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

4.5
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1,862 ratings

About the Course

At the center of a good story are the characters in it. In this course aspiring writers will discover how to build and bring to life complex, vivid and unforgettable characters. We will study the choices a writer makes to bring all characters to life on the page, and we will perform written exercises in order to develop a variety of writing and pre-writing techniques, in order to create a variety of characters. We will learn how to use our own life experiences, and the people we know (and how not to!). We will develop inner (thoughts and feelings) and outer (appearance, habits, behavior) lives for our characters and see how that can lead us to richer and more interesting stories. We will breathe life into our characters and let them surprise us....

Top reviews

SS

Aug 10, 2016

I loved this course! Extremely useful and hands on. The course instructor was really impressive, both informative and empathetic, both arty and to the point. Totally admired her style of instruction.

NM

Sep 25, 2020

The course was very well-structured and challenging. The instructor is very experienced and good, thus used relevant materials for this course, be it the guests, or the assignments, or the examples.

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76 - 100 of 551 Reviews for Creative Writing: The Craft of Character

By ANGEL Y S V

Aug 13, 2020

Los ejercicios fueron espléndidos. Generalmente juego en mi mente a cambiar las historias que leo o veo en la televisión, así que la tarea de la semana dos me pareció encantadora. También suelo escribir las mismas escenas una y otra vez desde diferentes perspectivas hasta quedarme con una versión en la que entiendo lo que todos están viendo y sintiendo, la última tarea también me gustó mucho. Muchas gracias, aprendí muchísimo.

By Kavin P

Jul 9, 2020

Whether you are a hobbyist writer or a literature student, whether you dream to publish or keep your writing close to you in your journal - this course will literally "Blow a Soul" in your writing, with the ability of creating characters, whom we find connection with!

Various methods and also experience shared by many seasoned novelists!

Thank you Wesleyan University and Coursera, for providing such a wonderful course!

By Nicole C

Jun 9, 2023

The course itself was very informative and engaging. I would prefer videos that perhaps have more visuals other than a person simply speaking. The only qualm I have is not with the course itself, but with the peer feedback. Much of the peer feedback was one letter, which do not provide valuable information nor suggestions. I would prefer there to be some incentive for peers to leave actual and constructive feedback.

By Patricia H V R

Mar 26, 2020

The course is excellent. It makes invaluable contributions to the subject of creating characters. It is a quite good and illustrative initiation, which opens up ways to learn more from the great masters of literature and to be more attentive to the details that people manifest in real life, since this makes it possible to learn how to make the characters more concrete in the fictions that are created from now on.

By Christine W

Sep 16, 2018

I got out of this module exactly what I put into it. While the videos do a reasonably good job of outlining a basic understanding, I found that I wanted more info, especially as concerns POV. For some reason, omniscient 3rd person was a tough concept to grasp. But I've since learned that POV can make or break a story, particularly if you don't know which one you're using and/or keep fluctuating from one to another.

By Klurisa H

Sep 25, 2016

This course was challenging and informative. The ability to speed up and slow down the video lectures is fantastic. These video lectures are jammed packed with information and I often listen to parts again and again to grasp a solid understanding. Without this feature this would become tedious and boring. The lecturers are knowledgeable and the words chosen to explain the content are spot on. Thanks. Loved it.

By Jasmine V

May 6, 2020

Absolutely fantastic course. So helpful. I feel I am well on my way to being confident enough to write novels. I will soon be ready to put pen to paper.

Thank you so much to all of the professors, teachers and authors that feature in this course. I am so grateful. Also, a huge thank you to all of my peers who gave me constructive and awesome feedback, I am really pleased.

I can't wait to start this career journey!

By Phillip L

Sep 22, 2016

I very much enjoyed this course, and found it to be very useful and effective in improving my writing. The format of interviews with different writers iengaging and interesting. The most valuable part was the weekly writing assignments, and the peer reviews. The feedback I received was very useful to me, and I found that giving feedback to others also helped to advance my own insights and understanding.

By Rutwaza G L L

Oct 18, 2018

This course helped a great deal. I can honestly say that a step in knowing how to create a believable character. Also, it helped me realize the difference in the different point of views through which a story can be told, and I discovered my favorite and my weaknesses in it. Safe to say the feedback from the assignments played a big part. Thank you and to all the other learners who sent me feedback.

By Mikey T

Feb 18, 2021

I've taken numerous Creative Writing courses over the years- in Community College, in a university. I can honestly say that Wesleyan University's Creative Writing Specialization benefitted me more than any other. Amy Bloom is a writer I much admire and a great teacher of all the most important parts of Character development, research, and execution. This course is highly recommended.

