Ready to bring your fiction to life?
Our 12-week online creative writing fiction course is designed for beginners and anyone looking to write more consistently. Whether you’re just starting out or need guidance in developing a regular writing practice, during this fiction course, you will gain the essential tools and techniques to craft compelling fiction.
Through a combination of inspirational lessons, engaging exercises, and practical assignments, you’ll learn how to create memorable characters, build captivating stories, and find your unique voice. You’ll achieve real progress with one-to-one feedback from your tutor that is tailored to your writing. No generic responses — get specific, actionable advice from an expert.
This course will cover…
- Building a writing habit: Learn how to establish a consistent writing routine and effectively utilise a writer’s journal.
- Character development: Discover how to create well-rounded characters and write credible dialogue that brings them to life.
- Exploring perspectives: Understand the impact of different perspectives on your writing and how to choose the right one for your story.
- Narrative structure: Find the ideal structure for your work to enhance its engagement and flow.
- Crafting beginnings and endings: Master techniques for compelling story openings and satisfying conclusions.
- Redrafting and self-editing: Delve into the essential steps of the redrafting process and learn effective self-editing techniques to refine your work.
This writing fiction course is ideal for those with no prior formal training who want to master the foundations of fiction writing. Your tutor will review up to 5,000 words of your writing, and at the end of the course, you’ll enjoy a one-to-one tutorial to discuss your progress and the next steps for your writing journey.
Start date
Monday 23 February 2026
Location
Online
Length
12 weeks (please see course schedule below)
Price
£495
*Payment plans available. Drop us a line at [email protected] to find out more.
By the end of this course, you will:
- Understand the basic elements of a short story: Familiarise yourself with the fundamental components that make up a compelling short story.
- Analyse published short stories: Examine selected published works in detail to gain insights into effective storytelling techniques.
- Complete a short story: Draft a full short story, applying the knowledge you’ve acquired about the mechanics of fiction.
- Master the art of feedback: Learn how to give and receive constructive feedback, enabling you to revise and enhance your work.
- Maintain a writer’s notebook: Discover how to keep your own writer’s notebook to generate and develop new ideas.
- Receive personalised feedback: Get feedback on up to 5,000 words of your fiction to support your growth as a writer.
Course programme
Please note, the module order and/or content of the course may be subject to change.
Module one – Getting started
In this module, you will explore exercises to release your creativity and meet your tutor and fellow students. You’ll use the world around you to help generate ideas for stories, and you’ll get into the habit of writing daily in a writer’s journal. The assignment for this module is up to 500 words of the seed of a story.
Module two – Character
In this module, you will get to know your characters inside out and you will learn how to write credible dialogue. You will complete exercises to develop relationships between your characters, discover the importance of subtext, and observe strangers in the real world to generate writing material. The assignment for this module is up to 750 words in which you introduce a character into a scene.
Module three – Whose story is it, and who is telling it?
This module is a journey through perspectives and their impact on writing. You’ll read examples of writing in the first, second, and third person, and through a series of exercises, you’ll explore how your story changes depending on the point of view. The assignment is up to 750 words encouraging you to explore a new point of view in your writing.
Module four – Finding the story
This module is focused on structure and its impact on narrative. You’ll learn that finding the right structure can make even the simplest story engaging, you’ll analyse a short story using a structured framework and you’ll practise implementing this in your own work. The exercise for this module will ask you to produce a rough draft of your own story accordingly, in less than 700 words.
Module five – Making it better
In this module, you’ll get deep into the nuts and bolts of the redrafting and self-editing process. You’ll work on editing on a sentence-by-sentence level through a series of exercises, you’ll be led through the essential art of showing, not telling, and you’ll produce a piece of writing to share with a trusted reader. You’ll learn how to give and receive feedback, and you’ll produce a critical self-commentary on your own work.
Module six – Beginnings and endings
In this final module, you’ll explore different ways of beginning your story. You’ll learn how to hook a reader from the first word and you’ll compare opening paragraphs to analyse their effect. You’ll also learn how to end a story, comparatively looking at different techniques and methods in order to bring your narrative to its conclusion. The assignment for this module is a completed short story of up to 2000 words, accompanied by a short self-appraisal that takes into account everything you’ve learned in the course.
