What makes a good writing class?

“As for myself,” says Stephen King in his wonderful book On Writing, “I’m doubtful about writing classes, but not entirely against them.” What I want to insist on in this article is that writing classes – or seminars, or workshops, or writing circles, call ‘em what you will – can be
• Inspirational
• Motivational, and
• A spur to action and
that Mr King would do well to approach the subject a tad less sceptically.

Our experience as facilitators of such groups - both online and face to face - suggests that if a number of cautions are borne in mind, writers can derive real, practical value – and have one hell of a lot of fun as they go – from writing seminars. Whether you’re a writing instructor – or a writer contemplating the mountain of your first major writing project – these pointers can help.

Here are the cautions for face to face groups:

• Get the size of your group right. We’ve found that less than six is too small, more than twelve unmanageable.

• Make sure the individual members of the group are more or less on the same rung of the skills level.

• Get the composition of the group right. A good mix makes for the best and most productive discussions. One recent group we guided featured a talk show host, a dedicated environmentalist, an IT entrepreneur, a midwife and a publisher. Each was in the process of writing a book – both fiction and non-fiction – or on the brink of starting.

The same cautions don’t apply to online groups. Interactive groups, with discussion forums and contact and feedback with facilitators, can work well with any number of people, all at different skill levels - and from different sides of the earth. (Isn’t nature wonderful!)

And here’s what great workshops, whether online or face to face, should do:

• Workshops should provide solid intellectual stimulation. Something for the participants to get their teeth into. Something designed to be useful to them in the writing process. Something practical. How to choose the most appropriate point of view. The nuts and bolts of creating memorable characters. How to structure scenes. How to add steel and fibre to avoid a sagging middle.

• Workshops should be structured around a series of challenging writing exercises. Challenging, that is, but not so hard as to be intimidating. Exercises need to be fun. People should be dying to try them. They enable wannabe writers to apply their new skills to the sort of problems they’ll face as they drive their projects forward. (And, in our experience, they love doing them!)

• Participants should work in an atmosphere of creative freedom, where they are encouraged to share their problems and their achievements.

Finally, what we’ve learned is that a relaxed but focused approach yields the greatest results. And nothing helps that as much as a bottle of soft red wine to wind up the evening. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a universal truth, but it’s worked for us. And perhaps that’s why Stephen King’s a little jaundiced. He’s on the wagon, poor sod.

That’s the only difference between face to face and online courses. There’s no cyber-wine. (Of course, there’s nothing stopping you opening your own wee bottle and toasting us somewhere out there, wherever you are. For the rest though, our online courses have the same advice, which we try to present in the same personal style, sharing our experiences and the mistakes we’ve made along the way. We hope participants will get to know us through our various courses, and feel they’re in conversation with us. We give feedback and interaction, just as we would to our face to face groups, and participants can get to know their fellow writers and share problems and experiences.

Richard Beynon and Jo-Anne Richards run online romance writing courses on allaboutlove.net and face-to-face writing courses in Johannesburg.

Read On Writing by Stephen King