Creative writing is a powerful method of self-expression. Writing lets you play with the extremes of emotion, act out all kinds of dangerous and exhilarating fantasies, and craft situations and worlds which you may never encounter in your ‘real’ life. Writing gives you freedoms that the limitations of your body and environment prevent you from enjoying. Writing will educate your children, walk your dog, fold your laundry and do your tax return.
1. The freedom to do exactly what you want.
Writing for yourself has no limitations. None whatsoever. Want to make a space-western? Have Pirate-vs.-Ninja battle be interrupted by lazer-wielding Valkyries? That’s Ok! Nobody’s stopping you!
Most of us have a little Editor, or Censor, hidden somewhere within the backs of our minds. This snivelling little squirt will interject as often as it can, especially when you’re only beginning to write creatively. Ignore it! Squish it! Remember, there are no limitations on what, or how, you write.
Seriously. Try it now. You don’t even have to be able to read what you’ve written (With my handwriting, sometimes legibility isn’t an option – especially when I’m excited!). Write in mirror-writing. All in capitals. Make up some letters. Write about being a member of the opposite sex. Write about how rich you are, how you once saved the city of New York from a wave of invading Nazi-squid, and how the mayor took you out to lunch.
See? Nobody stopped you! How great is that?
Now, if you want other people to be able to read your creative writing – and that’s a big IF – then you’ll have to reign yourself in a little… But not much. Look at James Joyce – do you see him worrying about grammar and proper nouns?
Think of the last time you wrote with conditions imposed on you. It might be an essay for school, a report for work, even a few words on a card. Whatever the circumstances, I’m sure there were limits you were working within, even if you weren’t consciously aware of them.
It might have been a word limit – go over it and you lose marks. It might have been a tight timeframe, making you rush through a report and not give it the care and attention it needed. It might have been convention, writing some banal nothing on a birthday or christmas card rather than something original, witty, heartfelt.
Those limitations don’t exist when you’re writing creatively.
2. Writing is fun!
Regardless of how much joy was sucked out through your English classes at school, I promise you that creative writing can be fun. Writing is the purest form of freedom – which means you can do exactly what you want. The only thing limiting you is how fast you can put words to the page. Writing can be addictively therapeutic, giving you an opportunity to let off steam, vent your frustrations
The only limitations you operate under are the ones you set yourself. Which means that creative writing is the perfect opportunity to go a little wild! I don’t care if you’re a lawyer or a doctor or a prostitute or a student or a parent in real life – once you start writing, then you can do whatever you want. You can dream up fantasies that you couldn’t act out normally. You can make your own worlds and hide away in them until your hand cramps up and you have to cook dinner.
Spend all day being nice to idiots? (Don’t worry, most of us are in the same situation.) Write a list of things you’d like to say to them… And see if your colleagues can add to it.
Having a problem with your phone company?Write them a long, vituperative rant, filled with the most grotesquely colourful descriptions of their bungling incompetence… And mail it. (Unsigned, if you’re feeling wimpy!)
Stuck in a boring job, day in, day out?Use your morning tea to jot down notes about the next chapter in your thrilling space adventure / romance / thriller.
3. Nobody can tell you you’re wrong.
Do you remember the last time someone told you you were wrong? Felt pretty horrible, didn’t it? I know when someone tells me I’m flat-out wrong about something, I feel pretty yukky. That feeling leads me, and I think a lot of other people, to withdraw from being adventuresome and experimental. Which is a shame – making mistakes can be a great learning experience!
So creative writing, for yourself or for others, is a surprising and liberating experience. Why? Because you’re in control. Want the sun to rise in the West and set in the East? No worries! Want the atomic weight of Freon to be 27? Sure, let me just go and rearrange the universe for you. Want Unicorns to have not gone extinct in the late 13th century? OK, we’ll keep them ticking over for you so your hero can ride one over the Mongolian steppes.
See? How easy’s that?Every blank page is a canvas, waiting for your directions. You’re the architect of this world, the controller of the context. Nobody’s going to argue with you.
When I tell people this in person, I often find variants on this conversation coming up:
“But I can’t do that!”
“Yes, of course you can. I give you permission.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Uh-huh. Go for it! Make something up, right now!”
“Hmmm…..”
“Thought of something?”
“Yup!”
“Wow, you look excited. Tell me about it!”
“Well, I…”
It’s rewarding to watch the excitement flicker over people as they realise that they’re the sole controller of what’s happening. Then they go out and write something that excites them. Having fun writing is what it’s all about – not being constrained by stupid boundaries.
Now, if you show other people your writing, expect the unenlightened to try and correct you. Some of them are doing it out of a misguided sense of helpfulness. Others are correcting you because of their own panicky reaction to your demonstration of freedom.
“But there’s no such thing as laser-guided shuttlecocks!”
“That wouldn’t work in real life.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I’m scared by your writing. Please make it boring for me!
Poke these people in the eye, gently, and then go find someone with a sense of fun.
- Exception – If you’re writing something like science fiction or historical fantasy, then you might want to make your settings believable. If that’s the case, hunt down some experts in the field. They’re all nice people, I promise, and love talking about things they know about. You don’t have to take their advice, but if they tell you you’re wrong on some technical point, you then have the option of ‘fixing’ it… Or ignoring them. Your call!
4. Creative writing makes your other writing better.
Writing is an art form, like music and dance. It’s a skill, like driving a car or painting a house. And, as with both arts and skills, the more you practise, the better you get. Great writers are born – approximately one every three seconds. Great writers are made – they make themselves, by writing as much as their heart tells them they need to, by revising their work, and by seeking out new ideas and stretching themselves.