There will be two live sessions for this course, which will take place over Zoom. Timings to be confirmed. Please note that timings will vary depending on which tutor you are assigned.
I’ve taken away a much greater confidence in my creative work, an ability to be much more flexible but also decisive with my writing ideas, and have learned many new writing techniques and ways of working.
National Centre for Writing has been supporting writers to develop their craft for over 25 years. Our online tutored courses are developed in partnership with University of East Anglia, home to the prestigious School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, which boasts award-winning alumni including Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Anne Enright. Our course tutors are all published writers, many of whom have studied or taught at UEA themselves.
While many online writing courses are available worldwide, ours stand out by offering:
- One-to-one feedback on up to six assignments, directly from your course tutor
- A tailored learning experience with a maximum of 15 students per class
- The flexibility to progress through the course from anywhere, at any time
- Support and structure to help you develop a consistent writing routine
- Essential skills and knowledge to enhance your craft
- Increased confidence in your ability as a writer
- The opportunity to join our NCW Alumni—an international network of like-minded writers and translators
The course content covered all the topics that I was struggling with in my writing plus more. It nicely balanced the technical side with fun exercises that were also stretching. The feedback from the assignments was invaluable and very encouraging so that I felt like I wanted to keep going. Also I loved the interaction in the forum both with other students and the tutor. I learnt so much from reading other people’s contributions and comments.
Meet the tutor
Benjamin Johncock
Benjamin Johncock is an award-winning novelist, short story writer and journalist. His debut novel, The Last Pilot, was published in the U.S. and U.K. to widespread critical acclaim. It won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the East Anglian Book of the Year, selected for Brave New Reads, and was one of The Observer’s Hidden Gems of 2016. His award-winning short stories have been published by The Fiction Desk, The Junket, Comma Press and Storgy. His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, The Spectator, and many others, and he has worked as an editor and copywriter. He’s on the editorial board of The Letters Page, a literary journal edited by Jon McGregor at the University of Nottingham, and for two years was a mentor for the National Centre for Writing’s Escalator writing programme. He is also a recipient of two Arts Council England grants. He lives in Norwich with his wife, his daughter, and his son.
Read Benjamin’s dos and don’ts of writing fiction →
Megan Bradbury
Megan Bradbury is a British writer, tutor, and mentor, and author of the critically acclaimed novel, Everyone is Watching (Picador, 2016). Described as a ‘beating heart of a novel’ by Ali Smith and ‘kaleidoscopic’ by Eimear McBride, the novel was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and was listed as one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2016. Bradbury is a graduate of the Creative Writing Prose Masters programme at the University of East Anglia, and has been awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship, an Author’s Foundation award, and numerous grants from Arts Council England. She has written for the Irish Times and the Times Literary Supplement. She is also an experienced artistic collaborator and a previous recipient of the Escalator Literature Prize. www.meganbradbury.com
Follow Megan’s action plan for aspiring writers →
I enjoyed the supportive feedback from my tutor and peers. I also enjoyed being made to stretch myself. Just enough to develop me without destroying my fragile confidence
How does this course work?
We have partnered with digital learning platform Teachable to host our self-paced courses. The platform is accessible across a range of devices, simple to use, and does not require any specialist equipment.
We want to make sure that you get the most out of our tutored online courses and feel confident that you’re choosing the right course. Each course contains a mixture of teaching content, reading to prompt discussion, writing exercises for you to hone your skills, and group and one-to-one feedback.
Click to read more about how they are structured and what equipment you may need.
Explore our content
Finding your voice: how mentorship can transform your writing journey
How do writers benefit from ongoing mentorship and guidance? We spoke with Megan Bradbury about her experiences as an NCW tutor and mentor.
29 April 2025
The importance of setting in fiction
In this article, writer and NCW tutor Benjamin Johncock (The Last Pilot), argues that, when we fail to establish where and when things are happening, we break the spell. Explore why clarity, precision and specificity in setting aren’t optional — they’re essential.
19 August 2025
Writing between genres: Michael Pedersen on Muckle Flugga
In this episode of The Writing Life podcast, prize-winning poet and writer Michael Pedersen shares his experience writing between genres.
14 July 2025
Got a question?
If you still have questions, get in touch with the Academy team by emailing [email protected] or phone (+44) 01603 877177 between our working hours of 9am – 5pm BST, Monday to Friday. We’re here to help!