If you’ve not come across MasterClass before, it’s a very slick website that offers courses from some huge names in the world of writing (and in quite a few other fields too).
Their course tutors include Dan Brown, Margaret Atwood, Judy Bloom, Malcolm Gladwell, R.L Stine, and Neil Gaiman: a truly impressive line-up that you’d probably pay a hefty fee to see speak in real life.
Each course is structured as a set of short video lessons, and these lessons are normally around 10 minutes long (though they vary from 5 minutes to about 25 minutes). There are around twenty videos within each course.
I took James Patterson’s class, so I’ll be talking mainly about that here. As you’ll see from my explanation of the pricing in a moment, though, MasterClass is definitely better value if you want to take several of their classes rather than just one.
Pricing
MasterClass isn’t especially cheap: $90 for a single class (lifetime access), or $180/year for the All-Access Pass.
If you want to take two classes within a year, you might as well go for the All-Access Pass and get every other class thrown in for free.
(Note that if you do opt to purchase a single class, you can later upgrade for full access, by paying the difference for the first year (i.e. $90) then the standard annual fee of $180.)
There’s definitely a push by MasterClass toward the All-Access-Pass: if you click to buy a single pass, you’ll be shown the All-Access-Pass option very prominently, and if you own a single class, you’ll see an “upgrade” prompt whenever you log in.
You can also choose to give a MasterClass or an All-Access-Pass as a gift to a writer friend.
I’d personally have liked to see the individual classes priced more cheaply, as it seems like they’re priced quite high to drive aspiring writers to pay for a $180/year subscription.
James Patterson’s MasterClass
I picked James Patterson’s MasterClass to try out, as I’ve heard quite a lot about it (both good and bad!) – plus he is, according to MasterClass, the world’s number one bestselling author.
Overview
As with all MasterClasses courses, James Patterson’s is very professionally produced. The video and audio quality is superb, the accompanying .pdfs are nicely designed, and the interface is very easy to use to navigate between lessons.
Patterson is friendly and personable, and I enjoyed listening to him chat about writing – it reminded me of listening to keynote speakers at writing conferences over the years. He’s cheerful and not too serious about the whole process of writing, too.
The lessons cover the whole novel writing process from coming up with an idea to getting published and marketing your book, taking in all the usual things you’d expect on the way: coming up with a plot, creating characters, writing a great first line, and so on.
It also includes a look at some less-discussed areas of writing, like collaborating with a co-author and what happens when Hollywood takes an interest in your story.
What’s Great About the Course
It’s James Patterson! For many aspiring writers, that’s enough to sell them on the course. If you enjoy hearing writers talk about their writing process, then you’ll probably have a great time watching all the videos.
The course production values are high: the videos are shot in high-definition, with great audio. I’ve bought online courses that cost more and that had considerably lower quality videos. I particularly liked that the videos were subdivided into “chapters”, making it easy to find my place if I needed to stop watching part-way through a video.
The course is divided into individual lessons, which are all fairly short – making it easy to work through it in bite-sized chunks. There are plenty of good tips along the way: I felt that all Patterson’s advice was solid (for instance, he advises against writing highly realistic dialogue – advice that I’d definitely agree with).
If you enjoy interacting with fellow course members, there’s the option to do that with a comments thread beneath each lesson – though since the course is permanently available, you may find that many of the discussion posts are old or go unanswered.
What’s Not So Great About the Course
The course is only supplied in streaming video format: I’d have liked a downloadable audio version, and I’d have loved to have a transcript for easy skimming.
I got the impression that this course was created by someone asking Patterson to share whatever was on his mind about a particular topic or theme – then it was cut up and stitched into lessons afterward. (You can see this in action at times: e.g. in Lesson 2, location changes at the “Believe in yourself” point). Personally, I’d have preferred a less chatty, more tightly scripted approach to the lessons.
