dictionary for creative writing

What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

• Short stories
• Screenplays
• Flash fiction
• Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

• Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
• Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
• Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
• Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
• Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
• Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
• Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
• Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
• Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
• Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
• Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
• Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
• Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
• These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

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• How To Write A Fantasy Short Story (Ultimate Guide + Examples)
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What is Creative Writing?

Written by Scott Wilson

Creative writing is any kind of writing that employs creative literary or poetic techniques in the service of either fiction or non-fiction writing. It involves original composition and expressiveness of the individual author.

Ask ten creative writing professors what creative writing is, and you’ll get eleven different answers. Turn to the dictionary and the definition invokes invention and incorporation of imagination. But what are the limits of imagination? Where does invention begin?

Every sentence in every work ever written began as an act of creation in the mind of the writer.

Creative writing may be most easily defined by what it is not…

• Technical writing
• Professional or business writing
• Scholarly or academic writing

Creative writing is the entire body of the writer’s craft that falls outside the boundaries of the ordinary.

Yet you will find many entries in the canon of those fields that might also be considered creative writing. No one would consign Truman Capote’s groundbreaking In Cold Blood to the sterile cells of mere journalism. But that haunting novel is unquestionably also an important work of investigative reporting.

So, what is creative writing, if a non-fiction novel of a horrific quadruple murder falls into the same scope as a classic of American literature like To Kill a Mockingbird ?

It has to do with style and art. Creative writing goes to the heart of the individual expressiveness of the writer. It breaks the boundaries of the typical. That’s an exercise of artistic skill that can happen in any topic, toward almost any goal. And it’s the heart of what it is to be a writer, no matter what you write about.

Defining creative writing isn’t easy. Rooms full of the best authorities routinely disagree. But what is creative writing , isn’t the most interesting question to ask here. Instead, we would be best served by asking another:

Why Is Creative Writing Important?

Storytellers were plying their craft thousands of years before the written word was invented. The creative spark doesn’t belong to words. It may not even depend on language. It draws instead on a deep part of what it is to be human. Invention, imagination, the urge to create… these are all deep and vital parts of the human experience.

Creative writing is important because it is evocative.

That well of creativity flows forth in many arts and forms of expression. But in creative writing it has found a medium where it can be both preserved and shared. It’s a method of human connection that has no expiration date, no geographical or even cultural limit.

Writers touch the souls of their contemporaries first. But like Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Lady Murasaki, their reach may also span generations.

Creative Writing Fuels Communication in All Forms of Writing

Although fiction is the first refuge of creative writing, that expressiveness serves the purposes of just about any kind of author.

The goals of most other forms of writing are focused on various kinds of literal communication. A journalist seeks to convey the facts and the context of important news stories. Technical writers need to communicate the details of operating programs and machinery, clearly describing all kinds of minute details with zero ambiguity. Business communications are created with a view toward clarity and concision—helping readers get the main points of the piece quickly and without confusion.

Creative writing can also help to serve these purposes.

Creative writing taps into a different level of communication. While it may, and often does, aspire to other goals like offering clarity and detail, it also goes toward developing emotional connection. The reader will take away more than mere words from a piece of creative writing.

Creative Writing is Important For Making Other Kinds of Writing Compelling

Just as importantly, creative writing entertains. In a story about the importance of algorithmic and high-frequency trading, all kinds of technical details must be absorbed to make sense of the issues. Both technological and economic concepts have to be introduced. In a comprehensive article about the subject, readers from outside the field could be expected to nod off about two pages in.

But put the story in the hands of Michael Lewis, and you get Flash Boys , a New York Times Best Seller.

It’s not important that Flash Boys did well because it was entertaining, however. It’s important because the market trends and activities it described have real impacts on many of the readers. Retirement funds, college savings, family investments… all are affected by the story Flash Boys tells. Today, millions of readers who would never otherwise have understood how their investments were being handled can make an informed assessment… thanks to creative writing.

How To Separate Creative Writing From Less Creative Forms of Writing

In general, it’s safe to say that a piece of writing is creative when it makes use of literary devices such as:

• Narrative development
• Imagination and invention

In Cold Blood passes this test due to Capote’s use of characterization, plot development, and world-building. It’s considered today to be a pioneering example of the non-fiction novel, a paragon of the creative writing world.

