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Courses FAQ

Can you really learn creative writing?

Srsly? No one questions musicians who go to music school. No one questions photographers who go to photography school. No one questions painters who go to painting school.

We teach techniques and theories, we offer exercises to focus ideas, we talk about great writers and the way they do things. It’s really not very controversial.

Do I have to do the course in order?

You don’t, but it won’t make much sense to do it piecemeal. You can dip in and out as time allows for as long as you have course access, but we do recommend you do it in the order we present the information to you.

How do your courses work?

Our courses are a mix of text, videos and writing exercises. You can access all of them if you’re a fully-fledged WHQ member, for the duration of your membership.

There are no assignments to hand in and no live sessions to turn up to – you can access the course materials in your own time and at your own pace – you’ll get out of our courses what you put in. The forum is always open for discussion and sharing your writing, and you can find posts on particular courses by searching for the course tag.

How do free courses work?

Every month there’s a free five-day writing challenge available to all free members. You’ll be able to sign up for them about a month in advance, and you can see what’s coming up on your dashboard or on the free courses page. 

If you’ve signed up in advance, you’ll receive daily reminder emails to log in and do the daily exercise. If you didn’t get round to signing up in advance, you can still access the course and the daily posts on the forum. 

How does online teaching work?

Our courses are a mix of text, images, videos and exercises.

Once you’ve enrolled, you’ll be a sent a link to your course(s). When you click it you’ll be taken to the course player where you’ll see a menu on the left-hand side detailing the different course sections and units, and on the right you’ll see the course content.

Make sure you set aside a bit of time each day to read, watch and do. We can’t stress enough how important it is to do all the exercises set in the courses. We’d love to be able to plug a cable into your brain and – voila! – an entire novel or short story collection comes out! Buuuuut we can’t, and to get the results you have to do the work. It’s supposed to be fun though, so try to enjoy it a little bit.

How much time do I need to complete a course?

String length etc etc. It depends on many factors. Each course has an expected duration which you can find on the course page, it’s typically about six weeks, but you can do it as quickly or take as long as you need. We recommend that you put aside at least an hour every day to work on your course. If you can do more, do more! We recognise that isn’t always possible and we do give advice throughout the courses on ways to carve out the time.

I can’t see the courses!

First, double-check you’re logged in. If you’re a fully-fledged member you should be able to access all course materials. If you’re a free member, you should still be able to see information about all the courses, plus this month’s free course. If you can’t, drop an email to help@writershq.co.uk and we’ll investigate. 

Click here to go to the course library: writershq.co.uk/writing-courses/

… and click here to go to your course dashboard:  writershq.co.uk/dashboard/

What’s happened to my course progress?

Course progress was lost in the site switch (soz we did warn you) you can just click through the sections of each course to mark them complete and you’ll be looking accomplished again in no time.

Will I get published when I finish the course?

We can’t guarantee that, unfortunately, but we have a pretty good track record with our writers. Head to our blog and check out the Wall of Fame to see the latest successes.

Will you read my story?

We’re closed for critiquing services right now, sozzz. Keep an eye on our socials for when we re-open. In the meantime we have an excellent forum full of helpful and knowledgeable writers, with a dedicated section for matching up critiquing partners and forming buddy groups to work through the courses together. 

I want to cancel my subscription

No worries! 

Just go to My Writers’ HQ which is top right of all pages. If you can’t see it, scroll up to the top of the page and it will magically appear (often next to the image of a moustachioed man if you haven’t set a custom profile photo).

Then select ‘My Membership’ > Subscription and press the big cancel button.

Or just click here: writershq.co.uk/my-account

This will stop THE NEXT payment coming from your account. You will still have course access for the remaining duration of that 30 day cycle, so if you cancel your subscription 5 days into your 30 day subscription cycle, you will have course access for another 25 days and then nada. Blackness. Darkness. The cold abyss of the netherworld. Or at least that’s how it should work. If it doesn’t give us a yell on ye olde help@writershq.co.uk email address.

A super important point: we CANNOT offer partial refunds on subscriptions. This means if you cancel part way through the month, we cannot part refund that month. Soz McGoz.

 

Why can’t I see the freebie course I signed up for?

The current freebie course can be found here: writershq.co.uk/dashboard/ 

Make sure you’re logged in and double-check the start date. 

If you’re still having trouble, email us at help@writershq.co.uk

I’m not receiving course emails!

Worry not! The actual courses are now on the site in your ‘dashboard’ and so the daily emails are just reminders to look there. 

Is the free course actually free? What’s the catch?

Yes, it’s actually free. There is no catch. We run our freebie courses once a month because we like doing it. We believe all stories deserve to be heard and that means running courses that are available to everyone. You won’t be asked to enter your bank details and we don’t harvest your data to sell on. We just need you to set up an account on our website so you can access the course materials. That’s it. 

(We will attempt to upsell you to our full membership because baby needs new shoes n all that but you can ignore those bits or not if you rly rly love us)

What’s the next free course and how do I join?

You can find all the details of our upcoming freebie courses here:

https://writershq.co.uk/free-writing-courses/

Sign up for a free Writers’ HQ account, then you can access the current and future free courses. Simples.

If you’re really keen to get going with things while you wait for a particular course to start, we have lots of free writing exercises for you to try here:

https://writershq.co.uk/category/writing-exercises/

If you want to chat to other writers about the free courses you can join our community forum, which is here.