The course covers a huge range of advice – and that means that you don’t get much depth on any particular area. I’ve read whole books on, say, editing – which is covered in here in a 9-minute-long lesson. The same goes for topics like writing dialogue (covered in 10 minutes here) and on getting published (covered in 11 minutes – I’ve seen whole weekend courses run on this topic).
That’s not to say that these materials aren’t valuable – but if you’ve already got half-a-dozen writing-related books on your shelf, or you’ve been to a few talks about “writing a novel”, you may well find you’re not learning anything especially new.
Should You Give MasterClass a Try?
If you’d love to hear some amazing writers talk about their craft (and teach you about what they’ve learned along the way), do give MasterClass a look. The All-Access-Pass isn’t cheap, but well worth saving for if you want to take more than one class … just watch out for the yearly resubscription.
I found it really interesting to hear James Patterson talk about writing, but if you just want to purchase the one class, you may decide that the $80 price tag is a bit much! Unless you particularly enjoy learning from watching videos, you might prefer to spend a lot less and buy two or three good books on writing instead.
MasterClass does have a 30 day money back guarantee period, though, so if you try it and decide it’s not worth the money for you, you can always get your money back.
I’ve tried to read books by James Patterson, I really have. I can’t get past the first few pages without wanting to hurl the book against the wall. Since they’re library books, I know I shouldn’t do that.
I’ve thought about authoring a book that’d be titled Write Badly, Get Rich. Many of the examples would come from JP himself. The key to making millions as a writer, I believe, is to write badly, ghoulishly, unrealistically and inaccurately. Why?
Because people who’re actually doing something with their lives don’t have time to read much. If you want to sell, you have to write for those who write badly and thus want to read bad writing, hence JP’s hasty prose. Most authors have first drafts that read better than JP’s published books. You also have to write for people with dull, empty lives, hence JP’s often ghoulish themes.
You must also write utter nonsense because your readers know no better. If I recall correctly, one of JPs serial characters has ten or so adopted children and still manages to be a highly successful detective or a spy or whatever. Do you know what you do with that many troubled kids? I know because I have a friend who lives that kind of life. You do nothing but struggle to help those kids put their lives together. You don’t time for anything else.
And yeah, to get rich writing means ‘accuracy be damned.’ You must do no fact checking. You must write tales that fit the highly inaccurate worldview of these avid readers. They think satellites can buzz about wherever they want like bees, as I read in one clueless techno-thriller. These readers have so little scientific understanding, they can’t grasp the concept of orbits. And yeah, I’m undecided whether these Write Badly, Get Rich authors need to be that stupid or if they just write to the low standards of their benighted readers.
That is Write Badly, Get Rich. Feel free to steal the idea from me. I don’t have the stomach to read enough in these authors to write it. I once told friends that my vision of heaven was a beautiful forest filled with libraries connected by bike trails. My version of hell is that those libraries are filled with nothing but books written by JP and his literary kin.
Thank you for the review. I’ve always wanted to see what these courses were like, but I wasn’t going to risk $90+. I suspected it was a course meant for first time writers, and the idea of calling it a MasterClass was pure marketing.
LOL@Michael Perry
So true! The books I see lying around the homes of my homebound patients…ugh. Truly they are written for people who must live vicariously. I have enough excitement in my life with one house, one job and one (26-year-old drama-queen) child.
Jesus, M. Perry. Sounds like you didn’t get enough hugs as a child. Or maybe the spite and bitterness oozing out of your comments comes from you being rejected as an author. Someone else made it and you didn’t? Here’s a virtual hug for you. Hope it helps.
I thought that one of the first big lessons for writers, is to read,so I dont understand the emphasis on visuals ie Videos.
I was considering this course but find it more helpful to have lessons in text form, interspersed with videos to break the monotony.
There is no mention of how much one is required to write or whether the goal is to produce a piece of flash fiction or a short story by the end. I’m not sure a chatty format is conducive to one’s learning curve, as it’s the author’s subjective mind stuff, which although would be helpful, should not be the gold standard of writing fiction. Everyone has their own vision.