Don't Waste Your Money on Writing Courses

Why Not Become a Freelance Writer? The ad in the newspaper declared and went on to point out that there are thousands of newspapers and magazines in circulation and they all need fresh content each week. And just in case I was still in doubt, the ad declared that my course fees would be returned if I hadn't made the money back in freelance commissions after a year.

Of course! All those poor content-starved editors out there so desperate for my talent that they'd probably pay double if I deigned to scribble some copy for their miserable publications!

Hmmm. The reality is that in the arts, there are often more people trying to make money out of artists than there are artists who actually make money. That is, if freelance writing is such an easy and lucrative profession, why are the people running the course not sitting back and letting their syndicated articles pay for their Caribbean villa? Oh, wait, maybe they're writers themselves who can't make a buck and came up with the idea of running a writing course...

It brings to mind the people who write books entitled How to Make a Million Dollars. The secret isn't actually spelled out but the general gist is that you write a book promising to make everyone rich and sell about a million copies...

Truth is, no one can teach you to write. There are people who can give you good feedback, point out your weak areas and edit your work to make it a good sight more readable but the bottom line is that either you're a born writer or you're not. It might take you years of reading and hundreds of thousands of words before you turn out something good but if you don't have the basic talent no writing course is going to change that.

The basic fallacy of these kinds of ads is that almost no one becomes a writer. If you're a natural writer you'll probably have been scribbling away from the age that someone put a pen in your hand. Writing should be your natural urge and vocation, not a profession that you pick up as a useful addition to your resume.

Journalism is a little different in that there have evolved various forms and protocols appropriate to the profession. Whereas a century ago most newspaper articles used to be strong opinion pieces, journalists these days are expected to maintain the spirit of objectivity – that is, to form the readers' opinion for them without letting them know.

If you want to learn to write better – and you can – save yourself the course fees and invest instead in a decent book collection or a subscription to the local library, You'll learn more from absorbing the creativity and style of the greats than from any glib correspondence course.