Learn How To Write Well With 2024‘s Top 12 Best Free Online Writing Courses For Beginners
Do you want to learn how to write an essay, book, poem, or article, but you are not sure exactly where to begin? Perhaps you want to write a killer blog post without completely relying on Grammarly?
Well, this is the guide for you!
In this guide, I have rounded up some of the best free online writing classes that are great for beginners and all skill levels. This means that you can learn at your own pace without paying a single dime for quality online courses while learning the writing process!
While each of the below creative writing courses is slightly different from one another, each delivers great insights on how to become a master of the craft and even a freelance writer! Let’s begin on your road to a bestseller!
Top 12 Best Free Online Writing Courses For Beginners 2024!
1. Crafting Personal Essays with Impact (Skillshare)
Have you got a masterpiece in your mind but are not sure how to portray it on paper? Well, this is your course!
Your instructor for this class is a best-selling author and editor Roxanne Gay who has written for major publications such as the New York Times, Dexter and Marvel. Being an editor as well, she can guide you away from common pitfalls that could weaken your work.
In the one hour of on-demand video training, you will cover topics like choosing your key thoughts, researching the subject, writing your first draft, how to rewrite and edit yourself, and how to get published.
This course will also inspire you, giving you the tools to transform your thoughts into a readable personal essay. Take yourself seriously and give your ideas a real voice. Being hosted on Skillshare, users can this course for free on a 1-month free trial.
Overall, a well-rounded course that is ideal for beginners!
- All levels
- 1 hour on-demand video
- Taught by successful writer
- Includes editor insights
- Downloadable resources including FAQs
- Class projects
Activate FREE Skillshare Trial
2. Create Successful Writing Habits (Skillshare)
Next up on my list is a great course that aims to teach you some of the fundamentals of engaging and impactful writing. From learning these skills and habits, you will be able to apply them to fiction, non-fiction, poetry, copywriting, creative nonfiction, and the list goes on!
To give you tools and teach you how to use them, best-selling author and screenwriter Simon Van Booy will show you 6 essential steps to becoming a great writer.
The steps are 1, make your space, 2, find your medium, 3, read inspiring works, 4, set your conditions, 5, stick to a routine, and 6, sketch to stay inspired. What these 6 things all mean and how they apply to your writing is what the 38 minutes of on-demand video will teach.
This is a great course for anyone aspiring to be a writer as well as established writers wishing to hone their skills to a higher quality level. Being hosted in Skillshare, this course is completely free!
- Beginner level
- 38 minutes on demand video
- Established and successful writer is instructor
- Class projects
- 15,000 students enrolled
- Online community to join
Activate FREE Skillshare Trial
3. Writing for Online Engagement (Skillshare)
Moving on is another great course for beginners that is taught by Rebecca Sky in this 1 ¼ hour class on fiction writing in a digital age. Rebecca is an author of YA fiction and has also written for companies including Paramount, Sony, Microsoft, Lay’s, and Kraft.
Some of the core modules included in this course are writing skills, plot details, finding an audience, marketing, creative strategies, and more!
So if your goal is to become a successful author of fiction and maybe even to publish your own stories yourself, this instruction concerning online engagement is a great class to take. It’s not just for beginners either, any level of writer wanting to better their skills can also take a lot from this class.
Overall, an interesting course for those looking to publish online via a blog or news website.
• All levels
• 1 hour 8 minutes
• Published author teacher
• Focused on fiction writers
• Covers self publishing and promotion
• 8,000 students enrolled
Activate FREE Skillshare Trial
4. Writing Articles (LinkedIn Learning/ Lynda)
Up next is a great masterclass from LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda) that helps you to write accurate, engaging and interesting articles for businesses. While this course is more intermediate, it is still a great resource for complete beginners also.
Instructor Tom Geller is a writer of technology-centered articles and a trainer for communication skills in the workplace. His class is just under an hour and covers all the basics you need to know to get started.
This course starts out by showing you how to find assignments, then moves on to the research needed for informative articles. From there, he shares the best way to conduct an interview for an article, and then how to wrap it all up. With all LinkedIn Learning course, there is a certificate of completion available once completed.
Like Skillshare, LinkedIn Learning provides a free trial so you can take this course for no charge whatsoever! To learn more, check out my LinkedIn Learning Vs Lynda guide.
- All levels
- 53 minutes
- Focuses on industry and business article writing
- Professional writer trainer
- Exercise files
- Certificate of completion
5. Creative Writing for All: A 10-Day Journaling Challenge (Skillshare)
One of the worst things any writer may have to deal with is writer’s block. Luckily, this class will show you how to take the offensive against that problem, making sure it never happens in the first place.
Author and editor Emily Gould leads this short series of lessons that guides you into a mindset of creativity. If you commit to writing for 10 minutes for 10 days in a row, you will be able to put her ideas into practice which makes this an incredibly actionable course.
While this course isn’t for everyone, it may be ideal for those in the early stages of writing who are hitting writing blocks.
- Beginner level
- 26 minutes
- Published author and working editor as trainer
- Class project
- Downloadable resources
- 19,000 students enrolled
Activate FREE Skillshare Trial
6. English Writing Skills (Alison)
Expressing yourself clearly is vital for engaging people with your writing. If you don’t communicate the idea well, the article, story, or advertisement is not going to do the job you wanted it to do.
There’s more to writing than just knowing what words to use and how to punctuate properly. There are also certain styles of writing that lend themselves to be better for one purpose or another. You write one way for suspense fiction another way for comedy. Instructions and informative articles use different styles than poetry or inspirational pieces.
