What’s it like to learn with AWC?

It sparks the joy of writing in me and makes me want to pick up my pen again. It has made me think about my characters in new ways which I am sure will have a positive impact on my storytelling.

The course exceeded my expectations. I now have three wonderful main characters that I am looking forward to exploring when writing my novel.

At the start of Module 4, I looked back on all the work I had done to create the three main characters. The jigsaw started to fit together into a whole picture.

If you want to write, this is the place to start. You get the framework and the confidence builder.

This course exceeded my expectations. I now have tools for digging deeper into characters.

I was able to get unstuck with the ending of my fantasy novel, by understanding the motivations of my main character better. Awesome outcome

I was relieved to hear that you don't have to know your characters inside out before you start because I tend to get to know the characters as I go. However, having the tools to find out more about them during the story is much better.

You always learn something new when doing an AWC course, even if you think you know it. You don't know it all and the insights into crafting your work are definitely worth it.

I enjoyed the mix of information and practical exercises. I could make real progress on my novel as I completed your course, ending further ahead in my own work than when I started.

I feel much more confident in creating characters and I found that my plot events just fell out of the process of creating characters!

The AWC courses offer expert advice and practical ways for you to write your own novel.

I enjoyed the clarity and detail, which has confirmed previous lessons on how to develop characters.

I found it gave me more clarity on character development, and helped embellish the existing characters in my story.

My characters have 'grown' and taken their own path, which was different to what I had planned.

Fabulous courses. Well worth the investment for the understanding and motivation it creates.

The course gave me more ideas about how to develop characters as well as insight into why I am drawn to some characters in books that I have read.

The AWC care enough about writing to teach about it and use relevant examples from their own experiences. Get connected!

Well, this course was really amazing! I learned a lot from it and it helped me make some really awesome characters that I love and contribute well to my stories. If you were interested, I'm certain it could help you in whatever you are struggling with in your writing.

I feel much better equipped to create better characters. I feel like I can understand my characters and what it is they want and what exactly I want from them much better than I did previously. I just hope I can incorporate this into all my writing to create relatable characters.

I knew that characters are the key to any good story, but having written a first draft of a novel I also knew I was still struggling with my characters and making them the heart of the story. I needed a course that would help me to develop my skills around making well rounded and interesting characters.

I found it useful that I came to the course with characters already in mind and have definitely focused on making those characters better using the tips and information in the course. I can also see that the skills I've learned will be invaluable in the future when creating new characters from scratch.

I liked that I could do it in my own time and stop, start and repeat whenever I needed.

Having already written a very rough first draft (and not really knowing where to go next with it) I can see how focusing now on all my characters and how their lives will interact with each other will help improve my next draft exponentially!

Fiction Essentials: Characters gets to the heart of what it is you want to know and how to achieve it in your writing. The course breaks down your learning into manageable chunks and is supported with easy to follow handouts that can be used time and again.

AWC has made me realise more than any other book / course / online learning that I can write. This is a big freaking deal.

I like Valerie's audio files. Feels like there's a writer buddy there giving me great advice and leading me through the exercises. I have 11 pages of notes!

I now know it's achievable to write a book. That's all I want to do now.

I was surprised that I could use character interactions to build plot, and with only 3 of my main-ish characters (so far), I've been able to flesh out a lot more of the story, in terms of the plot points, and just helping me get that word count up to where it needs to be.

The AWC gets you from point A (Can I write? Can I write a book?) to point B (YUP!) by guiding you through the process / steps in a logical way and unlocking all the ways and tools to get you there.

The course is super helpful to dive deep into your characters, which will enrich your story tenfold.

I was writing my first novel and was keen to know how to create compelling and engaging characters.

The course provides so much information about understanding your characters and the importance of working out how they interact, think, behave, respond, and why. This helps the characters create the story!

My characters will be more developed now that I've done the course. I look forward to building them further and changing some interactions with other characters. The course has identified how to do this.

What a great source of information and coaching for writing all sorts of materials. They are professional and practical, understand the technicalities of writing in different genres and make learning easy.

I wanted to bring my characters alive on the page and singing in my readers' minds.

I enjoyed the detail about how characters are researched and created. The idea of getting a better understanding of your primary and secondary characters. I'm a pantser so I make it up along the way.

If you want to understand and master the ins and outs of character needs and desires, do this course!

I had some ideas for short stories and novellas but had no idea about character creation and development. I wanted to learn how to create real, believable characters to give stories punch and leave the future readers impacted in some way.

I thought there was an incredible amount of detail in the course to fully equip me to write great characters and also plot. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I now see this course as an arsenal in my toolkit!

It is structured and practical. There were a lot of really helpful examples that started to get my brain ticking over by just listening to them. Now I know where and how to start collating and developing my story ideas. This course has helped me capture the overwhelm into a structure I can now use going forward.

AWC will equip you with whatever tools you need to get your writing onto the page and make the stories happen. Make sure you sign up for their courses.

Really excellent information - I got a lot out of it. A few aha! moments. Great videos. Excellent, specific content that I could apply to my stories.

I'm more confident I know what I need to make compelling characters.

Highly recommended if you are looking for specific tips to improve your writing. There were constant aha! moments, where the course identified things I knew instinctively when I read books, but hadn't kept in mind when trying to write them.

I always underdevelop my characters and only realise after I start writing, so I wanted a step-by-step guide on how to create a fleshed-out character before I started and got myself stuck.

Going in, there was a little part of me that was worried it would be a repeat of all the advice out there for creating characters, the advice being a checklist of their favourite colours and whatnot. I'm so glad to have been wrong!

I'm not exaggerating when I say I'll be using the activities in this course to help plan my characters and stories from now on. I know both my characters and my plot so much better now.

I found the handouts very helpful, and the videos excellent. I enjoyed being able to do it at my own pace.

The course has enabled me to look at my characters I had already established and give them a voice, to tell me their story.

Do this Essentials course. Give your characters a chance to tell you their back story. This course has enabled me to think why Seb and Amber in my story behave the way they do. My characters have a voice.

This course was excellent, I found that the handouts, which you can download, and the videos are really good and very well-articulated.

This course was fantastic. The worksheets are handy, and the tips very helpful. It gave me insight into the formation of my characters. I would definitely recommend this course to build your characters.

Thanks.

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.

It really pushed home how well you need to know your characters before you start writing them. And the more I heard that the more I became convinced that of course that is true. And because of that I have been able to produce a far better mind map of my story than I had initially.

I enjoyed the raft of great ideas and tools for developing my characters - the stress on knowing your characters so you can write them.

I now know why my characters were same ole same ole. I now know my three key characters. I now have a good sound structure for my story. I now have hurdled the roadblock that was stopping me from writing this particular book.

It is a good and thorough course. It will bring home to you the big things about writing fiction. It will also bring home to you the little things. So you get the meat. And the gravy.

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.