How to Improve Your Creative Writing Skills

Creative writing assignments are not new to you, but whenever you are asked to write a poem or a fictional story in college, do you feel nervous? Well, you are not alone. The pressure to be ‘creative’ is real.

Having good creative writing skills can be one of the most important things that students need to have nowadays. To enhance your creative writing skills, you can start by understanding what creative writing is and the factors that can support your development in creative writing.

In this article, we’ll touch upon what creative writing is, along with how you can become a better creative writer and the other skills you can work on to do so.

What is Creative Writing

Creative writing, as the name itself, is a newer style of writing that goes beyond the formal, professional, and traditional styles of writing. Most people with creative writing styles end up creating fictional or nonfictional works.

Some examples of creative writing work include poems, stories, journalistic, film scripts, and more. Therefore, creative writing is often known as the most expressive writing style.

These days, creative writing has come in many forms that are easy to find around us, including each significant genre and style. For example, creative writing includes biographies, fiction works, poetry or spoken words, non-academic essays, speeches, and scriptwriting.

5 Ways to Improve your Creative Writing Skills

If you think that some people are just born to be excellent writers, you are mistaken. While it is not something you can learn or imbibe, with regular practice and training, nothing can stop you from acing the art of creative writing. Here are five simple ways to enhance your creative writing skills.

1. Read, read, and read more

First, if you love to write something, you should also love to read!

The reason why you need to read more is that by reading, you can pour the ideas that you have into work. Practicing writing skills is very important to produce excellent and enchanting art.

Have you ever wondered why many lecturers suggest their students read some articles or journals? Some of them even give their students whole journals as references for the classes. Well, it is because by reading a lot of articles, essays, or academic reports, you will be able to produce one in the future!

You will get used to the styles, the format, and the differences between each article. By getting used to these, you will be able to choose your own topics to write down and make your own article or essays. But make sure you don’t plagiarize their writing – the idea is to take inspiration.

2. Review the work of other writers

In addition to reading your favorite writers’ works, you should also make an attempt to review their work.

By reviewing your favorite writer's work, you can figure out their ways of doing the research (qualitative, quantitative, etc.) and how they apply the theoretical basis in their study. Or how they propose their new idea about the matters that are discussed.

So, it will bring many ideas for you who are still on your way to doing creative work too. Doing a review will give you many inspirations on what you can or can't write.

3. Understand the language and grammar rules

Even though it’s called ‘creative writing,’ it doesn't mean you can neglect the critical language and grammar rules in writing.

Make sure you use languages that suit your writing style, the kind of works you will make, and the genre of your works. Choosing the wrong words or diction can cause readers to get bored and even doubt the quality of your work.

Next, grammar is essential to show that you have above-average writing skills. In addition, using good and correct grammar will help you to write stories more coherently and easily understood.

So people will not feel confused when reading your writing if the grammar is messed up. After all, creative writing also does works that are still part of the literature field, so you can't forget about the grammar rules.

4. Explore voice and characters in your writing

Furthermore, to improve your writing skills, you can try to write things in a different way than usual.

For example, if you want to write down your opinion on a particular social phenomenon, you can try to write down the point you want to write down in your work.

Try to find the best research methods, theoretical basics, and kinds of studies that you can apply to that social phenomenon. This way, your ability in writing will improve step by step.

Next, to explore the topics or notions you want to bring out from the study, you can try to write them down in detail. Consider asking questions such as:

• What kind of effect will this social phenomenon have on society?
• How did this social phenomenon start?
• What is the other factor that affects this social phenomenon?
• Are there any effective research methods that will bring the best result for this topic?

5. Try different types of creative formats

Apart from finding a writing style that suits you, you must be brave to improve your creative writing skills by trying other writing formats. This will help you to increase your creativity in writing.

For instance, if you’re comfortable writing fictional stories, why not experiment and give poetry a try? This will help you understand different creative writing formats and the nuances they come with.

4 Essential Skills you Need for Creative Writing

Apart from creativity (of course!), there are other critical skills you need to ace your creative writing assignment. Let’s take a look at what those are.

1. Imagination

If you want to improve your creative writing, start working on your imagination. It will help you to build ideas for your writing.

For example, when you see specific government rules in your country, you can try to imagine what would happen if those rules failed. Is there any chaos ensuing? Will there be any rules that can be more effective and actual to replace the current rules?

Tip: be observant and start taking notes. You never know when your ideas can find their way into your writing.

Here’s an interesting video by Psych2Go on being creative and building your image.

2. Persistence

A good writer never gives up on writing. There will be a phase when you feel so unmotivated that you can't write anything! It is okay if you want to pause for a while and take some rest. But, make sure that you will come back and continue your work again.

Remember: practice makes perfect, and giving up should never be an option.

3. Adaptability

Next, you should be adaptive to the development of the creative writing world that may happen in the future. It is good to have a unique, authentic style of writing.

But, make sure that you can fulfill what the audience wants, the writing style that is famous nowadays, or what kind of topics and research people would love to read.

4. Resilience

The last and most important skill a student should have is resilience! Don't be afraid of critics or any suggestions that people give to your works. The golden rule is to not take any feedback on your writing personally.

Whenever you write something, it is a good idea to share it with your friends and family and be open to criticism. This gives you a fresh perspective which will only help you improve your creative writing skills.

Wrapping up

We agree creative writing can be daunting and might need a lot of work, but it is certainly something you get better at with time and practice.

The next time you are met with a creative writing assignment and are unsure of your skills or are running out of time, reach out to a reliable creative writing service like Writers Per Hour.

Be it a poem, prose, story, or script – our team of writers are experts in all forms of creative writing and will deliver original, high-quality work within the stipulated deadline.