3 Practices to Improve Your Creative Writing Skills |
Posted: March 10, 2020 |
Creative writing allows for much more freedom than other types of writing, and while that flexibility is wonderful, it can also be overwhelming. Simply getting started on a piece of creative writing can sometimes be the biggest struggle. Once you start, finding your own voice to put a unique touch on your work can also be a tough endeavor. These three tips can help you start, and improve, your creative writing: 1. Write oftenDon't just write when you have to - write as often as possible. The more you write, the more your writing may improve. Set up a small area in your house as a "writing spot." Try to spend time writing every day, even if you can only set 10 minutes aside for writing. If you want to stretch your creative muscles, try some writing exercises. You can find a slew of exercises online on paper writing websites. Some will generate prompts or provide you with a few words and ask you to work with them. You can also create your own writing challenges, like finding a difficult topic and trying to tackle it. If there's a type of writing you normally struggle with, like poetry, take a crack at it - doing so can help you loosen up. Also, keep a notebook handy in case inspiration comes to you in an unexpected place or time. This can generate ideas on creative writing topics for the future. 2. Realize that you don't have to get it right the first timeOnce you start on your actual writing project, don't strive to craft the perfect sentence as part of a first draft. That's an easy way to quickly get hit by writer's block. Instead, just start writing and let the words flow out, not stopping to re-read until you've finished writing a complete thought or draft. You'll have plenty of opportunities to revise as you edit and work on new drafts. When you edit, look for different types of opportunities for improvement. Ask yourself who your audience is and if they will be engaged. Make sure you have a cohesive theme or message throughout. Edit the work as a whole, as well as individual sentences and phrases. Take a break from looking at the piece so that you don't get too caught up in the details. If you can, ask someone else to read it over to get a fresh perspective. 3. Cut out vague and meaningless wordsAs you work on revisions, try as much as possible to cut out words that don't mean anything or don't add to your narrative. For example, in the movie "Dead Poets Society," John Keating, an English teacher, tells his students to avoid using the word "very" because it's lazy. "A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don't use very sad, use morose," he advises. "Very" and similar words like "really" or "a lot" don't mean anything by themselves, and while they may add emphasis, they are an uncreative way to do so. Try to think of more meaningful and complex words to create a more powerful description.
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