Even if you are only going to write for your own amusement, you’ll find that over time writing in the other areas of your life improves. The process of writing, and especially of revision, teaches you to spot gaps in your writing technique. I know I have many weaknesses as a writer: a love of esoterica, unwieldy sentences, blithe disregard for grammatical nonce, and an immature sense of humour.
Good technical writing can be learnt, and learnt fairly easily. It will come instinctively as you write more and more. When you write, you’ll notice what works and what doesn’t work. Sentences that seemed fine in your head will seem awkward on the page. A few chops and changes later, you’ll have a little gem that you’ll be rightfully proud of.
The fundamentals of good creative writing are universal. I’ll show you through them in a later article. For now, accept that all creative writing is good for you.
5. You can make up words, whole languages, even new worlds.
Klingon. Elvish. The High Tongue. Dwarvish. Demon-gibber. Middle-Earth. Dune. Midkemia. The Second Mars Colony.
None of these exist in reality.All of them exist in stories that other people have written.Think about the stories you’ve read, or had read to you. The ones you’ve enjoyed over your time of reading. I hope some of them had even a little bit of made-up-stuff in them, because it’s fantastically awesome.
Did you ever make up codes with other kids when you wre younger? Have you ever tried learning another language, especially one that uses a non-Roman alphabet, like Japanese or Chinese? Exhilerating, wasn’t it?
One of the greatest pleasures I get out of reading fiction that’s set in other worlds or settings is figuring out how stuff works – how their world ticks. Is it a bigger world than Earth? Smaller? What colour’s the sky? How many uns does it have? What makes it different? Do people there speak English? Another language? With their mouths? Through dance? Scent?
Making up a story is rewarding and satisfying in itself.Making up a system contained within the story is, if possible, even better. You get to engage in craft – designing something uniquely tailored to your specifications. You don’t even have to spell everything out in the story – you can leave things up to the imagination of your reader. Plenty of short stories don’t have time to get into the nitty-gritty of their worlds, but it’s often enough to make it clear that This Isn’t Earth, and then drop a few tantalising hints to your readers.
Feel free to go the whole hog, of course. Make up languages, long-dead relations, systems of currency, economies – whatever floats your boat.
6. You can change History.
When you’re writing about stuff that’s happened on Earth, in the past, then you don’t have to be faithful to what actually happened. I’m serious – you can go and change whatever you want.
Who won WWII?
What if various Presidents didn’t get assassinated?
What happens if other ones did? (I don’t have anyone particular in mind, I promise…)
What if the Russians reached the moon first?
If you’ve ever sat in a history class, or read a historical book and gone “Gee, that coulda gone either way!” then play with seeing what might have happened if it had. Who’s going to argue?
7. You can write about cool things.
This is where writers get to really have fun, splash out, and enjoy themselves comprehensively.Artists of other mediums might get a little jealous.“Oh, well”, they ponce, noses in the air, “Of course writers can write about N. Have they ever tried sculpting/singing/dancing/painting/sand-sculpting about N? It can’t be done!”Exactly.
Here’s a List Of Cool Things we can write about. Think of anything I’ve missed? Please, let me know and I’ll expand the list over time.
You know that freedom I’ve been harping on about all article? This is where it’s best demonstrated. Us writers can write about anything! One of my favourite things to do is to take some dice and randomly pick three or four things from my List Of Cool Things and write for an hour about them all.
8. Your writing might get made into a movie.
Yeah. That’d be pretty great, right? Mmm. Just think. Who’d you cast in your movie (I’m pretty sure Jaime Murray would be all of my heroines, all at once)? Who would you have direct it? Would you direct it yourself? Imagine doing interviews for the DVD special! Getting on movie talk-shows.
9. It lets you meet other cool, interesting people.
Let’s look at our sample size. Right now, it’s me and you.
We’re writers, right? I’m pretty cool. I reckon the likelihood is, you are as well. So we’re doing pretty well so far!
Who else would you like to meet? People with some similar interests to you, and some new ones, right? Sounds like a good balance to me. The best way to find new things is obviously to have someone interesting to show you them!
Writers are generally like that. People who have interesting thoughts and wrestle them into shape well enough to show them off to people are generally pretty switched-on. A lot of them also have lived realy interesting lives – where do you think all those characters and situations and little naunces come from?
Keep writing.
Try and find writers near you. Read blurbs – you might have writers living in your town! Find them. Stalk them. Leave acrostic poems in their letterboxes.
Find writer’s groups. Hang out at wanky cafes. Wear a beret and a scarf if you’re scared of being recognised by co-workers and relatives.
10. You can share your work easily.
Writing is great because it’s easy to share. Here are some ways to get you started:
· write a blog and post 500 words of dribble there, 5 days a week, for a month. Then keep doing it.
· Join online communities. Writers are verose and become most prolific with the comfortable anonymity of the Internet, so they won’t be hard to find.
· Write a short story about something you like and stick it on a billboard somewhere. Pu an e-mail address at the bottom.
· Photocopy some plot notes and leave them in the letterboxes on your street.
· Find a writer’s group.
· Write Dadaist poems and stand on a streetcorner, proclaiming and gesticulating erratically.
· Cunningly code stories into letters to the editor in amongst indignant rants about the uneducated youth of today.
So where now?
I suggest that if you’re inspired at all, you find a pen and some paper, or fire up your computer, and hammer something out. It can be messy, awkward, haphazard and cliched if it needs to be. That’s Ok. Nobody’s looking over your shoulder. The most important thing to do is to write.
I’ll post more creative writing articles , as often as I can, right here on the site. So check back when you can and there might be more things to interest you.
Go write!
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