Beware the Online Writing Courses

Online writing courses are a dime-a-dozen. It seems like everyone, from reputable industry professionals with long track records to people who have been writing for just a few weeks (or have never written online at all), is offering at least one. But are any of these worth taking? Do any of them offer any insights you couldn't get from a few hours of YouTube and Googling?

Let's find out!

Online writing isn't well-suited to the digital course format

Based on my limited experience with online writing courses, writing just doesn't seem to be a skill that translates very well to the online course experience. Even the more particular and specific subject of "writing for an online audience" is tough to teach via a low-touch digital product.

I can't say with any certainty exactly why that is but I'm willing to speculate a little bit.

First, writing is at least as much art as it is science. And how you teach an art form by way of a small collection of digital videos is beyond me. Does the instructor just stand there and say, "Practice makes perfect" over and over again?

Like, I understand that there are such things as art classes and that many people take them all the time. But these classes tend to involve a lot of group work, peer feedback, instructor feedback, deep dives into technique, and more. They're often part of multi-year degree programs that, even then, barely scratch the surface of whatever discipline they happen to be teaching.

And your typical online course is nowhere near as in-depth as a full arts course from a degree-granting institution.

Second, a big part of what determines whether your writing is going to be any good is the raw material you're working with. Your life experience. Your education (formal and otherwise). Your relationships. Your perspective. Your attitudes. In short, who you are as a person and what you've done over the course of your life. And as skeptical as I am that anyone can effectively teach an art form via a short self-directed online course, I'm even more skeptical that "life experience" - defined broadly - can be taught in that way.

The peripheral skills

But Steve, you might be saying, writing online isn't all just about writing. There are a bunch of other skills that go into it. You need to understand the platforms you're working with, for example. If you're writing to earn an income you need to know a little bit about how to run a small online business. And so on. What about these tangential and peripheral skills that come in handy for online writers?

To that I'd respond by saying that there are better ways to learn about internet and social media platforms or online business than from online courses put on by internet writers. Why not teach yourself bookkeeping or take a course in new media? In other words, why not go to the experts on those topics if what you actually want to know has very little to do with writing?

Going to an online writer to learn about how to organize your online freelancing, for example, makes about as much as sense as going to an accountant to learn about online writing.

And on top of that, much of the information you might seek out about digital marketing, social media, online business administration, bookkeeping, and similar subjects is already available for absolutely free elsewhere. There's no need to pay for this stuff. All you need is a bit of time and a web browser and you can find all the info your heart desires.

The misinformation

What's most unfortunate about online writing courses is the misinformation that frequently crops up in them. This bad advice threatens to send new writers off on tangents that are more harmful than helpful and could even entirely derail what would otherwise be a rewarding new hobby or career.

Here are just a few pieces of misguided advice I've seen pop up on more than one popular online course:

1. Consistency above all else. Publish your material at the same time every day/week regardless of whether you've got something interesting to say.

My take: Consistency is important, yes, but your audience is looking for original, insightful, interesting, entertaining, or genuinely useful stuff. Publishing every day or week just to hit some imagined quota is a mistake.

2. Systematize your writing process.

My take: Everyone needs some degree of systematization, but the degree to which some of these "content creators" suggest automating your process is a recipe for formulaic and dreary work. There's something to be said for spontaneity and variety.

3. Build your writing around sales and income.

My take: To many of these online course purveyors, writing exists as a tool for making money. In my (admittedly amateur) view, operating that way ensures the creation of soulless prose. There's absolutely nothing wrong with making money from writing (it is my day job, after all). But the work should be good in and of itself, not just because it earns a profit for the writer.

4. Niche down (and then niche some more).

My take: Niching is overrated and, in some cases, an avoidable straitjacket. I mean, you'll probably naturally find a category or subject to write about, but there's no need to narrow that down so granularly that you're focused only on a tiny subset of what you (or your audience) are interested in. Writing and exploration go hand in hand.

5. Frameworks, frameworks everywhere.

My take: Course creators loooove frameworks. Probably because they're easy to communicate and have the veneer of scientific certainty. But I find that trying to shoehorn a good piece of writing into a preexisting framework is often an exercise in futility. Like excessive systematization, the overuse of frameworks is poison to the creative process.

Wrapping up

I guess that, in sum, I don't think there's a huge amount of value in online writing courses. I might be totally mistaken. Maybe I just happened to miss out on the best of them. I doubt it, but maybe. If that's the case, my apologies to the genius course creators who offer those products.

As always, I'd love to hear from you, whether you agree or disagree with my take on the subject. Do you love online writing courses? Hate 'em? Hit 'reply' and let me know.

Until next week!