The course takes about 3 hours, has assessments, and a certificate of completion is available. Over 124,000 students have taken this class. The instructors are all professionals in their fields and are certified to be trainers on the Alison online learning platform. When deciding on what free online writing course for beginners to take, this is a good one to examine.
- Beginner to intermediate level
- 3 hours
- Course assessments
- Professional instructors
- 124,000 students enrolled
- Certificate of completion available
7. Secret Sauce of Great Writing (Udemy)
What makes for good BBQ? “The secret’s in the sauce!” The secret sauce of great writing is found in this 42-minute course detailing the four ingredients of elite writing. Those ingredients are simplicity, clarity, elegance, and evocativeness. Put those into practice and your writing will certainly benefit.
The instructor Shani Raja is a former editor for the Wall Street Journal. He includes writing exercises in with the lesson instruction. It’s 45 minutes of on demand video and online resources are included. You can dive deeper with our journalism course reviews as well.
The techniques and methods of good writing taught in this class work when writing business compositions, personal blogs, fiction, or poetry and prose. These same methods are also effective for editing your own work before turning it over to a publication or editor.
- Intermediate level
- 45 minutes of on demand video instruction
- Professional writer trainer
- Includes writing exercises
- 126,000 students
- Certificate of completion
8. How to Write Stories That Thrill in Any Genre (Skillshare)
Award-winning novel, short story, and Marvel writer Benjamin Percy is a master of writing thriller and suspense fiction.
The instruction in this intermediate level class is designed for writers of fiction but it holds up as good practice for any type of writing. If you want your readers to hang on to every word and be eager for more, you’ll want to pay attention to the tips and tricks taught in this course. There is no better way to learn novel writing!
Some of the things discussed are developing a workable plot, controlling what the reader knows, building believable character development, and blending emotional content with the suspense narrative.
- Intermediate level
- 1 hour 16 minutes
- Award winning author teacher
- Class projects
- Thriller and suspense genre
- Online resources
Activate FREE Skillshare Trial
9. Writing with Impact (LinkedIn Learning)
The purpose of this course is to show you how to write with purpose for whatever the subject, genre, or audience is. A concept taught in the lessons is that there is no such thing a generic good writing. What you are doing, you have to target your audience.
Grammar and sentence structure are important, but there are subtle nuances that you will learn to identify and implement after finishing this instruction. You’ll learn the goals “write short, write clear, and write right.”
You will learn how to make long paragraphs easier to read and how to effectively make use of shorter paragraphs and efficient word choice.
The instructors is Tom Geller, an established professional and certified for being a trainer at LinkedIn Learning. With this course, you get extra resources, chapter quizzes, and a certificate of completion.
- Intermediate level
- 1 hour on demand video
- Qualifies for continuing education units
- Chapter quizzes
- Professional author instructor
- Certificate of completion
10. Essay Essentials: Improve Your Academic Writing (Udemy)
Academic writing is a different type of writing than many of us are used to. There are some specific rules that need to be followed for most essays.
In this writing workshop, you’ll learn techniques useful for either high school or collegiate level essay writing. Included in the training are writing exercises, chapter quizzes, and a downloadable essay guide.
You will also learn about using the resources in your classroom or school library, what it means to achieve effective revising, and how to properly edit. Concepts concerning paragraphs for introduction, conclusions, and the body of the essay are discussed as well.
The trainer is Andrew Sippie, an English composition teacher and tutor. He has a specialization in teaching in classrooms and online for several years as a college professor, bringing his skills and experience (and Masters Degree) to the Udemy online learning platform.
- Beginner level (self-paced)
- 1 hour on demand video
- Taught by college professor
- Concentrates on academic essays
- Downloadable resources
- Certificate of completion
11. Writing Ad Copy (LinkedIn Learning)
Advertising is one of the hardest genres of writing. It seems so simple, just tell what it is or does in a few short words. But which words? What part of the product or concept to highlight? That’s vitally important information to dispense.
Ad copy is not limited to the printed page, but also as commercial scripts. As for printed words, media varies from blogs to emails to social media. This class helps you find the best way to get your ideas across in the best way possible.
Michael Duquet is the instructor for this course. He is a marketing director for online activity for a software company and has years of ad copy writing experience.
- Intermediate level
- 1 hour 7 minutes
- Specific information for advertising writing
- Marketing director is the trainer
- Qualifies for continuing education units
- Certificate of completion
12. Business Communication – Fundamentals of Business Writing (Alison)
Business to business (B2B) is big business. Effective business communication is vital for successful companies.
It’s also important to communicate well within your own workplace. Resumes, cover letters, and reports are also required to be as good as possible if they are to be useful and effective.
Even filling out a job application needs good writing skills if you want your application to make it to the right pile of papers.
This class will give you the ability to write clear, concise, and efficient words for your workplace writing endeavors.
- Intermediate level
- 3 hours
- Course assessment
- 46,000 students enrolled
- Professional instructors
- Certificate of completion
Final Thoughts
I’m a writer. (But I really want to direct.) Writing seems to come naturally for some people. Even if doesn’t, free online writing courses for learners can train you to write well. If you are already a good writer, these same courses will help you do a better job.
To learn more, check out my guide on the top online proofreading courses!
More goes into writing than merely being talkative. These free online writing courses for beginners will show you how to create a narrative and how to engage people’s interests. You could be writing ad copy for an online store, a term paper for school, a short story for publication, a business proposal for your job, or an inspirational poem for someone you love.
All of those situations and more can be tricky to get right. It doesn’t have to be hard, though. Writing can be fun and profitable. These classes provide the valuable training you need to be able to communicate with skill and panache.
