Feel Like Trying Out Some Creative Writing Exercises?

Even if you have a highly creative mind and you’re a natural wordsmith, penning creative pieces can be tough; in fact, it can downright stink when you’re first getting started. A creative piece of writing needs to be compelling and engaging, which can be a lot harder than it seems. 

If you’re interested in trying your hand at creative writing but you’re crumping up more paper than you care to admit, don’t give up hope! Creative writing classes aren’t necessary to be successful. With patience, persistence, and a few helpful tips, you can develop some truly creative pieces. Keep on learning to find out how you can get on the creative writing path. 

What is creative writing, anyway? 

First, let’s clarify what creative writing is. In short, it’s a form of writing in which creativity sits at the forefront of a piece of literature. It engages and encourages the use of the imagination. In order to craft a good creative piece, the text needs to convey strong visuals that illicit an emotional response via the written word. Examples of creative writing include short stories, novels, and poetry. It’s the opposite of informational writing, such as academic and journalistic, as it engages the sense and the emotions of the reader in order to create a strong visual in their mind. 

What elements does creative writing feature? 

In order to be successful at creative writing, you need to have a firm understanding of the elements that this genre of writing entails. To illustrate, let’s take the analogy of a building a car engine: in order to successfully build a car engine that will work, you need to know each of the parts and how each of those parts work. Well, the same is true with writing. 

With that said, here’s a brief look at the unique elements that creative writing needs to entail. 

A unique plot

What makes creative writing stand apart from other genres of writing is that it always has some type of plot; moreover, the plot is unique. A plot describes the chain of events and the significant role they play in a story as the story unfolds. Without a plot, there is no creative story, and without a story, you’re really only writing facts on paper, as in journalistic or informational writing. 

Character development 

Characters are also an absolute must in a piece of creative writing. While it’s true that you can write a creative piece in the second person point of view, in order to tell the story, you need to have characters, and you need to develop those characters. Character development can be described as the uncovering of a character and who he or she is, how they change throughout the story, and what their goals, wishes, wants, dreams, etc. are. From the beginning to the end, the readers of a creative piece should be able to develop a deep understanding of and connection with the characters. 

An underlying theme

It should also have an underlying theme or a message, regardless of whether or not you intended to do that with the story. However, creative writing requires that theme or message in order to be a complete piece. 

Visual descriptions 

Creative writing should paint a picture for the readers. The wording should describe the scenery, the experiences, the activities, and the feelings of the characters, thereby drawing in readers and fully engaging them. 

Creative language

To create visual descriptions, you need to use creative language. In fact, creative language is the very essence of creative writing. Without it, the writing wouldn’t be very creative, would it? Examples of creative language you can incorporate include similes, metaphors, and figurative language. 

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