Novel Writing: Conflict, Suspense and Mystery

A great starting point to learn the organizational tools of beginning a novel. I found the examples to be helpful and plan to continue practicing my writing skills with the tests at the end of each section.

This is a very good introduction to the world of writing. I wanted it to be a bit bigger/more detailed, though.

I was aware of the principles mentioned in the course, but the instructor Steve Alcorn gave me a sense of clarity and I now have an actionable understanding for going forward.

I learned more than I thought I would with this course. The pacing section was particularly good, although there were many great elements of storytelling and novel writing taught.

Easy to understand and follow instructions and examples of how to create conflict in a story through action, context and dialogue.

It's been put together from bits and pieces of other courses. As a result the concepts introduced in the lessons seem a little disconnected at times.

A well written course. Easy to follow and understand. Excellent key points. Looking forward to the next course.

Brilliant crash course. I had to stop every minute and take notes. The instructor has deep knowledge on the subject being. Writing teacher. Cons : There is lack of examples. I have been studying writing craft and writing novels for 2 years hence I had no problems understanding him but everyone won't have the same experience. The instructor has put badly edited videos of another course. He says 'in the last chapter we talked about epiphany' . Eh. Nope, there was no epiphany in the last chapter. And then he refers to non existing chapters again and again throughout but these are totally unrelated to suspense,mystery and pacing I think he has cut out videos from another one of his courses. Pro : my brain got a real smash crash courde. Go for it if you have been years writing.

This was an extremely interesting and informative course. The instructor is very clear and concise in his presentation of the course material. He provides many useful tools for integrating conflict, suspense, and mystery into your stories, as well as how to control the pacing of your story. All very important!

The instructor makes excellent points, provides writing exercises, and is engaging. This is a very specific course that focuses on an area of writing and I was surprised the amount of information that was packed into it. I will be looking into other courses offered by this instructor.

There is no doubt that this particular instructor knows his stuff and is very, very good at what he does. The problem here is that the information presented in this course was not palatable, or presented in a digestible manner. The instructor rushed through explanations of every concept, referenced information NOT IN THIS COURSE, didn't give enough examples (anywhere from no examples to only one example), and didn't seem very concerned about whether his audience understood the material. - At one point he referenced a 9-point checklist that was not mentioned previously. I am guessing this information was included in a previous/different course? - At another point, a reference was made to a lesson in how to choose viewpoint (which was not in this course). - He gives great examples from known works, but a very quick read-through of a few paragraphs is not enough of an illustration of the concept, particularly when there is only ONE example read. - Concepts would be better explained if the instructor took us through examples involving the step-by-step creation of a specific scene.

What is said in the course is very useful, but also very old school teaching. The 'video'-tool is barely used...

What more can I say, I enjoyed all of it. Very helpful (found out that I am doing most of this without knowing it).

Easily understood definitions, examples and ideas to use to immediately improve your writing and stories.

I enjoyed this course very much. The subject matter was clearly explained making it easy to grasp the principles.