Creative Writing Ideas and Tips

Creative writing is a vast subject and covers many genres, fields and techniques. When you write to convey a thought, an idea, a concept, a story and so on, and when you do that in an interesting and new manner, you are writing creatively.

Writing stories is a part of writing. There are other types of writing such as writing articles for print and web. Here are some general tips for all these kinds of creative writing:

Transport the Reader : Creative writing involves taking the reader from where he / she is right now, to the place you want him to be. For example, if you have written a story that takes place on another planet, then the reader must imagine for the duration of reading the story that he is right there watching it all happen. This is called ‘transporting the reader’ with your words.

Get the Reader Involved : The next step is to get the reader involved in your story. This is an offshoot of transporting the reader, but then it gets the reader in to the story so that he lives and breathes it not just during the reading process, but also after it.

Characters : The characters that are created must be such that the reader easily identifies with them. Towards that end, you must know your audience completely and create characters from people just like them. So you have to know the character well before you write about him / her. It helps if you can write a short biography of the character before you launch the story, so that you know his likes and dislikes, and his character traits better.

Plan / Plot : The article and the story that you are going to write needs to be planned or plotted well. You can do this by writing down bulleted points of the article or the plot and then expanding on it. Once you get into this habit, you will eventually be able to do this off hand. This is, however, the best way to ensure that you don’t lose the thread of the plot or the article plan.

Show, Don’t Tell : Write in such a manner that the reader feels that he is seeing the things happen right in front of his eyes. Use dialogues and descriptions in such a way that the reader feels that he is part of the story, be it as an observer.

Simple and Sweet : This rule applies to all kinds of writing. Brevity is the magic word in prose. If there is any complicated rule or concept that you must explain, break it down into simple parts. Use short sentences. Read your sentences aloud and see how long you need to speak it.

Keep it Focused : If you are writing about apples, don’t talk about oranges. Focus your article on apples. You really can’t get much simpler than this over here, can you?

Don’t Show Off : We all know that you are a master of the English Language. But do tone it down, will you? Write Simply. Your readers may not know the language so well. Simplicity is the best way to write. And often enough, those among us who can’t resist the urge, end up making silly errors.

All things Technical : While writing, one must double check the grammar and the spellings and the technical aspects of writing. Often wrong grammar or spellings can change the meaning of what you wanted to say in the first place. Don’t just rely on the word processor to do it for you. Use your own head. Consult a good grammar book and a dictionary.

Applying all these techniques to your writing will enhance your writing abilities. These creative writing tips and ideas will help you write better.

All the Best of Luck!