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Writing & Literature courses in The Course Register: browse 101 active and 259 total continuing, professional, and extension Writing & Literature listings with start dates, tuition, enrollment status, format, and issuing-source links.
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This specialized course for editors provides students with a comprehensive overview of grammar to establish an effective foundational structure. Appropriate for those who want to become editors or seek to write for a living, this course provides innovative…
David Mamet said, “If you’re bored by a scene, so is your audience.” Every scene in a script serves a purpose. When they are character-driven, they keep us emotionally invested and engaged with the story. Individual scenes have a lot of moving pieces, from…
You have the dream—I've always wanted to write a children's picture book. But...how? This inspiring class offers you practical tools to help you realize that dream. It includes writing exercises, examples of current picture books, behind-the-scenes stories,…
Television storytelling is undergoing significant shifts in the early twenty-first century, but the basics of structuring satisfying narratives are rooted in human psychology and are timeless. This vigorous ten-week course exposes and explores the…
This class is primarily geared to writers who have never translated before or who are just getting started in the process. You should have a basic or working knowledge of another language, but you definitely need not be fluent or even a comfortable speaker.…
This course explores the unlimited possibilities of creative nonfiction, which embraces forms of creative writing such as personal essay, memoir, profiles and more. Working with the same techniques as fiction, including artful language choices, dialogue,…
Sometimes the best stories are true. To help you turn your personal experiences, anecdotes from everyday life and family stories into compelling narratives, this workshop teaches beginning writers the basic elements of good storytelling. You learn how to…
The short story, one of the most challenging of all literary forms, requires the precision and imagistic intensity of poetry combined with novelistic elements of structure, setting and characterization. This workshop helps you to realize your fictional…
Focusing on close textual analysis and intensive writing practice, you create two short stories and revise one in this ten-week workshop. Weekly lectures on technique, analysis of published stories and in-depth instructor, and peer critique develop and deepen…
It is said that all of us have locked inside at least one good story to tell. Through lectures on craft, short writing exercises, assignments and discussion, you learn how to tell yours. Topics include plot, point-of-view, setting, description, conflict,…
This dynamic and rigorous Master Class in Novel Writing is designed for those serious about revising and polishing their novels and getting published. The nine-month, 30-week structure allows for intensely individual instruction, peer critiques from a…
For students who have completed Novel IV, this intensive workshop is specifically directed toward refining an advanced manuscript into a polished novel. The focus is on structural and thematic aspects and the maintenance of the author's unique voice. You work…
For students with at least 100 pages of a novel, this advanced workshop focuses on elements of technique and vision necessary for a work to be considered complete. You receive intensive instructor and peer critiques of manuscript chapters and their relation…
For those with a minimum of 50 pages of a novel-in-progress, this workshop guides you to generate at least 50 new pages, as well as learn essential self-editing techniques with the instructor and peers reviewing each participant's project in detail.…
Armed with your overall concept and first chapter, you continue to develop your knowledge of craft by writing scenes using characters and situations from the projected novel and workshopping your in-progress work. Mini-lectures on the art of the novel,…
That novel is inside you waiting to emerge, but knowing how and where to start can be daunting. This course provides you with weekly assignments, group interaction and instructor feedback to help you explore various methods of writing your first novel while…
Do you aspire to write creatively but don't know where to start? This supportive workshop provides you with many techniques to motivate and guide you. You learn how to transform observation and personal experience into imaginative prose, create dynamic…
This six-week course is perfect for anyone just getting started on their path to being a writer. Students work in small breakout sessions with experienced writers and teachers, then attend a lecture by various guest speakers with expertise in fiction, poetry,…
The old adage "write what you know" too often negates the truth that a part of what we "know" is in our imagination. It is the blending of our personal experiences and what we can imagine that helps to create some of our most powerful narratives. In this…
You've lived, listened, seen, had a childhood--there's your raw material. Now it's a question of channeling and shaping that experience with the tools of literary craft. In this beginner's course, you explore the basics of the three major genres--fiction,…
One of the most misunderstood concepts in the craft of fiction writing is the relationship between character and conflict. A story can involve a complex character with fascinating thoughts, ideas and interests, but without a conflict that motivates the…
This is a reading and exercise-based class designed to explore and practice dialogue, voice and point-of-view in fiction and creative nonfiction. Each week, we read sample fiction and creative nonfiction to identify how the content is influenced by the…
Setting and description are foundational to a story and can support larger themes well—if done thoughtfully with fresh and vivid language, attention to detail, implication and perspective. They can, in effect, give one's characters a home or space to work…
Poets push language to the limits of its potential by forming words into sounds and images. In this workshop, you read examples from diverse contemporary poets as you learn how to craft images while avoiding clichés, employ simile and metaphor to enhance…
