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What Is Creative Writing

Creative writing uses imagination and creativity to tell stories through strong visual language and emotional impact. It differs from academic or journalistic writing by using senses and emotions to create a visual for the reader rather than just conveying facts. The elements that make up creative writing include a unique plot, character development, an underlying theme, visual descriptions, and the use of point of view and dialogue to further the story.

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Kate Summers
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275 views3 pages

What Is Creative Writing

Creative writing uses imagination and creativity to tell stories through strong visual language and emotional impact. It differs from academic or journalistic writing by using senses and emotions to create a visual for the reader rather than just conveying facts. The elements that make up creative writing include a unique plot, character development, an underlying theme, visual descriptions, and the use of point of view and dialogue to further the story.

Uploaded by

Kate Summers
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing where creativity is at the forefront of its


purpose through using imagination, creativity, and innovation in order to tell a
story through strong written visuals with an emotional impact, like in poetry
writing, short story writing, novel writing, and more.
It’s often seen as the opposite of journalistic or academic writing.
When it comes to writing, there are many different types. As you already know,
all writing does not read in the same way.
Creative writing uses senses and emotions in order to create a strong visual in
the reader’s mind whereas other forms of writing typically only leave the reader
with facts and information instead of emotional intrigue.
It can be a book series or a single installation, the factors that make up creative
writing have more to do with how it sits with the reader artistically.

What are the Elements of Creative


Writing?
In order to get better at creative writing, you have to understand the elements of
what makes writing a book great.
You can’t build a car engine without understanding how each part plays a role,
right…?
That’s the same case with writing.
And just a note, this is all stuff we cover, and you get to talk about 1-on-1 with
your coach when you join Self-Publishing School.
Here are the elements that make up creative writing and why each is just as
important as the other.

Unique Plot
What differentiates creative writing and other forms of writing the most is the fact
that the former always has a plot of some sort – and a unique one.
Yes, remakes are also considered creative writing, however, most creative
writers create their own plot formed by their own unique ideas. Without having a
plot, there’s no story.
And without a story, you’re really just writing facts on paper, much like a
journalist. Learn how to plot your novel and you’ll open up the possibility of
writing at a higher level without the need to find your story as much.

Character development
Characters are necessary for creative writing. While you can certainly write a
book creatively using the second person point of view (which I’ll cover below),
you still have to develop the character in order to tell the story.
Character development can be defined as the uncovering of who a character is
and how they change throughout the duration of your story. From start to end,
readers should be able to understand your main characters deeply.

Underlying Theme
Almost every story out there has an underlying theme or message – even if the
author didn’t necessarily intend for it to. But creative writing needs that theme or
message in order to be complete.
That’s part of the beauty of this form of art. By telling a story, you can also teach
lessons.

Visual Descriptions
When you’re reading a newspaper, you don’t often read paragraphs of
descriptions depicting the surrounding areas of where the events took place.
Visual descriptions are largely saved for creative writing.
You need them in order to help the reader understand what the surroundings of
the characters look like.
Show don’t tell writing pulls readers in and allows them to imagine themselves in
the characters’ shoes – which is the reason people read.

Point of View
There are a few points of views you can write in. That being said, the two that are
most common in creative writing are first person and third person.
• First Person – In this point of view, the narrator is actually the main character.
This means that you will read passages including, “I” and understand that it is the
main character narrating the story.
• Second Person – Most often, this point of view isn’t used in creative writing, but
rather instructional writing – like this blog post. When you see the word “you” and
the narrator is speaking directly to you, it’s second person point of view.
• Third Person – Within this point of view are a few different variations. You have
third person limited, third person multiple, and third person omniscient. The first
is what you typically find.
• Third person limited’s narrator uses “he/she/they” when speaking about the
character you’re following. They know that character’s inner thoughts and
feelings but nobody else’s. It’s much like first person, but instead of the character
telling the story, a narrator takes their place.
• Third person multiple is the same as limited except that the narrator now knows
the inner thoughts and feelings of several characters.
• The last, third person omniscient, is when the narrator still uses “he/she/they” but
has all of the knowledge. They know everything about everyone.
While non-creative writing can have dialogue (like in interviews), that dialogue is
not used in the same way as it is in creative writing. Creative writing (aside from
silent films) requires dialogue to support the story.
Your characters should interact with one another in order to further the plot
and develop each character other more.

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