The tutors of official qualifications have that tendency that nothing is right but what they like. I did the DipLCW course in OU and chose modules to lessen the effects of this tendency, being Children's Literature (because it's so much more loosely defined and constricted by definition, covering the ground from Peter Rabbit through Little Women and fantasy to Manga, crowned off by a stage 2 Creative Writing Course. People who knuckle under for high marks become good little robots. People who ignore the tutor's tastes are marked down where they can be.
This seems discouraging, but there is a lot of valuable information to be picked up on how to round your writing by infusing all the senses etc and insight into how publishers work and why. And you get to put letters after your name. You can always shake off the pithy habits later. I say go for it while the courses are still affordable - and there's another consideration.

Or, if you're not concerned with the quals - I'd recommend The Writers' Bureau course. You can take your time with this. They're not as worried about scheduling. AND they have excellent tutors who are actually working writers. It takes you through ALL the aspects of writing on YOUR OWN terms without lecturing you on free writing, clusters and the like. They professionally review your work as an individual and give pointers, not edicts.
They have you do practical stuff all the way through and, if you have not earned the fee back by the end of the course and can produce minimal evidence of publishing attempts, they will refund the fee (at least they did in 2002). That was not a gimmick. Unfortunately I had cause to use this clause. I was just chancing my arm, since I was satisfied by what I had learned, but I got the cheque.
I hope this has been helpful, Tony.

aj - first up let me say I'm not a big fan of creative writing courses but that's just because I strongly believe that you need a modicum of talent and a huge dollop of practising to improve as a writer. There are so many great websites (like this one) which offer advice about writing that really, I can't understand why creative writing courses are still popular.

Secondly, I just read your latest upload 'Robot'. What are you thinking of man? You don't need a writing course - that is a brilliant short story. I laughed out loud at the end when the paper plate fell off. You did a fantastic job of keeping the narrative going at a good pace, the characters are superb, the dialogue spot on and the story amusing. Add to that your use of language and hey presto - you have it all, in my opinion.

Don't waste your money. Get more active on this site - do free wills and ask for others in return, read everything in the Top Ten and ask yourself, 'why does that work?' and read, read, read. And don't forget - re-read your own stuff frequently - you will always find something to change and that will undoubtedly improve the piece each time you do it.

As far as 'Robot' goes, my advice is - get it reviewed and don't remove the lowest one until you have around 9 or 10 reviews (if you must remove at all). It's really refreshing to have a man's view on parenthood and I really thought you handled the male tendency to be competitive in every aspect of life (usually) superbly.

Good luck with it.

Safia

Follow your bliss

Look, he's sitting there with the LCW 2011 Flash Fiction Prize. He knows I don't think he needs any course, but he asked. So I answered to the best of my ability.
As you know, Tony - good luck and keep it up. Er... you know what I mean.

Why consider courses rather than just staying on here? Because "here" is populist.

This sort of support and guidance is, as you all say, the main strength of this site. You're all stars and if I thought my work was only ever going to be reviewed by users as thorough and well-intentioned and generous (with advice, not praise necessarily) as the folk on this thread, then I would happily use YWO to learn everything there is to learn.

However, without labouring the point (and I know there's a lively thread on this elsewhere at the minute) there is a tendency among some reviewers here to tell you 'how they would have written it'. On occasion that can be useful, but on my low-key story 'An Encounter', I was advised variously by reviewers here to make one of the characters an angel / a werewolf / a ghost / a murderer / a future murder victim. I really struggle to take anything from those reviews.

So I'm minded to explore more formal tuition and feedback as I believe (possibly wrongly, that's the point of the thread) that my work will be assessed more objectively and - dare I say it - professionally. I am absolutely certain I am making "mistakes" which could be easily prevented. I'm not really a "rules" type of guy, but there are governing principles to this writing malarkey which you ignore at your peril.

An example - I read (and I don't even know where) that you should never start a story with a character waking up, and NEVER have your MC look in the mirror and indulge in a spot of soul-searching. I had just finished a story which featured both those things! As a result I felt a little uneducated, and it dented my confidence.

And confidence is a big part of this - it's not necessarily about receiving validation, it's about 'will you feel better equipped and more confident in your writing having done one of these courses?' If the answer to that is 'yes' (and I don't know yet if it is) then I think a formal course would be worth it.


PS Thanks for the kind words, Safia. It would delight me to think that my instincts are sound, but of course that's certainly not to say that I don't have a LOT to learn. My story, 'An Encounter' - as improved by YWOers - is available in this anthology:

Speech Bubble Magazine Best Of Issues 1, 2 & 3 ebook

Yet another good point Caz (there isn't an ounce of fat on this thread: so refreshing) - is there a risk that structured learning will de-fun writing for me? It has to be a consideration.

I appeared on "TV's toughest quiz", Mastermind, a few years ago and my specialist subject was the country rock pioneer Gram Parsons. Now I defer to no one in my love for GP but I found once I had to STUDY him intensively - learn the names of album producers, read album liner notes over and over, trawl the internet for info, read biographies - it kind of spoiled him for me. Now when one of his songs comes on my iPod, I think about who wrote it, where it was recorded, who played steel guitar on it etc etc. I seem to have lost the simple capacity to enjoy the actual music.

And there's no point becoming a better writer if in the process you lose your enthusiasm for writing. Or worse - your enthusiasm for reading (and mine took some time to recover after completing my English degree). That's clearly too high a price to pay.

You know what? I can generally pick the right option for myself out of four, ten, a hundred that are available. but when it comes to a choice of two, a binary decision - do a course or don't - I seize up!!!!!!!! My story, 'An Encounter' - as improved by YWOers - is available in this anthology:

Speech Bubble Magazine Best Of Issues 1, 2 & 3 ebook