By Isabelle S

Mar 25, 2018

This is a really interesting course with fun, challenging assignments. I really enjoyed Amy’s lectures and the interviews with published authors were fantastic too. The course included lots of useful examples from literature. And the course covers more than just superficial characters, unlike some other courses, it really delves into what makes characters and their stories tick.

By Veony V

Jul 20, 2020

I learned so much from this course regarding how to create a strong character. I came to realize that there are so many things I can do to pops out my fictional character's personality and that little thing such as the way the character speak, read, or dress really matter to a story. I'm very grateful to Ms Amy Bloom and Coursera to make this course possible.

By Abhinav T

Jan 19, 2017

Amy Bloom covers a very difficult topic of craft of character in her course and she does it really well. The course is very well designed and Amy explains everything in so much detail. My only feedback is that at least few of tools and methods should be explained to students as a beginner will have an extremely difficult time in creating characters.

By Kelly J

Dec 7, 2020

I found Amy's information very helpful in learning how to create a character and write from different Points of Views. I think the assignments needed more clarification as far as what the expectations are. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Amy. I bought The Art of the Character and one of your books to read to help me understand how you write.

By Sara C H J

May 1, 2020

It was a pleasure to learn from exceptional author, Amy Bloom, every detail about the crafting of characters. I believed I had some doubts when it came down to create my characters, but this course has given them other dimension in my mind.

So far, this and the Craft of Plot have been excellent courses that I'd highly recommend.

Thank you so much!

By Maihaa R

Aug 28, 2016

Excellent On-line Course in Creative Writing developing Character. Amy Bloom was an exceptional Instructor, both in her lesson planning and video lectures and interviews, as well as in her caring monitoring of the class involvement, progress and questions. Thank you, Amy, for offering us your knowledge in such an interesting and engaging form!

By Alfred K

Nov 27, 2018

Amy Bloom is everything you will want in teacher. Character was never known until I started this course. Who is the character in the story, what quirks, beliefs, normal or abnormal behaviour do the show? I learnt a lot from this course and keep renewing my knowledge when ever \i fell the need to.

It was fun and enjoyable. Thank you Amy.

By chris j b

Mar 1, 2019

Amy Bloom is such a caring, conscientious, nurturing teacher, who addresses the class (via video camera) as if only speaking to you. There's a kind of intimacy to her teaching style, and her sincerity and expertise at expressing concepts and examples of character craft allowed her teachings to truly "seat" in my mind. Thank you, Amy.

By Губайдуллина Д

Aug 21, 2022

Мне очень понравился этот курс, я многому научилась. Так много глубины и пользы. Хочу поблагодарить всех преподавателей, также хочу сказать огромное спасибо сокурсникам, которые читали и оценивали мои задания. Все конспекты лекции буду непременно перечитывать, и переписывать самостоятельные работы с учетом рекомендации сокурсников.

By Ayah A

Dec 5, 2019

it's been hard for me at the beginning then I started writing real characters so easily. I learned a lot from this course and from the stories my peers have written. Thank you so much.

I just have a comment about the second assignment, the description wasn't clear enough so, it'll be nice if you can edit it a little bit.

By James C

Jun 29, 2021

Amy Bloom has real depth of insight into what makes a character stand out. She enjoys earthy details that hook us into a person's foibles (viz her experience with the noir genre). That all comes out in great lectures in this course. See my review on plot for the issues with the vagaries of the peer review process here.

By Rahul P

Jun 8, 2020

The course really helped me to understand the basics that we usually forget when we write -THE CHARACTERS. We focus on the plotting and the events so much that we end up neglecting the minute details about the character which makes a huge difference on the story. The course really helped me with it. Thank you coursera.

By Luana B

Jun 19, 2016

The course was great. I really liked the way the teacher explained about the characters, it was really helpful. Also, I like the fact she suggested a lot of books to read about characters.

Last, but not least the assignments to do were really interesting. I suggest this course to anybody who is interesting in writing.

By Chideraa I

Feb 8, 2022

Taking the Creative Writing Specialization has been a tasking but fulfilling journey. Through the well-tailored classes and videos, I have come to see the strength and weaknesses in my writing. I now am more aware of the need to balance these two to make my art better. It has been an exciting learning experience!

By Jerri L L

May 17, 2016

I have enjoyed Amy Bloom's lectures and guidance on character. I feel as if I'm making different choices in the words that I use now, as well as focusing more on characters and how they can move (or not) a story. The assignments really helped me to lazer in on specific language that helps to illuminate character.