The original crime reports, local newspaper articles, and subsequent court documents detail the same events with the same participants. Yet they are not works of creative writing. The incident is described in dry, straightforward, technical language. The timeline is linear and offered without consideration of pace or drama.

Both Capote and the authors of those other articles and documents set out to inform. But Capote’s goal was also to captivate.

New Journalism Tells the Story of How Creative Writing Has an Important Role in Non-Fiction

Books like Wolfe’s The Right Stuff mixed truth and dramatization, documentation and invention, to tell larger stories about serious events. In dramatizing those stories, New Journalism writers also drew more readers and achieved broader awareness of the stories.

At the same time, long-form New Journalism pieces, deeply researched and documented, were able to report stories in depth in a way that traditional journalism often did not. By invoking plot, characterization, and narrative structures, the New Journalists could keep readers involved in long and complex issues ranging from crime to politics to culture.

New Journalism is important in defining what is creative writing because it is clearly an example of both creative and journalistic writing. It demonstrates the ways that creative writing can serve other forms of writing and other kinds of writers.

Of course, it’s also possible to come at the divide from the other shore. Categories of writing that are clearly creative in nature include:

• Novels and novellas
• Flash fiction and short stories
• Plays and film scripts

These works incorporate elements of storytelling that may not always be present in other forms of writing. A newspaper article will often have a setting, action, and characters; creative writing will offer plot, pacing, and drama in describing the same story.

What is Creative Writing Coursework Like in College Degree Programs?

All university students are exposed to basic coursework in English language and communication skills. These all go to the elementary aspects of writing—the ability to construct a sentence, a paragraph, a paper. They teach grammatical rules and other elements that make a work readable to any reader of the English language.

Even the general education requirements in college programs touch on creative writing, however. Students may be assigned to write essays that explore creative styles and imagination. They’ll be assigned to read novels and stories that are time-tested examples of the finest kinds of creative writing. And they’ll be asked to explore their impressions and feelings, and to exercise their imaginations and analyze the intent of the author.

Creative writing programs go beyond the basics to touch the imagination of the writer.

Creative writing exists just on the other side of those general English and literature courses. Students in creative writing classes will be asked to take the extra step of creating their own stories using the techniques they have learned.

In fact, they may be encouraged to break the same rules that were so laboriously learned in their regular English writing classes. Creative writing works to allow writers to tap into their own imagination and emotion to forge a deeper connection with readers.

Student Workshops Offer an Interactive Way of Learning What Creative Writing Is All About

Creative writing degrees will go much further into developing a sense of what creative writing is. they continue to include many reading assignments. but instructors also introduce concepts such as:.

Genre is the method used to categorize written works. Creative writing programs explore the tropes and expectations that exist for different genres and deconstruct them for better understanding.

Story structure and form

The structure and form of a novel and a short story are very different. Creative writing programs explore different formats and how they impact creative storytelling.

Plot is not a universal feature of creative writing, but a good plot can make or break a creative work. Classes look at the features and composition of plot, and also teach plotting.

Voice, tone, and creative expression all come out of the narration of a piece of creative writing. Creative writing courses explore both the textbook forms of narrative and show how to use it to serve plot and story.

Style and rhythm

One clear feature of creative writing in all genres is that it rests on a sense of rhythm and of styling that other types of writing ignore. Many courses found in creative writing degree programs explore the ways in which writing style serves story and hooks the reader.

In addition to formal classes, students will better learn why creative writing is important and the purposes it serves through workshops. These informal gatherings are designed to foster discussion, to present examples of different types of writing, and to critique and hone individual creative writing skills .

Through that process, creative writing degrees help students better identify what creative writing is and how to use it effectively.

Creativity is Important No Matter What Your Career Goals in Writing May Be

Creative writing training allows writers in any genre to develop more complete, more meaningful, and more memorable ways to get a point across. Using the skills and techniques learned in creative writing courses can inject humor, gravity, and other sensations into any piece of writing. And those very techniques can improve concision and clarity.

