I recently completed the 5-course specialization in creative writing. For the most part the course material presented was good, especially the courses on plot, on setting, and on style. The course on characterization was a little vague. From the syllabus, it looked like it would be a good course, but the instructor did not follow the syllabus and was often very unfocussed in her presentation.

The weakness with this specialization is that all the feedback to the writer is provided by peers in the course. This I found very disappointing. Many of the other students were honestly very poor writers, and as a result, the feedback I received on my assignments was very superficial. In addition, rather than being able to learn from reading the writing of others, I found for the most part that the pieces submitted by others were very lacking.

If you take this course, know that it will provide you some good information about writing fiction, but the feedback you receive on your assignments will not help you learn. You will need to find another peer group of writers to help you with that.

Very little content. It is useful, but definitely not worth paying for it. Also, the exercises aren't truly exercises to practice what has been taught: just writing exercises with different lenghts, with a slight focus on what's been spoken about through the week. It looks like they wanted to make money from a minimum input, and that is disappointing.

I don't see the point of having other writings who are at the same skill level as me critique my work. It's like the blind leading the blind. I was expecting a professional to grade my work to provide insight and direction. Total waste of my money.

The course was informative on how to build, structure and develop the plot of our own stories. It was also very helpful in guiding us through the editing process. A useful course for aspiring writers.

This course got me off on the right foot in writing. It gives specific structure on elements of a good plot. There is no failing, just constructive review of your work by your peers. Very good course

Felt very much like an exercise in writing-by-numbers. Assignment instructions were too vague and the pass/fail grading system meant lots of classmates were upset that their work was not appreciated or understood. So many people on the course do not have English as a first language that the marking is often erratic. Great that non-native speakers are trying to write in English, enriching the canon, but in those circumstances a pass/fail system seems misguided.

There is some decent information in the course. The assignments didn't do for me as much as I would have liked. Every single person I peer reviewed (15 people) has English as a second language. I did my best to disregard that, but some of them were so difficult to follow that it was impossible to make heads or tails of their submissions. Also, I would have appreciated some downloadable handouts that covered the main points, rather than having to go back through the videos and finding the information I was looking for.

The material isn't bad, and it does provide some interesting prompts to think and write about. But, the curriculum is not at all creative. It focuses on easily teachable and repeatable lessons that teach a certain, standard way of doing things. It tries to reduce creative writing down to a formula instead of acknowledging that many compelling and successful stories can have almost any imaginable form. If perhaps many types of structures had been emphasized or structures had been pointed out as optional, this would have been mitigated, but the time period is so short that there's no time. The result is a class that feels more like "Writing: How to Make a Formulaic, Sellable Book" than anything with "Creative" in the title.

I feel like each week's videos didn't go into great enough detail. The peer review experience was very poor too. I don't feel like I received any meaningful feedback and felt that the way the system is structured promoted lazy reviewing. Overall the biggest weakness of this course is a lack of example assignments. If there were example assignment for each module with detailed descriptions of how everything fit together, the poor peer review experience wouldn't have mattered nearly as much. I learned some valuable lessons here but I think I could haven gotten just as much from watching youtube videos.

Great course for beginners. I must admit I was not sold at first with the peer graded review but seeing how seriously the great majority of students take the feedback portion of the course, I couldn't help but feel more motivated. I have learned to structure my ideas and tell a story properly using the least amount of words while keeping my readers interested. Highly recommendable for beginners.

The material in the videos were very helpful, inspiring and informative. Unfortunately our assignments are graded and reviewed by our peers. I'm deeply disappointed because there appears to be no screening what so ever of the students who enroll. So my experience was extremely nerve wracking and upsetting because I had no idea if I'd pass because people kept failing me even though I certainly met all the assignment criteria. Often I would get feed back like "..." or "-" or "yes" and "no" meanwhile I had to attempt to review submissions like "t" for a 1000 story? They literally submitted one letter!!! The group I ended up in was so grossly incompetent (or full of people that plain didn't care) I'm extremely angry that I was charged $69 for this. Honestly if I'm to pay I'd expect a professional to grade our work. Peer reviews are fine, but for this to be worth it, someone who knows the craft should at least take a look.

Assignments felt forced and incongruous with the weekly lessons. The assignments did not feel like an opportunity to practice the skills focused on in the lessons.

I found the wording of the assignments really difficult to follow so I didn't really understand what was expected of me. I spend a lot of time (and therefore money!) on this course but in the end I made a conscious decision to stop. I was taking it for personal pleasure and it was not worth the stress each week of trying to work out what was being asked. I have taken a number of other courses in creative writing elsewhere, and other courses on Coursera - this is the first one I have actively chosen to stop because I just wasn't engaging with it - either for education or for enjoyment.

Auditing is pretty useless with how this class is updated. I can't get peer reviews so my assignments get zero feedback. Coursera didn't used to be like this.

Asked about how to be more involved in class discussions and peer reviews a couple days ago and haven't received feedback.

The peer reviewed assignments are next to useless, as there is no oversight on them. I think there needs to be a basic comprehension assessment done first, before allowing fellow learners the ability to pass/fail students in the course.

Great information about plot and scene structure. The information about revision was entirely new to me - thank you! The exercises were good and difficult in a good way that helped me hone my writing.

Felt very much like an exercise in writing-by-numbers. Assignment instructions were too vague and the pass/fail grading system meant lots of classmates were upset that their work was not appreciated or understood. So many people on the course do not have English as a first language that the marking is often erratic. Great that non-native speakers are trying to write in English, enriching the canon, but in those circumstances a pass/fail system seems misguided.

Great information about plot and scene structure. The information about revision was entirely new to me - thank you! The exercises were good and difficult in a good way that helped me hone my writing.

Great course to take as the first step in the sequence of the "Creative Writing" certification. Exercises are fun, professor provides useful methodology, load is manageable for someone with a day job.

After completing this course successfully I still don't really understand what a rising action is exactly and the phrase "your story must include at least ten sentences of rising action" in the final task made almost no sense to me. I understand that peer review is used as a from of assessment for convenience in this course but judging from the reviews I gave myself and the reviews I received, its not very informative for the learner. I like the practice because it made me think about how other people interpret the information in this course, but I really wish some more expert form of assessment could be provided and possibly shorter simpler more targeted exercises throughout the four weeks.

I found the course helpful. I would have loved feedback from the instructor in addition to peer reviews.

While it was good to get me writing, I didn't feel like any of the exercises really challenged me to think differently about plot than I already did. They felt a little tacky, 'use these ten words in a story' felt like I was in elementary school again. The one assignment I liked was when we were given a scenario (a poisoning happens halfway through the writing and the main character has to choose between getting what they want and the antidote), I liked that and think those prompts help you really think about plot and how to work with it.

My experience with the course was not fulfilling, because I didn't get professional guidance throughout the course. The instructor provided some information and required to submit some assignment, so we did some writings and reviewed our peers' writings. This is OK. But I didn't enroll in the course in order to see opinion of those who just started writing, exactly as I did. As the beginners, we needed feedback from those who already accomplished some level, but didn't receive it. I would not recommend this course to those, who really wants to learn how to start writing.

I couldn't take the instructor seriously. There were too many comparisons to Harry Potter and various three and five act formulas. I wanted something that would be practical and adaptable to the ideas that I'm working on. This just wasn't the right course for me. The assignments felt like they were pointless as well.

Too prescriptive and prone to lists. "Do these 21 things when editing a novel". If that's what I was looking for, I could search the web for blogs. Maybe this was too beginner focused for me, but I'm not sure I learned anything really useful here.

Very basic course with an extremely limited view on what makes a good plot.