All our online creative writing courses to dip into at your own pace
Our private Writers’ HQ community forums for support, feedback and pep
Q&As with Jo and Sarah
15% off writing retreats and sweary motivational merch
£20 a month (first month just £10). Cancel anytime.
Think of it like Netflix for writers. For just £20 a month you can access all our courses, get 15% off all writing retreats and merch, join the WHQ Community Forum for feedback and support, get priority access to new courses, and work through it all as and when you like.
You sign up, we send you details of how to access the courses and automatically give you 15% off retreats and merch, you do the courses, write your book, get an agent, win a billion pound publishing deal, take over the world, fix climate change, destroy the patriarchy, give everyone free burritos for life AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY.
You don’t have to do all of them. Membership is still the most cost-effective way to access a single course. Just think of the rest as an added bonus.
…and tell it really freakin’ well. We could give you loads of salesy bollocks about becoming the best, truest you, and living your dream. But, eh, we just think stories are important, and that everyone should have the tools and opportunities to tell them.
The Most Amazing Writing Community In The World ™. Join our hustling, bustling, gif-swinging, pep-shooting, love-wanging Community Forum. Swap work for critique, swoon and flail and be caught by a hundred writers who Just Get It, and celebrate your wins in gold star-style.
Just go to your account page, select subscriptions and press cancel. Stay for as long or as little as you like.
Fantastic reminder of why I write ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Writing has stopped being fun and working through this course has reminded me of the good parts, that I actually love this thing called writing. It’s given me practical ways to get back into writing and I’ve opened up my manuscript again and written for the first time in ages.
Claire Wade
Turbocharge Your Creativity
Plotstorming is rough….but I loved it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It took me a while to get through the course materials. Mostly because of the huge monster in my head telling me I couldn’t, wouldn’t and shouldn’t get through it. It is a testament to Sarah and Jo’s skills, encouragement and general awesomeness that despite all this I kept finding my way back and eventually emerged the other side with a not just a plot, but a passion for my story that I feared was lost. The course is worth every penny, every bead of sweat and every tear. I feel like a better writer in a better position. Can’t thank you guys enough!
Vicki
Plotstormers
Love you WHQ! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
After hanging around on the WHQ Freeloaders page and completing the free courses, I was so convinced by the improvements to my writing – and amused by the emails! – I signed up for three months… I’m still here months later! I’ve learnt so much, from courses like Plotstormers and First Draft, and from fellow WHQers, I would rather give up cake and chocolate than let my membership lapse! Love you WHQ!
Jan McCarthy
Membership
Bursting with stories ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ve written short stories for a while, but this course gave me loads of ideas about where to find stories and how to develop them. It’s also given me lots of food for thought about my writing process and how to approach (and edit) stories. I really feel the course demystifies everything about short stories, from idea to submission, and I’m looking forward to polishing the stories I’ve written over the past few weeks and trying to find them a home in the world. Thanks, Jo and Sarah
Liz O
Writing Short Fiction
7 Ideas in 7 Days ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A mysterious benefactor gives you a task a day and – shazam! – by the end of the week you’re a-fizzing with ideas. Tis witchcraft. Do it.
Ellie
Plotstormers: How To Plot Your Novel
A solid foundation ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
At the beginning of this course I had an idea for a novel that I could have comfortably written down on a single sheet of paper. Six weeks later I have a detailed narrative structure, with subplots and well-drawn characters. I have the confidence to take this outline forward and begin the actual novel writing process.
Mark Sadler
Plotstormers
Best f**king course on writing short fiction, ever ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I love this course. So much information, so many great exercises, such great feedback in the forums. Doesn’t matter how you learn – there’s a little something for everyone here, from videos to suggested readings to hands-on work – and some great prompts for the exercises. Helped me think about writing in invaluable new ways (distill your story down to a 140-character tweet? I can do this, I can do this…!). Kind, encouraging, clear, direct. I wrote some new stories during the course, and with the stories I already had before I started, I have lots of editing ahead of me….but at least now I KNOW WHAT TO DO! Thanks for a stellar course, Jo. Time now to stop f**king about and start editing (writing is rewriting :o).
Mary Taslimi
Writing Short Fiction
The scales have truly fallen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had an idea. I wrote it out for 60k words. Someone said it was more like a short story. I was stuck. Then I discovered Writers HQ… I’ve found my people. This course has literally transformed my work. I now have something that actually reads like the outline for a novel. The teaching methods, materials and support (both from Sarah and Jo, and my fellow plot-a-trons) has been superb. Sensible, practical, intense, with a good splosh of anarchy. I now feel more confident about the actual writing and am also happy that the original idea holds up. Thank you so much and I’m looking forward to the next course (9 month…). It’ll be AWESOME!
