Creative Writing and Storytelling: Learn from 7 Masters

In this course you will learn from seven masters, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Italo Calvino, Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro and Charles Bukowski. Learning from great novelists is like being an apprentice to one these masters of creative writing and storytelling. This course not only has distilled their craft and storytelling techniques, but also their way of thinking. To become a great writer is to emulate and learn from the greats.

Dostoevsky is the father of Russian literature. He was not only a great novelist, but also a philosopher and psychologist. Kafka is perhaps the most well-known 20th century writer whose name alone has given us a literary style called Kafkesque. So Dostoevsky and Kafka bring the dark side of human experience. On the other hand we have Proust and Calvino two of the greatest writers of the 20th century whose writings represent a more artistic side of creative writing. Proust holds the record for writing the longest novel in history and also one of the most profound. Calvino was a master of storytelling who combined folktales with modern science. Then we have two contemporary authors. Haruki Murakami is perhaps the most unique writer of current time and has a cult following among his readers. Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2018 and is often called the master of craft and methodical writing. Bukowski is one of the most important writers of the 20th century America with a unique voice.

So this course brings 7 of the most successful, yet unique novelists of the past three centuries who are very different from one another. You get to learn from their styles and ways of thinking and seeing the world. Creativity is seeing things differently. And these 6 masters certainly do and feel things differently.

You don't need to have read any of their books. I will summarise all their major works and then bring unique lessons we can learn from each one. The lessons are a mix of practical tips, way of thinking, and psychological as well as philosophical insights. So not only you learn practical tips on writing and storytelling but also learn what philosophical and psychological ideas underpin those tips.