Figuring out what creative writing is and what it is not, is the first thing you should leave behind in a writing career. The dry definitions of the dictionary or droning English professors are the last place you should look.

Creative writing is the process of engaging your imagination and talent to serve the purpose of whatever piece of writing you are working on. And that’s why creative writing is important.

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Meaning of creative writing in English

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• bang something out
• bash something out
• put someone down for something
• re-register
• re-registration
• readability

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Examples of creative writing

Translations of creative writing.

Get a quick, free translation!

Word of the Day

kick something into the long grass

to delay dealing with something, especially because you want people to forget about it

Like a bull in a china shop: talking about people who are clumsy

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The Best Dictionaries For Writers

Writers love using language and discovering the best dictionaries for writers can help them to master it.

Dictionaries For Writers - Why Are They Important?

Having a way with words and knowledge of which words to use and when is what helps us to craft exciting and engaging stories. Writing is a skill. While there are those who have natural talent, it’s also something to be worked at and improved upon over time. Learning how to position words together so that they flow and paint a picture and conjure up imagery, is crucial. Dictionaries can help writers learn new languages. They can help them better understand the origins and meanings of words. Dictionaries can help us gather a huge bank of words from which to create our stories. 

Thanks to the internet, you know don’t have to have an actual physical dictionary to hand every time you are feeling a bit lost for words. Instead, there are some truly brilliant online dictionaries we can turn to. Ones that no only help us decipher the meanings and spellings of words but also help us find alternatives too. 

So with that in mind, here are some of the top online dictionaries for writers that you can use to help you write.

Grammarly takes the top spot because of its ease of use and many handy features. While there is a free, basic version, the paid version is inexpensive and incredibly useful to writers at all stages of the process. You can pop anything you’ve written in Grammarly and they’ll highlight any mistakes (spelling, punctuation, and grammar). Grammarly also has fantastic features such as pointing out to you when you’ve overused words, highlighting any sentences written in the past tense, suggesting alternative words to replace overused ones, and it even has a plagiarism checker too. 

The Free Dictionary

The Free Dictionary is another fantastic resource that can be used as a one-stop shop for writers. It's great who need some help with their word choices. You can use its in-built thesaurus, perform Wikipedia searches, and discover acronyms and idioms. If you want to practice your language skills you can play one of its word builder games or try to complete its challenging word searches. 

Google Translate

Google translate is an excellent dictionary that is perfect for those who like to set their stories in foreign lands. This site does what it says on the tin. It will translate words and phrases you type in into any language you desire, and vice versa. It has speech translation and text-in-image translation features too. 

Wordnik is a not-for-profit organization that is fantastic if you are looking for an up-to-date resource of all the words in the English language. It provides lots of definitions for each word. Each definition is ranked based on its usefulness. You can also choose to hear audio definitions for each word too. 

Urban Dictionary

Urban Dictionary is a fantastic, funny, and clever dictionary that gives users access to lots of funny phrases. All the strange, unusual colloquial, and slang terms that are used in different scenarios are on here. If you are searching for clever puns or slang words, this is an invaluable resource. 

Merriam-Webster

The Merriam-Webster site is not only a trusted and well-respected dictionary but also a thriving online community. You can discover a new language and get inspired by writing at the same time. 

BrainyQuote

Finally, BrainyQuote is a brilliant site to find inspiring, clever, and downright funny quotes from a huge range of people. There is a quote of the day section and you can even enter your own quote. If you want to be inspired by interesting, insightful, and witty things that people say, BrainyQuote is the site for you. 

If you want to boost your writing skills, take the time to refer to the above dictionaries for writers as you do. Make it part of your learning process and you’ll soon find that you have a naturally improved love of language and are rarely lost for words again!

Now you know about the best dictionaries for writers, why not learn some fun facts about the English language?

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About Beth Cadman

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The Best Online Dictionary and Thesaurus for Writers: Top Resources for Students, Teachers, Editors, and New Writing Tools

Written By Garry   |   Writing   |   0 Comments

You know what separates a great writer from the rest? It’s the magic of their words.