Liz
Plotstormers
Writers’ HQ are absolute legends ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
They have taken me from someone who writes and created a writer. They also making a cracking cuppa. The retreats are an oasis of writing calm and an inspirational treat. Meeting fellow writers is always a treat. The online courses are not only draw out the writer you know is inside but are incredibly fun to boot.
Vicki Sarteur
Membership
Writers’ HQ are amazing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Their courses are easy to apply, fun to do and will improve all areas of your writer life. Plus they’re an absolute bargain. Get in now before they realise how much they could charge.
Clare Wade
Membership
I started with a beginning and an end then changed the end, twice, got the middle and finally understood what plotting is all about and what a story arc truly is. Now I see holes and have an idea of how to fill them. Great attitude to teaching from WHQ crew.
Amanda
Plotstormers
Plotstormers – guidance, structure, encouragement ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I wasn’t convinced any kind of online writing course could benefit me, having heard other writers’ tales of disappointment, but I would have no hesitation in recommending this one – and indeed anything else Writers’ HQ put out. Excellent in every way, refreshing and full of wisdom.
Jan Tchamani
Plotstormers
Good stuff ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Excellent course. I have to say I never got the hang of the forums. But I’m probably getting old and not very online-attuned. I prefer classrooms with real people. But that’s my problem, not the course’s. Overall, a very good course, beautifully thought through. Recommended, even if like me you aren’t too hot on the virtual side of things.
Andrew
Plotstormers
You won’t regret it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I signed up for this course to help keep on track with a major rewrite of my novel, hoping thereby to avoid a big editing headache at a later stage. Plotstormers II provides a clearly laid out plan of action and takes you through the deconstruction-reconstruction process a step at a time, with plenty of moral support provided by Jo and forum participants along the way. A certain amount of pain may be inevitable, but it’s definitely a case of no pain no gain, and also brings to mind the advice of Mark Twain with regard to riding a bicycle: you won’t regret it, if you live.
Rosemary Sgroi
Plotstormers II: The Editing Strikes Back
Highly Recommended ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I came to this course with the complete first draft of a novel I had already written, but which (after a year of failing to rewrite it on my own) I knew needed more than just a bit of editing to make it work. Plotstormers has been a great way of completely deconstructing what I had to begin with, and then building it up again from scratch into first four, then seven, then sixteen units. The early weeks give you a brilliant introduction to various theories of plotting, soundbites from successful authors, and links to useful blogs and resources; this part is huge fun, and the video of Kurt Vonnegut explaining the shapes of stories is absolutely priceless. When it came to the actual writing bit, Sarah and Jo provided excellent support, encouragement and incisive feedback throughout (though be warned: the swearing is contagious. You’ll know you have a problem when your 2 yr old starts effing at random people in shops). In the latter weeks of the course the forums (fora?) became indispensible for sounding out ideas and identifying problems as well as helpful cameraderie. I lagged behind towards the end, but nevertheless this course has given me the boost I needed to get my novel back off the ground, or at least back onto the runway. I highly recommend it, and look forward to taking more Writers HQ courses in the near future.
Rosemary Sgroi
Plotstormers
Writers’ HQ is run by Sarah and Jo, two micro-sized writers who could never quite get the thing they needed from the huge array of (largely brilliant) writing courses available. So they (we? It’s us! Hello! We’re writing this in the third person!) set out to provide an inclusive, welcoming, supportive, step-by-step, hand-holding environment, away from tiresome literary snobbery and grammar pedantry, for the many writers out there who feel as though they don’t fit. Between them (us?) they’ve (we’ve?) got four degrees in literature, Shakespeare and creative writing (and maths, but we don’t discuss that one. It was a dark time), a vast portfolio of writing in various disciplines and a smattering of awards, predominantly for writing but also including winning a secondary school beauty contest, aged 11. Guess who that was.
Writer of many hats. Procrastinator level: mage. Tea status: builders, three cups a day max. Internet obsessive.
Loves: furious feminist fiction. Climate change stories. Unconventional narratives. A jolly good yarn.
Writer of many things. Productivity overlord. Tea status: leaves bag in when milking, unlimited cups a day. Meme obsessive.
Loves: Shakespeare, old English dick jokes, furious feminist fiction, Terry Pratchett.
