Online Creative Nonfiction Writing Courses

How to Find the Best Online Creative Nonfiction Course for You: 8 Tips

by Jonathan McClure, Writers.com Creative Nonfiction Instructor

Creative nonfiction classes empower students to tell their stories in the best way possible. Whether you want to improve your writing, generate new material, meet other writers or even just to hold yourself accountable to writing creative nonfiction, a great option is for you to take creative nonfiction writing classes online.

If you haven’t taken creative nonfiction writing classes online before, though, it can be difficult to know if a particular creative nonfiction writing class is the right fit for you. In this article, we’ll look at eight things to consider when choosing creative nonfiction writing classes online.

1. What creative nonfiction is

Most folks know right away what you mean when you say “fiction” or “poetry.” But “creative nonfiction” isn’t always so clear. What makes creative nonfiction “creative”? What makes it different than general “nonfiction”?

Creative nonfiction comes down to two things: its goals, and its writing techniques.

As a creative nonfiction instructor, I believe it comes down to two things: creative nonfiction’s goals, and creative nonfiction’s writing techniques.

The goals of creative nonfiction writing classes online

In general nonfiction, like a newspaper article or a history book, the goal is to communicate information clearly. Readers want the facts—who, what, when, where, how—and the writer’s job is to give them that information as directly as possible.

Creative nonfiction's goal is to depict what the novelist Henry James called “felt life”: not just what happened, but what it felt like to live through it.

Creative nonfiction's goal is to depict what the novelist Henry James called “felt life”: not just what happened, but what it felt like to live through it.

Creative nonfiction also gives the facts, but it goes a step further. Its goal is to depict what the novelist Henry James called “felt life”: not just what happened, but what it felt like to live through it.

There’s a big difference, for instance, between reading a headline like “Local Woman Climbs Everest,” and actually being there with her.

General nonfiction aims to tell you who she is, how she achieved the climb, and so on. Creative nonfiction wants you to know all that—and more importantly, to experience what it was like for her to be hip-deep in snow, watching a new storm roll in. (To better understand this concept, check out our article on "show, don't tell".)

Creative nonfiction writing techniques

To create this “felt life” experience, creative nonfiction adapts the techniques of other forms of creative writing to nonfiction.

Like novels or short stories or poetry, creative nonfiction depends on imagery, metaphor and symbolism. Unlike those forms, though, creative nonfiction also has to be true!

Like fiction or poetry, creative nonfiction depends on imagery, metaphor, and symbolism.

That makes it a uniquely challenging form to write. But, if you’re writing creative nonfiction, great courses will help!

2. What kind of creative nonfiction you want to write

There are many different kinds of creative nonfiction, just like there are many different types of fiction.

As a fiction writer, you might want to write a realistic coming-of-age story, or a gritty murder mystery, or a high fantasy novel.

There are certain skills that would apply no matter what—your ability to create convincing characters, for instance, or to create and resolve tension in the plot.

At the same time, there would be important differences: the way you go about creating tension in the coming-of-age story would look pretty different than in the murder mystery.

For that reason, if you’re primarily interested in writing the coming-of-age-story, a fiction writing class focused on murder mysteries could help you to some extent, but it still wouldn’t be the best fit.

The same goes for creative nonfiction courses. Under the umbrella of creative nonfiction, there are all kinds of very different types of writing.

Under the umbrella of creative nonfiction are many distinct types of writing.

For instance, you might be interested in Literary Journalism—that is, journalistic writing that focuses on creating “felt life” as it reports events.

Or you might be interested in lyric essays, close cousins of poetry where the focus is on the lyricism of the language itself, whose aim is to translate ordinary life into something stranger and more vivid.

Or say you’re interested in writing a memoir. You might be interested in traditional memoir—telling some part of your own life story in a novelistic style, with yourself as the first-person narrator.

Then again, you might be interested in something more experimental. Maybe “autotheory,” where autobiography blends with critical theory and philosophy, as in Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. Or perhaps what the memoirist and poet Beth Ann Fennelly has called “micro-memoirs”: extremely short mini-memoirs that, when read all together, create a sort of memoir-by-mosaic. Or even a mix of essayistic social analysis, memoir, and poetry, as in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen.

Maybe you want to try out a bunch of different styles of creative nonfiction, and see which ones you like best.

Depending on your goals and the kinds of creative nonfiction that you enjoy, you’ll find some creative nonfiction online courses to be a better fit than others.

That’s why it’s important to read the creative nonfiction course description and syllabus. If you’re still not sure, go ahead and reach out to the instructor—we want students who are really engaged by the material, so we’re always happy to help you decide if a class is right for you!

3. It won’t be high school all over again…

A lot of us have unpleasant memories of having to write essays in high school, and I have good news—writing creative nonfiction is nothing like that. No one is going to make you memorize The Elements of Style or scold you for not having a thesis statement. You may choose to write essays, but they’ll be nothing like the five-paragraph ones you had to write in school.

Creative nonfiction is exploratory, experimental, a way of discovering something you didn’t know when you started writing. There’s nothing rote about it.

The word “essay” comes from the same root as the word “assay”—to explore, to test out. Creative nonfiction stays true to this original spirit: it’s exploratory, experimental, a way of discovering something you didn’t know when you started writing. There’s nothing rote about it. In this way, it’s much closer to fiction and poetry than to those high school essays.

4. …But your creative nonfiction courses will be a lot of (fun!) work!

When you take creative nonfiction writing classes online, you’re going to read. A lot. You’ll read even more than you write—and it’ll make your writing better.

When you take creative nonfiction writing classes online, you’re going to read. A lot. You’ll read even more than you write—and it’ll make your writing better.