The way they can string them together to create a masterpiece that transports you to a different world.

It's an art that takes time and patience, building one word at a time like a magnificent monument.

But even the most skillful writer can face moments of writer's block. It can be a struggle to find the right words to complete the melody.

That's where online dictionaries come in handy.

Nowadays, dictionaries have evolved with a plethora of features and information to assist writers in their journey.

However, with so many dictionaries available online, it can be challenging to choose the right one for the occasion.

That's why we have prepared a detailed outlook on the best online dictionaries for writers. We'll show you their unique attributes, pros, and cons.

So, grab a cup of tea and join us as we take a tour of the most useful resources for writers on the web.

Don't forget to bookmark the ones you love!

Top 3 Online Dictionaries for Writers: Rated and Reviewed for Ease of Use and Comprehensive Features

Alright, let's dive into the top online dictionaries for writers!

A dictionary is a writer's best friend when it comes to finding the perfect word to complete a sentence or convey an idea.

It's an essential tool that every writer should have in their arsenal.

To help you choose the right one, we have narrowed down the list to the best options available online. Let's take a closer look:

• First on our list is Merriam-Webster , one of the most well-known and reliable dictionaries in the world. Its website offers a user-friendly interface, making it easy to search for definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and more. Additionally, it offers a "word of the day" feature that expands your vocabulary.
• The Oxford English Dictionary is another great resource for writers. It's the most authoritative and comprehensive English language dictionary, offering detailed information on word origins, meanings, and usage. Although it requires a subscription, it's worth the investment for serious writers.
• If you're looking for a free dictionary that provides everything you need to write clearly and effectively, then Dictionary.com is a perfect choice. It offers definitions, synonyms, antonyms, audio pronunciation, and more. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to use, even for children.

Each of these online dictionaries has its unique features and benefits. By using them, writers can expand their vocabulary and improve their writing skills.

So, choose the one that suits you the best, and let the words flow effortlessly onto the page.

Best Online Dictionaries for Different Scenarios

When it comes to finding the right online dictionary, it's important to consider your specific needs and the context in which you'll be using it.

Note: We've covered some of these already, but for completeness and ease of reference they will be listed again.

Here are some of the best online dictionaries for different scenarios:

• Standard Dictionaries
• Oxford English Dictionary : The most comprehensive and authoritative English language dictionary.
• Merriam-Webster : A reliable and user-friendly dictionary that offers a wide range of features, including a word of the day feature.
• Cambridge Dictionary : A good choice for learners of English, offering simple and concise definitions, audio pronunciations, and example sentences.
• American Heritage Dictionary : A popular American English dictionary that provides extensive coverage of American English vocabulary.
• Specialized Dictionaries
• Medical Dictionary: The Free Medical Dictionary is a comprehensive online resource that provides detailed and up-to-date medical terminology and definitions.
• Slang Dictionary: The Urban Dictionary is a popular online resource for slang words and phrases, offering user-generated definitions and examples.
• Chemical Elements: The WebElements Periodic Table is an excellent online resource that provides comprehensive information on chemical elements, including properties, applications, and history.
• Alternative Dictionaries
• Google Dictionary : A simple and user-friendly dictionary that provides quick and accurate definitions for English words and phrases.
• Online-Specific Words: The NetLingo Dictionary is an excellent online resource for online-specific words and jargon, including the largest list of chat acronyms.
• Slang Phrases: The Online Slang Dictionary is a good resource for slang phrases and expressions, including definitions and usage examples.
• Additional Resources
• Voice Pronunciation: The Forvo Dictionary offers audio pronunciations by native speakers for English words and phrases.
• Text-in-Image Translation: The Google Translate app provides a text-in-image translation feature that can be helpful for language learners and travelers.
• Search Engine Feature: The OneLook Dictionary offers a search engine feature that allows you to find related terms and similar words.

By choosing the right online dictionary for your needs, you can improve your vocabulary, expand your knowledge, and enhance your writing skills.