Romance novels generate just over one billion dollars in sales revenue annually in the United States. With online platforms allowing authors to learn to write better, find compatible publishers or publishing options and market the work product, there has…
This six-week course is perfect for anyone getting started on their path to becoming a screenwriter. Each class offers a broad-strokes introduction to a different writing format, which includes Feature Film, Television Specs and Television Pilots, as well as…
Understanding how Hollywood operates is crucial for any new screenwriter seeking agents and managers for representation. First, you must know the differences between the roles an agent plays versus a manager. Furthermore, differentiating between power agents,…
Great, funny, compelling dialogue is easier than you think. It comes when you focus on one single thing: your moral premise. There’s a vice and a virtue ready to argue with each other, and funny lines arrive when you see the strengths and weaknesses in your…
Join a panel of current TV showrunners, writers, and producers as they reveal their journey to a writing career and to creating, scripting, and running the popular TV series and describe their paths to success. Topics include writing on staff vs. freelance,…
This course focuses on the general trajectory of book publication from the launch of the book on, specifically the role of editor in the modern iterations of publishing. It covers the entire process, from a book being sold into the market to release, PR and…
Designed for both aspiring story analysts and screenwriters who want to accelerate their careers, this course helps you master the methods used by story analysts who evaluate submissions to production companies, agencies and studios. You learn how to do an…
Memorable stories are grounded by great characters. The core of who those characters are drive the story, but characters need to take action, and those actions need to ring true to their core as they move from one plot point to the next. Why is your character…
Animation is a fully creative universe without limits on sets, costumes, or special effects. All it takes is your imagination and the willingness to jump into a field friendly to new talent. This course guides you through the entire TV and Internet animation…
This workshop focuses on writing a solid draft of an original television pilot, whether half-hour or one-hour, building from an outline completed in the previous course. You begin by reworking and refining your story idea and outline as needed, addressing…
A new television show has exactly one shot at survival: its pilot episode. If the viewer isn't grabbed in the first hour, they're gone forever. But what is a pilot? How is it different from all other forms of screenwriting? What makes a good one work and a…
This workshop guides you to write a solid draft spec script from your half-hour comedy outline and move as far ahead as you can in polishing it. You begin by reworking your outline to simplify your story, nail down the essence of your characters, focus and…
Mirroring the process that professionals undergo in current episodic series production, this course guides you to write a solid first draft of your script of an existing series and work on polishing it. You begin by refining your story idea and outline as…
Dialogue may seem to be the easiest and most fun aspect of screenwriting (look at all those pages fly by, and with so much white space!), yet it's often the most difficult thing for the aspiring screenwriter to do well. Great dialogue is a vital vehicle for…
Modeled directly on how writers write in the real world of one-hour dramas, this course focuses on what is most central to creating a strong script as well as the largest piece (40 percent) of the writer's deal with any show: the story and outline. You learn…
This course teaches you how to create an airtight story and outline--the critical first step in writing a strong half-hour comedy script of an existing series and a process that makes writing your script much easier, faster and more successful. You begin by…
This advanced workshop is intended for 12 serious writers who want to turn good scripts into great ones. You first work closely with the instructor to analyze your script's overall strengths and weaknesses. Every week, you turn in pages and receive back…
This workshop guides you to complete your current project. You focus on developing a successful second and third act with special attention given to structure, character development, emotional content and cinematic style. You also acquire self-editing…
Designed for writers with at least one screenplay under their belts, this workshop guides you to launch and make significant headway on a new project. The goal is to develop a strong premise that sustains your entire script, create and refine the story…
This second in a four-part sequence in writing a feature film script has you hit the ground running. You begin by pitching your story based on your outline and revising it to make sure the premise can carry the entire movie. Armed with a workable outline, you…
In the last of a four-part sequence in writing a feature film screenplay, you reach FADE OUT. In the process of completing your script, you hone in on structuring conversations, explore how to maximize your story's visual implications, deepen scene writing…
The third in a four-part sequence in writing a feature film screenplay, this course focuses on writing a significant portion of Act II. You also refine your story outline; flesh out main and secondary characters; continue to develop the art of the scene as it…
The first in a four-part sequence designed to take you through the full process of writing a feature film screenplay, this course grounds you in the key craft elements of story structure, plot, scene development, character, theme, genre and dialogue and shows…
Women’s stories are as diverse as women’s experiences. In this course, we focus on finding our voice on the page and allowing our writing to emerge naturally, without judgment, all in a nurturing, women- and female-identifying-empowered environment. The class…
Short, well-focused articles provide one of the surest pathways for breaking into publication. It's easier than you might think--if you know how the print and online publishing worlds work, understand the needs and demands of particular markets and put some…
Reality is frequently inaccurate. Why not accurately depict that? This workshop is dedicated to kick-starting your imagination with the help of visualization and acting exercises, Oulipo writing prompts, and other creative techniques. We take a leap beyond…