In my creative nonfiction online classes, I give students a wide range of examples of published creative nonfiction to read. I give examples from fiction and poetry too, since creative nonfiction writing techniques draw heavily from those forms.

It may seem strange that a course about writing asks students to spend so much time reading instead, but there’s a good reason for it: by reading a wide range of examples, you can learn what you like and what you don’t.

And by rereading your favorite pieces like a writer—taking them apart, analyzing how they work and what makes them so engaging—you can discover how to apply the best parts of their technique to your own work.

In another article (on taking online poetry classes), I’ve compared this process to learning to build a house: sure, you could probably figure it out with enough trial and error—but you’ll get a much sturdier house in much less time if you study some finished houses before you break out the saws and hammers.

5. Your creative nonfiction classes involve workshops

Most creative nonfiction writing classes are designed around the “workshop” model. That’s because it’s a tried-and-true approach to learning to write more effectively—it’s the same method used by MFA programs and undergraduate creative writing departments.

In a creative nonfiction classes, all the students in the course (plus the instructor) give detailed feedback on one another’s work.

In creative nonfiction classes, all the students in the course (plus the instructor) give detailed feedback on one another’s work. Your classmates will tell you what they liked about your piece, what didn’t work as well for them, and how they’d suggest you could improve it.

I realize this sounds a bit scary—and it is at first! It’s hard to put yourself and your work out there, and it can feel very vulnerable having other people analyzing your work, especially if it’s autobiographical.

At the same time, it can be confusing: you’ll get feedback from all of your classmates, and oftentimes they’ll disagree with each other! One person’s favorite passage might be what another person suggests deleting.

So why do it?

A good workshop is a place of mutual respect, where writers collaborate to make their work the best it can be.

First of all, that scariness will fade. A good workshop is a place of mutual respect, where writers collaborate to make their work the best it can be. It can help you solve problems you’ve been wrestling with, or see interesting new dimensions in your work that you hadn’t even noticed before. Over time, you’ll likely find yourself looking forward to getting workshop feedback—even the constructive criticism!—because it does so much to help you improve.

Second, even contradictory advice is useful! In considering a wide range of opinions and suggestions before deciding how you want to proceed, you’ll develop a stronger sense of what’s most important to you in your own writing.

Workshopping other students’ writing will help you improve your own writing.

Finally, workshopping other students’ writing will help you improve your own writing. In closely reading someone else’s work, thinking it through, and then clearly articulating what you liked and what you’d do differently, you can often get a clearer sense of what you do and don’t like in a piece of creative nonfiction, since you’re not as close to it as you are to your own work. This helps you to better understand and apply the techniques of creative nonfiction.

6. Read the creative nonfiction classes' course descriptions

The best nonfiction writing classes will tell you exactly what they teach, how they teach it, and what you will learn by the end of the course. It’s important you know these things before you enroll in the course, and everything you need should be found in the creative nonfiction course description.

The best nonfiction writing classes will tell you exactly what they teach, how they teach it, and what you will learn by the end of the course.

Every writer is on a different journey, and us nonfiction writers have our own deeply personal stories to tell. It’s important that the course you take respects your creative individuality, teaches you the skills you’re looking to learn, and introduces you to great pieces of literature.

When you read the creative nonfiction course description, look for the following items:

• The course instructor. Do some research on them as well, including their publication history and any published writing you can read online.
• The course topics. What will each week cover? How does one week build on the next?
• Learning goals. By the end of the course, what will you have learned that you didn’t know already?
• Writing goals. Nonfiction writing classes are, after all, about writing. What will you have written by the end of the course?

If you’ve spent some time considering what you want to get out of creative nonfiction online courses, then you’ll know whether or not the course is a right fit based on the creative nonfiction course description.

7. Online creative nonfiction writing classes respect your work

For many writers, taking a creative nonfiction course seems daunting. After all, you’re sharing vulnerable work about your private life, experiences, and observations, with people that you don’t know from the internet. Who wouldn’t be a bit nervous?

The good news is, you’re not alone, and you’re certainly not entering a space where your stories aren’t respected. Online nonfiction writing classes are built on respect.

Online nonfiction writing classes are built on respect.

In order for the instructor to help you on your writing journey, they need to meet you in the middle. A good instructor will learn where you are in your writing journey, your goals for your nonfiction, and your struggles in finishing your project.

By respecting your writing, your vulnerability, and the truth you present, the instructor will make your creative nonfiction course worth your time and money. The instructor will also make the workshop space safe for writers of all backgrounds to share their stories. Writing is a vulnerable journey, but with nonfiction writing classes, you don’t have to take that journey alone!

8. Creative nonfiction online courses are a community

As you’ve probably guessed, the shared vulnerability and collaboration of the workshop tends to bring students together! While you’re writing creative nonfiction, great courses will foster a sense of community and camaraderie that helps you break the finish line.

While you’re writing creative nonfiction, great courses will foster a sense of community and camaraderie that helps you break the finish line.

When I first started teaching writing courses online, I was worried that they might not have the same sense of community that you get in face-to-face workshops. But if anything, I’ve actually seen more of a sense of community in the online creative nonfiction classes.

Moreover, because students get to know each other in a virtual space, it’s easier to carry that relationship forward when the online creative nonfiction course ends.

Writing can feel very solitary, even lonely, so finding a community of writers to be a part of is a great benefit to taking creative nonfiction courses online.

Find the right creative nonfiction writing classes online for you

Ready to find the right online creative nonfiction course for you? See the calendar above for Writers.com's upcoming offerings in creative nonfiction!