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Published On: Tue, Oct 22nd, 2019

5 Creative Essay-Writing Tips

Creative writing is more than just making things up and allowing your imagination to run wild. Moreover, it isn’t restricted to poetry and fiction – you can be creative as an academic writer and a journalist. All you need is to express your emotions and thoughts skillfully to influence your reader in a deep and meaningful way. The events presented in your text can be real. In fact, in case of an essay, they rather should.

So, how creative you think your average essay is on the scale of one to James Joyce? Not to worry, with the help of these tips, you will reach the desired level in no time.

1. Know your reader

Your audience is the most important consideration not only in creative writing but also in any text. If you want them to take interest in your writing, you need to make it useful to them. To achieve that, you should know what your reader needs.

Who is your intended reader when you write an essay? Obviously, your college instructor. What do they hate? Monotonous, predictable and wordy essays recounting what they said during the lectures and riddled with redundant phrases to boost the word count. What do they want? Original and succinct essays that actually express your thoughts on the subject. Can you imagine how tiresome it is to read again and again what your students think you want them to say instead of something genuinely new? There is no roundabout way here. Be honest and brainstorm something authentic.

photo/ Pixels

2. Catch your reader’s attention

Using an attention-grabbing opening is the best piece of advice in creative writing. Your instructor is a human being too, you know. 

Cool way to begin is a ‘flashback’. For example, during a scientific conference, a speaker presenting biology-related topic, reminisces how as a kid, he used to play with frogs and bunnies in the backyard of his parents’ house. Then he switches back to present and tells how his research papers help to preserve wild animals. The flashback is relevant, refreshingly humanizing and immediately establishes personal connection with the audience: we all were once children and had hobbies. Plus, it shows that he is emotionally invested in his work. He cares, and so should we.

Another incarnation of this technique is nonlinear narrative. This means, you rearrange the sequence of events by immediately taking the reader in the middle of the action so that the story begins at full speed without fair warning. Boom!

3. Use metaphors

Metaphors aren’t merely decorations to make your text lush and flowery. They can be very useful. You take something your reader knows and understands well and then use it to explain something new and complicated. Sounds perfect for academic writing, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, over the years, factual impassive style of white papers and lab reports has trickled down to every other type of academic paper. Some of the more strict custodians of academic jargon resent metaphors, similes, and even words they deem too poetic, such as “lone”, for example. Still, all the rhetoric figures are welcome in an essay, public speech, or a presentation, even if it deals with quantum physics.

4. Paint a picture

As a writer, one of your goals is to entertain your readers. One way to keep your reader entertained is to take your essay to the next level by using vivid images that your readers will be able to see in their mind. Give life to your essay with details about the places, people, and objects you write about.

Essays can be insipid when you only discuss abstract issues. Add some examples. How do the issues you discuss affect our everyday life or technology we use? Why they are important? By putting in some interesting facts and examples, you make your writing relatable and real.

Although it is more obvious for humanities, such as English literature, archaeology, and history, examples work and can be found for a variety of subjects.

5. Always take time to revise

If you saw the word “revise” and decided, it’s about grammar, spelling, and typos, don’t be too hasty to skip this paragraph. Of course, correcting mistakes is necessary. However, revision is more than that.

Revision means that should read your final draft through and assess how precisely and clearly you’ve presented your main points. You can also make sure that the essay is coherent and consistent with the topic. If you have enough time, you can ask a friend for their opinion and make the necessary corrections based on their feedback.

Author: Tech Social

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  1. Dara says:

    Nice post)

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