MasterClass provides in-depth and engaging classes taught by experts in various fields. The classes are designed to bring your favorite experts to your home in an engaging online experience, which includes state of the art pre-recorded videos, workbooks, and stimulating assignments. Your yearly Annual Membership gives you access to 85+ world-renowned instructors on Film and TV, Culinary Arts, Design, Photography, Fashion, Sports, Science and Technology and so much more. Instructors include world-famous chef Gordon Ramsay, bestselling author Margaret Atwood and many more. The classes have about 20 lectures, each about 10 minutes so you can watch and re-watch at anytime. Video lessons can easily be watched on the MasterClass mobile app, on your desktop, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku devices. Check out our MasterClass review to find out more details!
When you join MasterClass, you’ll subscribe to the yearly Annual Membership ($180). With this, you can take any class you want at any time, and your access continues until you cancel.
This is a review of the Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing class from MasterClass!
The MasterClass Instructor – Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood begins this class with an introduction to how she became a writer, her writing process, and explains how to overcome your fears of writing. She addresses how to combat these fears and encourages viewers to just start writing. Margaret Atwood is best known for her bestselling novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which is now a TV series on Hulu. She also has published works in many other genres including, poetry, short stories, and non-fiction.
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her latest book of short stories is Stone Mattress: Nine Wicked Tales (2014). The Door (2007) is her latest volume of poetry. Her most recent nonfiction books are Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2007) and In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (2011). Her novels include The Blind Assassin (2000), winner of the Booker Prize; Alias Grace (1996), which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Robber Bride (1993): Cat’s Eye (1988): The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), now a TV series with MGM and Hulu: and The Penelopiad (2005). Her newest novels are The Heart Goes Last, published in September 2015: Hag-Seed (2016), a revisitation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest for the Hogarth Shakespeare project: and Angel Catbird (2016), a graphic novel with cocreator Johnnie Christmas. Margaret lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
Margaret Atwood has designed this class to provide a strong writing foundation through the exploration her own writing process and development of settings, plots, characters, and storylines. She challenges the viewers by assigning writing assignments focused on each lesson, while also sharing her advice when it comes to roadblocks and other challenges she has faced throughout her career.
Creative Writing – Who is it for?
Margaret Atwood’s class is for anyone who is interested in creative writing! She does an excellent job of using a combination of lessons and assignments to strengthen the viewer’s ability to develop a plot, compelling characters, and purposeful dialogue. This class is geared at viewers who are looking to strengthen their creative writing skills, but also for anyone who may be just starting their writing career. Margaret Atwood’s lessons are easy to follow and provide a great foundation for developing anything from short stories to novels. She also encourages her viewers to challenge themselves by exploring new avenues in their writing through more complex storylines and point of views.
Tell the page your story. Set your voice down on it. The page is very discreet: it won’t pass your story on until you allow it to, so you can tell it anything, without fear.
MasterClass Margaret Atwood – Main Themes
- Storytelling
- Point of view
- To try you have to begin
- Share your voice
MasterClass Workbook – Margaret Atwood
For those who are looking to use this class as a tool to strengthen their creative writing skills, the workbook is a great resource. It opens with a letter from Margaret Atwood with an introduction to her class and a challenge for the viewers to face their fears and just begin writing. The workbook also has a review of every lesson, assignments, and a section where viewers can learn more. The assignments are very beneficial and provide opportunities to focus writing on each individual topic discussed in the class. The learn more sections of the workbook, provide more resources for analyzing certain aspects, like point of view or character development in other famous works. This workbook is very comprehensive and for those who are looking to take on this class, the workbook will be your guide to using what Margaret Atwood has to share in her lessons and applying it to your own writing.
MasterClass Creative Writing Takeaways
Margaret Atwood has created an in depth class that dives into key concepts of creative writing, which include point of view, character development, plot structure, dialogue, using sensory imagery, and she even explores tactics for revising your own work. This class uses a combination of Margaret Atwood’s own writing experiences and examples from famous novels to explore these concepts. She also has a few lessons which focus on her books, Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale, to explore point of view and how to use research to develop ideas for a plot.
You become a writer by writing. There is no other way.
This class also has an entire lesson on how to overcome roadblocks, which I thought was very beneficial! Margaret Atwood provides some simple suggestions, but in the end, all you can do is just keep writing and something will come of it eventually. She says the only way to get better is to do the work! But in the same lesson she also gives important advice about being kind to yourself, and taking care of yourself physically and mentally while writing.
The wastepaper basket is your friend. It was invented for you, by God.
Final Thoughts on Margaret Atwood’s MasterClass
I found this MasterClass very informative and beneficial! Margaret Atwood really does do a great job of exploring many different fundamental topics for creative writing, while also creating an in depth workbook to go along with her lessons. If you are someone who is looking to strengthen their creative writing skills or even just build a good beginning foundation, this is the class for you!
What do you think of this MasterClass?
Comments