Creative Writing Courses c.£5k - worth the money?

[WritingFreeStyle]

Hello fellow writers

There appears to be lots of on-line services aimed at aspiring authors (a bewildering array of short courses, coaching and mentoring; editing services and the full monty, the one year creative writing course). The latter promising to accompany you through all stages from starting a novel to getting it published.

The downside being the fees - I've looked at both Novelry and Jericho Writers - both around £5k. That represents a lot of money for what is effectively a gamble as of course, no one can guarantee publication as a 100% outcome. Does anyone have any experience of these? And in your view are they worth the money?

The workshop sounds interesting - is it an online workshop? Can you post a link?

Unfortunately it's local to me. If you are near Cambridge you can join us! They do run a retreat in may but they like to keep the group fairly small so will generally tailor sessions dates to suit as many as we can. The two ladies who run it, are both published with multiple novels and teach masters in writing.

Too far for me to come but please post a link if they ever move it online!

I am with the novelry. I think they only submit 3 writers a month to agents which isn't that many considering how many students they have. The course is good and there is a great community but it definitely isn't a guaranteed way to get published. Far from it unfortunately.

I am going to find out about a CW MA/PhD in June. It's at a local university which has a good reputation. I have no idea of fees but I am experienced at writing on my own (non-fiction, fiction, poetry, plays written and performed by a community theatre group) and have just lost my Beta reader, my DH (whose own unfinished work I wish to finish for him). I feel the need of people of like mind I can talk to, compare notes with and get constructive criticism from (not available from family and friends, sadly). I have been on various courses, but life got in the way and now (sadly) I have time to devote to such a course. The advice to 'read, read, read' is useful in a way but not helpful if you also want to learn how to negotiate publicity if you are an indie publisher, or how to gain the interest of agents or publishers. What do others think?

I just had a look through creative writing MA's, average fee seems to be £9k a year, with Open University about half that.

I'm at the stage many of you on the thread are at. I wrote a 70k word book about 6 years ago and then failed to get an agent. I'm not surprised as I had no idea about plotting, structure or pace. I can write a well-turned sentence or paragraph but the bigger picture eludes me. I have read up on structure etc since then but haven't started another novel.

At the moment I'm doing short stories, and submitting them to NYC Midnight competitions. They are relatively expensive but I've found the feedback they give constructive and detailed, which is more than worth the £40 or so. I'd like something like that, but more ongoing - I look at some of the creative writing courses and my heart drops at all the video modules and writing prompts that you then discuss with the other students. I want to write, and have feedback from someone who knows what they are talking about, not 'peer feedback' in a forum.

I like the idea of a mentor or preferably range of mentors, as you can't go by just one person's opinions.

A year doing an MA sounds wonderful whatever the outcome. I don’t know how good they would be on marketing etc as that seems to be fast changing. There are whole events geared towards self publishing now. But an ma to help you write sounds great.

I doubt the £5k courses are worth the money and of course they are no guarantee of publication.

I can, however, recommend the Jericho Self Edit Your Novel course. It's far cheaper and you learn loads. It has a good success rate in terms of people subsequently getting published, too. I haven't (and have got bored of trying though I think I am publishable now - just not got a polished up agent submission package) but I personally know quite a few people who have done that course and subsequently got published.