Rose Atkinson-Carter – On Benefits of Taking a Writing Class

Hello friend! Have you taken a writing class? Or are you thinking about taking one in the new year? I have the pleasure to host Rose Atkinson-Carter, a writer with Reedsy. Reedsy is a marketplace and blog that helps authors with everything from designing a book cover to deciding whether to self-publish or publish traditionally. In this post, she shares the benefits of taking a writing class. Let’s dive in!

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Benefits of Taking a Writing Class

A guest post by Rose Atkinson-Carter

Writing is a solitary activity, but that doesn’t mean it has to be lonely. While authors tend to tinker and toil in isolation, doing so is no longer required when learning. The opportunities to learn from experienced teachers are now more accessible than ever. Whether you prefer your writing courses in the flesh, or working at your own pace with an online writing class, the benefits of taking a class are there for you to take advantage of, and we’ve got 4 tips to prepare you for what you’ll expect.

1. You’ll go on your own quest of change

A writing class is essentially making a contract with yourself to commit to your book (something I struggled with). Whether learning to write in general, writing a novel, or learning how to enrich work you’ve already finished, the classroom (digital or real), is a space to showcase your work each week and meet other authors. Taking a creative writing course means following the direction of an instructor too (your own wise old mentor). And not only that, they’re someone who wants you to become a better writer.

Your quest, your course curriculum and plan for the journey, will focus on a different aspect of writing and the processes of a story’s creation each week. So never fear to ask questions, everyone is in the same room to learn. Plus, you get out what you put in. Because just as your characters embark on journeys and seek change, so too are you — you wouldn’t be taking a class if you didn’t want to write a book. 

When I took my first writing class I went in knowing I wanted to change something about my writing, but I wasn’t sure what. There were things I was confident in, and problems I wasn’t even aware of. The instructor on the first day implored that regardless of outcome, we should aim to be different authors by the end of the experience. It’s always stayed with me because a course is a learning opportunity — that was what I needed to change. Too easily a course can be viewed as a transactional one. A book is expected; or at least a finished draft, a connection into the industry, or to be enlightened to your staggering genius — we’ve paid for it after all. But books are not things of entitlement, nor right. Just like quests are about the journey, writing a book is about earning a book. 

Perhaps the largest benefit of taking a course was that I was carving out time to hunker down in the wordless trenches of a blank page and fight my way towards tapping out the story, scribbling down the tragedy, or dictating that Happily Ever After. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have expectations — you should have a goal for the course — it just means you are not owed a book for taking the course. Most classes incorporate a writing routine into the program to help you reach your goal, but by viewing the class as a journey, and your teacher as a wise old mentor, grappling with characters and wrestling your rascally plot into place, will make your ‘End’ all the sweeter. 

2. You learn to receive feedback

Nothing is personal. Sharing your work and receiving criticism and rejection (of ideas), is what will help you grow. As writing is an intensely personal experience, we often miss what’s been unstated on the page. And as we know everything about our work, sometimes the inner vision doesn’t translate into the writing. 

This doesn’t mean it gets any easier as time goes on. I’ve always struggled with getting information down on the page; whether giving too much explanation or being too vague. The benefit of working with others is that they’re your sounding board and first readers. I tend to write quickly, and when editing, do so on my own flow. But if an idea doesn’t land, or that I’ve skipped over something in haste, your instructor or fellow students will tell you. Which means you get to go back and write it until it does! Each rejection or question is a lesson, and when you can view your writing as something outside of yourself, the faster you can improve it. Plus, the ideas and critiques the teacher gives comes from experience and personal lessons — so listen.

3. You develop a granular understanding of writing

Your classes are designed to be learned sequentially. This process allows you to uncover ideas one facet at a time, and discover where your story might be hitting it out of the park, and where it may be falling short.

Depending on ability and skill, lessons go from basic story structure to granular character details. Macro to micro — ideas to manuscript. But each part comes after the other. You’ll learn that these techniques and tools — which have created worlds and wonders never seen — are steps and questions you apply to yourself during the process. I say that having asked myself the wrong questions infinitum. It’s easy to circle the drain on a perceived plot hole, obsessing over how to change the book or beat or whatever. And as silly as it sounds, however you get into writing, whether discovering the ways of a pantser or plotter, others broaden our view on writing. 

I had been bashing my head against a wall to try and fix a plotting issue, when in fact all I had to do was set it up earlier in the story. Which is how I learned to avoid some headaches — sometimes we need a writing template during plotting to help get our novel off the ground. Sometimes we need character questionnaires to help create dynamic and diverse characters. But the beautiful thing of a community is that we’ve all learned different lessons and ways to ask different questions when conquering Mt Novelus. Your instructor will help unfold how the basics of a story comes about, but as you progress in ability, you’ll begin to understand how your story comes about. 

4. You figure out how to self-edit

There’s a reason some people dedicate their professional lives to editing — crafting the story is only one step of the process, shaping it is the next. While some professional editors focus on grammar and sentence level construction, others focus on the larger structural elements of your work. Your teacher will offer critiques of larger perspectives on everything from characters to plot tropes, story beats and general world feel, to word choice and dialogue tagging; but an editing mindset is a skill you should work to attain for yourself too. And since we don’t always understand what we do, we should strive during the planning stages, or post-first draft editing stages, to understand the decisions we’ve made. 

As a pantser (I’ve since evolved), I always believed that a book was set in stone. I wrote the trainwreck in a stream of consciousness haze. Then when it came to rewriting I didn’t understand about changing what was there. That editing is about improving what’s there, not necessarily adding to it. While a writing class teaches you how to write a novel, those same questions can guide you in editing it too. When I learned this, my writing not only improved, but also my editing.

So have no fear. Take the time to look into classes, or ‘book it in’ if you’ve been dancing around the idea for some time. You’ll improve as an author, make writerly friends, and learn skills for life. Because writing is a journey that never ends, and stories are what make us human. So get imagining — it’s time for you to write yours.

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Thank you for reading to the end of the post. Are there any other benefits you can think of?

Connect with Rose on Reedsy.