• 3-minute read
• 6th June 2016

Express Yourself! 5 Superb Creative Writing Tips

We’re not all about academia here at Proofread My Essay; we like novels, poetry and plays too!

We even like to dabble with a little creative writing in our free time: with any luck, our series of children’s novels about a young, gifted grammarian thrown into a world of adventure will eventually do for proofreading what Harry Potter did for wizardry.

For now though, since we know fiction writing can be difficult, we thought we’d share some of our top tips for getting the creative ball rolling (the ‘creative ball’ being a large, papery sphere composed of scrunched-up first-drafts of screenplays).

1. Coming Up with a Subject

Whether you’re writing a novel, a short story or a dirty limerick, you’ll need something to write about before you can start on your masterpiece.

Maybe you already have something in mind. Your next step could be to flesh out this initial idea. For a novel, this might include summarising the plot in a sentence, outlining a narrative or coming up with a list of important characters.

However, if you’re not sure what to write about yet, it might be worth reading other authors you admire, thinking about the audience for whom you’re writing, or considering whether there’s something in your own life you can use for inspiration.

2. Get Writing!

While you can sit around and wait for an idea to strike, you might find yourself staring at a blank screen for a long time. As such, it sometimes makes more sense to just start writing.

It doesn’t even matter if you don’t keep what you write in the finished version. The important thing is to gain momentum, after which words will start to flow. You can revise anything with which you’re unhappy with later.

3. Making an Impression

The first sentence of a story is often what hooks the reader, so you may want to pay particular attention to this. Looking at what other authors have done here might help.

4. Getting Poetic

Poetry can be even trickier to write than prose, since it’s often quite unlike everyday speech. Rhyming, for example, is common in poetry, but not something we do in conversations or essays!

However, poetry can be a great way to express yourself, especially if you want to write something punchier than a novel-length story. So poetic dabbling is recommended.

5. Breaking the Rules

Unlike formal writing, creative writing doesn’t require sticking to specific grammar or language beyond what you need to communicate with your reader.

If you’re feeling confident, you may therefore want to experiment with your vocabulary or the formal rules of writing if it helps you to express yourself.