelling plot in my stories. I also now understand what a scene is, which is very important. I can teach what I have learned, too. What is exciting is that I now feel energized to keep writing stories. Thank you so much for your approach, which I find caring and practical! Best to all writers/professors!

i loved this course! i didn't get to take any creative writing courses in college unfortunately so this was a great introduction to the craft. i felt that even as an inexperienced fiction writer, the content was clear and easy to follow and, at the same time, challenging and invigorating. my passion for writing has only increased, and i'm looking forward to the rest of the specialization!

I was not sure about this course at first, but I am so glad that I enrolled. Brando gives specific tips and ideas about how to write a story. He has made me realize that creative writing is not just about lofty ideas; writing can be improved and polished through approaching a story logically and methodically.

One of the best designed courses I have ever taken on Coursera. Thank you Brando!

I learned a lot about writing from this class. I took notes so that I can use what I learned in the future. I took the class to guage what my ability to sit down an actually write and this class confirmed my interest and that I will continue writing. I enjoyed the assignments and am going to take the next class in the specialization. Thank you Brando for the great video classes.

This course was excellent. Brando is an incredible teacher, passionate, engaging and knowledgable. I learned a tremendous amount about plotting it out from this class - in fact, one of the benefits I got is that some level of intimidation I had about building a plot was alleviated. The lectures, materials and exercises were all so useful and absolutely thought provoking. Thanks!

Really useful. At first, I thought it wasn't necessary to take a course because that would make you write like someone else and somehow lose your style. Far from it; at least this course doesn't try to change your style, but just offers guidelines you can really benefit from. I noticed a real improvement in my writing only by following the recommendations while keeping my essence.

I had great learning experience in this Creative Writing course. Acquired specific skills on story writing with emphasis on plot, scene, and the steps in creating an impressive story. Learnt the importance of Freytag's Pyramid and ABDCE model in creative writing. Assignment submission and peer feedback helped me improve my story writing competence. Excellent faculty. Great course.

Well presented lectures by Brando Skyhorse and useful assignments with prompts to make you exercise the writing concepts laid out throughout the course. This is the first time that I have done a Coursera course and I am pleasantly surprised with the results. Thank you Brando, and thank you Coursera for allowing me to improve my creating writing skills from the comfort of my home.

Very precise and instructive. Even if some parts of it may feel too simplistic and/or American (not every country has the same standards for storytelling and writing), the way the theory and the assignments are integrated are highly useful. Besides: it's good to start with the basics! I loved the challenges of writing under tight constraints, and evaluating other people's work.

Very useful course. Initially, I thought that lecture-wise it was very brief but actually it is very nicely condensed to the essentials that you need to write engaging stories and content. I have written 4 stories as part of each week assignments and have noticed an improvement in my writing and the feedback from other learners was quite good and constructive for the most part.

Very well put together course. Gave me great insight on plot but especially editing and revision. I was pretty directionless when it came to revising my own work and the last week of this course was a excellent eye-opener. I have a way better idea how and what I should be changing instead of just re-writing everything a bunch of times. Looking forward to the next course!

This course helped me so, SO, much! I am able to finish short stories that would have taken me years to complete. I highly recommend taking this course if your struggling trying to finish a story and having all the necessary components organized and distinguished. The assignments are intensive but are really, really helpful in helping you focus on the goal that's set.