Creative Writing Concepts

Creative writing depends on two different kinds of planning. First, you prepare to write by making an assessment of what is involved in answering the question or fulfilling the requirement. Then you plan the time and structure to get the job done. Creative writing timetable is practical, not theoretical. Although you will want to establish the timetable for your whole project before you set out to write, the technique for planning writing time will be clearer if demonstrated in the context of a case study position paper discussed later.

The concept of writing with confidence or pleasure is even more mysterious, one reserved for "born writers." This debilitating illusion is reinforced by our cultural myth that "creative writing can't be taught." Yet most of us have to write creatively; and we wish we could do it well, with less frustration and more control. Fortunately, common sense tells us anyone can learn to write well, with both energy and satisfaction.

Most writers share some unpleasant experiences. We feel a sense of dread when we are asked to answer a question that is often not of great interest to us. We have the dull knowledge that we most often write not to explore or to understand, but to demonstrate to a teacher or a supervisor that we have covered certain material, or adopted a particular way of looking at an issue. We remember those creative writing assignments that require us to condense a book's worth of material or six months of research into two pages. We've discovered that what we have struggled to say is not always read carefully. It isn't any wonder, then, that people normally write without a sense of self-discovery; they write not to engage the reader but to get an onerous job done.

In high school, the time-killing, predictable exercises meant to discipline our writing skills confirmed this need for a second self. We could not ignore the red marks in the margins of our compositions. Although it was quite clear that what we had to say was of little interest to our readers, the way we said it did elicit feelings, usually anger, irritation, and a lot of exclamation points. Our anxiety about mechanical errors was linked with an even deeper concern about grades, or winning a scholarship to college.

The Reader's Questions

The Writer's Question

Representation