Whether you're a learner of English, a writer, or a language enthusiast, there's an online dictionary that's right for you.

The Top Online Thesauruses for Writers

Let's move on to the top online thesauruses for writers!

A thesaurus is a valuable resource for writers who want to add depth and variety to their writing. It's an excellent tool for finding synonyms, antonyms, and related words that can enhance your writing.

Here are the best online thesauruses for writers:

• Thesaurus.com is the most popular and comprehensive thesaurus available online. It offers over three million synonyms and antonyms, making it a great resource for writers looking to expand their vocabulary. Its user-friendly interface also makes it easy to use.
• Power Thesaurus is another excellent online thesaurus that is crowd-sourced. It allows users to add and vote on synonyms and antonyms, making it an extensive and dynamic resource. Its unique feature is the ability to filter results by part of speech, making it easier to find the right word for your context.
• Merriam-Webster Thesaurus is a reputable and reliable thesaurus that is associated with the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It offers a wide range of synonyms, antonyms, and related words, making it an excellent resource for writers looking to enhance their writing.

By using these online thesauruses, writers can take their writing to the next level by adding depth and variety to their language.

Choose the one that suits your needs and let your words come to life.

Best Online Thesauruses for Different Scenarios

Just like with online dictionaries, choosing the right online thesaurus depends on your specific needs and the context in which you'll be using it.

Here are some of the best online and offline, yes real books that you might have to buy if you can't find them at the local library , thesauruses for different scenarios:

• Standard Thesauruses
• Roget's Thesaurus: The classic thesaurus that offers a comprehensive list of synonyms and related terms, as well as a wide range of features.
• Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus: A trusted and reliable thesaurus that offers a comprehensive list of synonyms, antonyms, and related words.
• Visual Thesaurus : A unique and visually appealing online thesaurus that allows you to explore words and their meanings in a dynamic way.
• Specialized Thesauruses
• Phrasal Verbs: The Macmillan Dictionary offers a specialized thesaurus for phrasal verbs, which are commonly used in spoken English.
• Urban Words: The Urban Thesaurus is a great online resource for finding synonyms and related words for slang phrases and expressions.
• Slang Phrases: The Online Slang Thesaurus is another good resource for finding synonyms and related words for slang phrases and expressions.
• Audio Pronunciations: Thesaurus.com offers audio pronunciations of words, which can be helpful for language learners and non-native speakers.
• Related Terms: Power Thesaurus is a crowd-sourced online thesaurus that offers related terms and suggestions for a given word, making it a dynamic and constantly evolving resource.
• Similar Words: The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus provides a list of similar words that can help writers find alternative words with similar meanings.

By using the right online thesaurus for your needs, you can improve your writing skills, enhance your vocabulary, and express your ideas more clearly and effectively.

Whether you're a writer, a language learner, or a language enthusiast, there's an online thesaurus that's right for you.

New Writing Tools and Apps

Let's talk about some new writing tools and apps that can take your writing to the next level. These resources are designed to help writers improve their grammar, style, and overall writing skills.

Here are some of the best tools and apps available:

• Grammarly is a popular writing tool that can help writers catch grammar and spelling errors. It offers real-time suggestions and corrections, making it an excellent resource for writers who struggle with grammar and syntax.
• Hemingway Editor is another popular writing tool that helps writers improve their writing style. It analyzes your text and provides suggestions for making your writing more concise and easy to read. It also identifies complex sentences, adverbs, and passive voice, helping you make your writing more direct and powerful.
• ProWritingAid is a comprehensive writing tool that checks your grammar, style, and readability. It offers real-time suggestions for improvement, making it an excellent resource for writers looking to take their writing to the next level.

Each of these tools and apps has its unique features and benefits. By using them, writers can improve their writing skills and produce more polished and professional work. 

So, give them a try and see how they can help you become a better writer!

Best Platforms and Features for Online Dictionaries and Thesauruses

In addition to the wide range of online dictionaries and thesauruses available, there are also many platforms and features to consider when choosing the right resource for your needs.

Here are some of the best platforms and features for online dictionaries and thesauruses:

• Online Sources
• Websites : