Free Writing Classes

Online & Internet Courses in How to Write

Free writing classes give instruction on composing either poetry or prose and help to sharpen your writing composition skills, no matter what level of writer you are. Whether you need to improve your grammar and vocabulary or you need a few pointers before you start work on your first novel, you can find free online writing courses that improve your talents as a wordsmith.

Online Writing Courses for Free

Below are just a few of the writing course work you can find on the Internet to help sharpen your skills as a poet, an author, or a short story writer. Not only do you learn the writing basics, but you'll learn techniques for improving your observation skills, tricks for spurring creativity, and issues that other writers have faced.

Start Writing Fiction is the name of a 12-hour course from Open University which covers the basic genres of literature, along with the instruction on how authors create their characters and writers pick their stories' settings.

Writing Poetry introduces a writer to the techniques used to write both traditional poetic verse and free verse. Discussions include how to develop ideas in poetic form, while unlocking the power of the imagination. This is a 12-hour introductory course.

Writing What You Know helps young writers develop different ways of perceiving the world, ultimately teaching how to perceive and describe the world around you in a literary way. William Shakespeare once wrote that he had "looked on truth askance and strangely" and developing the author's eye for detail may have been some small part of what he was talking about. On a similar note, this course teaches writers how to use their own experiences in their writing.

Approaching Prose Fiction is more about reading than it is writing. But any good author receives inspiration and even instruction from other authors' writing they read, so this is an important skill to learn for an aspiring writer. This 8-hour course teaches what how to read analytically, picking apart words and sentences and drawing out more from your reading selections than you otherwise would.

Writing and Humanistic Studies is a course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about how writers tackle the subjects of ethical issues and social issues. This would be a good course for both journalists and literary authors, but the subject focuses on prose writing for literature.

Free Reading and Writing Instruction

Have you ever started reading short stories in your literature or English classes and felt you were missing the point? The free online college course Writing and Reading Short Stories gives you instruction on how to read short fiction and includes workshops to help you hone your writing craft. Included in the reading materials are a number of short stories to help you master the art of reading, along with essays by writers about their writing insights.

Writing Classes at No Charge

Any person who loves to read and has favorite authors has thought about becoming an author or poet at one time or another, but the fact is, writing is hard work. You have to hone your skills writing without forgetting the basics of grammar and composition. So however much you've written and whatever level of education you've attained, it helps to take a few free writing classes.