what do you think about online classes?

I have never taken a writing class online, but have had good luck with other online classes.

Not much help, I know...

If you do decide to take it, let us know what you get out of it and if you thought it was a useful idea.

I took one online class and was very disappointed with it. Online is good for lots of things, but classes does not seem to be one them. At least that is my opinion. And by the way I have taken a fair number of off-line classes concerning writing skills and use of the computer and I have enjoyed them very much.

I took an online class but it wasn't a writing class, it was English lit.

It was okay. We had message boards and email assignments.

I've taken online classes offered thru the university system in my state. I found them to be OK if you are self-motivated, diligent about deadlines and don't mind a lot of reading. Almost all of the lectures and assignments are readings. Only one course (in about 20) had video lectures, and that was a science course.

Good luck.

I teach "live" classes for Gotham Writers' Workshop, but I decided it would be fun to try something new and so I signed up to be a student in an online class. I'm enjoying it. The teacher is interesting, the critiques are good and the students are active. However, I could see how you might wind up in a class where the teacher is boring, critiques bad and students don't take part. So it all probably depends.

I started one - nothing to do with this site - but found that all my assignments were up for public bashing by every other member on the site, regardless of age, background or ability. At the other end of the scale, several who were obviously buddies in real life were hyping each other's work up to the extent that one wondered why they felt the need to embark on a course, other than to tell each other how brilliant they were.
Not helpful, for me.

I took an online class from Writer's Digest's outfit and liked it a lot. It was taught by G. Miki Hayden, who was terrific. Currently I'm taking my third online class with Gotham. I can recommend both. The flexibility afforded by an online workshop is hard to beat.

--Rye-Ting

I've taken online classes through my work--these are self-paced modules were you read the material, test your knowledge, and then take a test. Some come with additional information, like for a grammar one, there was a list of typical jargon words. I've been surprised to see how much I've gotten out of some of them. But there have also been a few that just didn't do much for me, and others that were in between.

I'd suggest instead of taking a generic "How to write a novel" class which covers a very broad topic, maybe look for ones that cover a more specific area. I did a viewpoint workshop last year that turned out to be helpful--all it focused on was all the different viewpoints.

However, I do think one of the problems with the writing ones is that if you don't agree with the instructor's perspective or your writing doesn't fit in with the direction, then it's not going to be a good session. I did one on description that I felt didn't help or offer any new insight because the instructor had a very specific image of how description should be. That, combined with the selection of exercises, didn't allow for much flexibility to learn anything.

I took a correspondance course through Writer's Digest many years ago and it was great. Of course this was back before I had a computer and I had to send my assignments through the mail.

If I could afford to take an on-line course, I'd take it through them. The course material is still helpful, even though the course I took was for short stories and I'm more into novels now.