What’s it like to learn with AWC?
Each year, thousands of students just like you achieve their writing goals through our courses and world-class presenters. Here they share how their new-found skills and confidence enriched their life.
I wanted to learn more about crafting meaningful characters before diving into writing my own novel. Without this course, I wouldn't have noticed some potential issues with my initial planning.
The examples, worksheets/activities and overall presentation were very engaging and helpful. Not once did I zone out and have to re-wind! A wonderful course.
This course helped me consider characters from angles that I hadn't even thought to investigate. I think the characters, narrative voice and relationships I've now been able to craft are significantly more meaningful than what I had started with. The worksheets/activities are very helpful and really promote reflective thinking. They're also embedded into the audio lessons and are explained explicitly. Nothing in this course felt like a waste of time or money or a time filler. I now have resources and skills that I will definitely come back to in the future.
As I am well into writing a novel, it reassured me that I seem to be getting a lot of it right but also provided tips for me to build upon. The information on when to bring in descriptions of characters and how much to describe is great.
I had created a character that was not interesting and wanted to better understand, through expert guidance, the complexities and technique of memorable character development.
The content was well-structured and accessible.
Do it! The content will help you with technique and improve your craft. It's self-paced and effectively delivered, with lessons supported by downloadable handouts. And it's not expensive and is great value for money.
This is a great add-on course after doing Creative Writing Stage 1 and it can be done at your own pace so definitely suits busy people.
I enjoyed learning the questions I need to ask myself when building a character. Also the checklists in the handouts.
Digging deeper into my characters and giving them more depth has been very exciting and rewarding, and learning so much more than what I thought I already knew, and now armed with all this knowledge, I hope I can create something to be proud of.
I feel I am now equipped to make my characters real and not just cardboard cut outs.
I loved the checklists to help better know your characters, introducing them, and relationships between them. Will be using these a lot!
I enjoyed doing the mind maps. In fact, all the exercises - they were very helpful.
I've been wanting to write a novel for the past couple of years and did the basic creative writing course. When this course came up on special, I thought it was time to learn more.
I enjoyed the whole thing. I liked the examples and the presenter who made it very easy to understand and relate to.
The suggestions and ideas I learnt have made me rethink completely the relationships between some of my characters in my first novel draft.
I would recommend (and have!) Australian Writers' Centre courses to anyone interested in writing as they are motivational and very informative and enjoyable.
I enjoyed listening to the audio and completing the exercises.
It made me look at the little synchronicities within my story and cause and effect. The effect of an event on a character and then that effect to other characters and the tumbling effect onwards.
Excellent, practical and easy to follow content from experienced tutors. Always giving you many different approaches to problematic pitfalls.
I am grateful that the AWC does on-demand courses to suit schedules. I like the ability to pause the audio, download the audio and download the handout. I like the summary of each point that is raised at each time during the audio - this is helpful for revisiting. I like that the content was concise.
The course has made me appreciate back story so much more and, as a result of fleshing out the back story of my three characters, I know additional plot events that I need to explore. It also emphasized how I want the reader to first feel about a character and how that changes over the course of the story (and therefore what I need to do to in terms of plot to bring about the change in the character and therefore the change in the reader's feelings).
I would recommend this course as it is concise and very helpful and informative. It is also ideal as it is on-demand for 12 months (with audio and hands outs being downloadable) so you can go through the course in your own time and at your own pace.
The content was in-depth and the practical guidelines very useful to consolidate my knowledge. It has certainly provided me with more confidence and understanding of how to develop my characters. There is so much to learn about character development!
I'd highly recommend this course as it really spelt out the elements of character development that I was not aware of.
I completed the Creative Writing Stage 1 course first and found this course a great course to follow up. It was a rewarding process to work through to further developing my characters.
I found the process of working at my own pace through this course gave me the freedom to take my time and really absorb the ideas shared.
Although I'd thought I had given my characters a background story, it really made me think and understand their motivations more fully.
There will be less writer's block if you put in the work to fully develop your characters, then you can focus on the storyline and enjoy the writing process because you know how your characters think, feel and react to certain situations in your story!
Inspired me to write again and to get the character floating in my head down on a piece of paper.
Thank you, a lot of information was given. Some is common sense and other parts I did not know. Ultimately the learning is great.
It has certainly given me a lot to consider and think about. Go for it!