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

4.7
stars
4,791 ratings

About the Course

In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to perhaps the most elemental and often the most challenging element of story: plot. We will learn what keeps it moving, how it manipulates our feelings, expectations, and desires. We will examine the choices storytellers make to snag our imaginations, drag them into a fictional world, and keep them there. We will learn how to outline and structure a plot, discuss narrative arc, pacing and reversals and reveal the inevitable surprise: connecting the beginning, middle and end....

Top reviews

DA

Nov 30, 2016

Great course to take as the first step in the sequence of the "Creative Writing" certification. Exercises are fun, professor provides useful methodology, load is manageable for someone with a day job.

LB

Nov 15, 2018

Great information about plot and scene structure. The information about revision was entirely new to me - thank you! The exercises were good and difficult in a good way that helped me hone my writing.

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1351 - 1375 of 1,619 Reviews for Creative Writing: The Craft of Plot

By ANGEL Y S V

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Jul 28, 2020

Sé que no debería ser así y las personas que tomamos este curso ya estamos grandes, pero muchos no hacen las correcciones y observaciones pertinentes: simplemente dicen cosas como "Sí", "Bien", "¿Por qué no?" y nos dejan sin una retroalimentación correcta. Dejando eso de lado, excelente curso.

By LaShaunda C

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May 13, 2019

It filled in a few of the blanks that I felt I was missing. I was able to collect resourceful notes to help throughout writing my first epic urban fantasy fiction novel book series and I recommend this course to anyone that wants to learn just a bit more about Plotting in Creative Writing.

By Amanda L P

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Aug 26, 2020

I learned quite a bit, as this is my first creative writing course. I was able to get some hands on practice and peer feedback...4 only though because i found some of the peer reviews to be lacking (one word, no feedback) the course should have some sort of panel to rate these as well

By Catherine S

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Aug 24, 2023

Sad to see that the peer reviews aren't always well done. People don't read, write any comment, and it makes me feel like this program isn't very serious. I'm giving it another chance, but I don't think I'll continue (A private creative class seems more useful for my wants and needs)

By Aly A

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Oct 22, 2022

A enjoyable course with easy to follow videos and the interviewers were knowledgable to learn from.

One critique would be the reviews by others. Some simply acknowledged reading the story without providing any feedback, which is unfortuante. Can there not be any vetting process?

By Shreshta B S

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Jun 21, 2020

It's good, one understands how should a story start and progress to make a reader indulge and enjoy the reading. The structures and advices drastically improves one's writing abilities, in fact your change in the way you write can be noticed between your first and last assignment.

By Miguel B

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Jul 6, 2017

Excellent content and course design. Mr Skyhorse material and his personal touch make it informative and throughly enjoying to have this very first incursion in the writing world.

The several technical issues with the app subtract a star from the otherwise excellent course

By Anna B E

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Oct 11, 2020

I found the course interesting. Half of the work is reviewing other students writings but not everyone is taking this part seriously. I only had 1 review done correctly, the other 11 where useless with short answers to the questions as "yes", "no", ".", "good", "like".

By Anwesha N

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Aug 5, 2020

The course instruction was superb. Assignments really helped us push our limits. The only complain I have is the discussion forum. It hardly offered any good discussion. All were about assignment reviews. The Week 4 assignment reviews+submissions were the best ones.

By Abhishek T

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Jul 17, 2018

Gives an idea of structure.

Assignments provide challenging and restrictive setups that compel creative forces to find their rhythm in all scenarios.

Feedback is really morale boosting as well as useful critique, some angles come up that the author never looked into.

By Michelle Y

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Dec 21, 2020

An easy-to-follow course that is great for anyone, whether you're a beginner or experienced and in need for revisiting the fundamentals of creative writing. I especially enjoyed listening to the interviews of other authors and hearing their advice for this craft.

By April W

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Jan 12, 2022

The course was very helpful.

One HUGE problem: I was given a certificate without having an opportunity to review notes from my final submission where we asked for specific feedback. If that is Coursera's policy for how things work, I find it very troubling.

By Sophie S

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Aug 18, 2018

I really liked the writing exercises...they were a good challenge and the peer review was a great feature....I didn't find the videos extremely helpful though. There were a couple good ideas in them, but overall not too interesting for an experienced writer.

By Michael H

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May 24, 2016

A good introductory course to the craft of plot. Covers the basics, though I would appreciate some more complex assignments. Perhaps offer some more advanced course in the future? Maybe an advanced fiction specialization? Either way, good introductory course.

By Faith

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Nov 10, 2017

I really enjoyed this course. It re-freshed a lot of my knowledge on the writing process/vocabulary while challenging me to write in a new way. Sharing my writing with peers and learning to give thoughtful, helpful feedback was also a great learning tool!

By Scott M

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May 21, 2020

Interviews were well done. Reviewing the work of other students was marginally useful. Many students would have benefited from grammar and spelling check as mistakes in those elements were distracting. This might be that English is a second language.

By abrar a

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Mar 11, 2018

I loved the course as it got me back to writing with agenda and a goal. the words limit was a good challenge and the time to fit in the deadline were a bit difficult as I work full time on demanding job.. but i truly enjoyed the course and the lectures

By John F

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Nov 19, 2020

The instructors offered good insights and perspectives on plot-making. However, I didn't like the peer reviews since some students were strict with the instructions and didn't leave room for artistic creativity, which I often employ in my exercises.

By Emma H

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Oct 1, 2021

This course is great and has definitely helped with my confidence - the only downside is the peer review system doesn't work when you get a lazy reviewer who only 'oks' everything - other than that it is really good and I would highly recommend!

By Catherine B

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Feb 21, 2018

This is a well-structured and engaging set of videos and writing exercises that serves as a great introduction to the basic practice of writing fiction. The assignments were challenging but fun and increased my confidence in being able to write.

By Kirsty R

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Oct 24, 2019

This course has been really helpful in thinking about the way I shape my stories and my narratives. Easy to follow lectures and relevant assignments, it is definitely a useful tool for those of us who are looking to improve our writing skills.

By Laura D

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Jan 10, 2020

Good course, I enjoyed it. Would have liked to have seen more reading with the class that illustrated more of the concepts. Also, the concept of "rising action" was not sufficiently explained and one of the assignments was a little lame.

By James B

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Mar 15, 2016

It's a good course. The explanations of plot and scene have made me understand for the first time what writing fiction is all about, and for the first time I was bale to write fiction that is better than anything I had ever written before.

By Eric W

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Oct 8, 2020

While Peer Review is a great tool, and for the most part is implemented well in this course, it would also be nice if at least one assignment received instructor feedback of some kind. Otherwise, the class was very helpful and concise!

By Dominique S

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Apr 26, 2019

This was a decent class. There was a lot of interviews with other writers which I felt took up a lot of the class and was a little unhelpful. But it was a pretty decent class. I learned from it the sequence of what belongs in a scene.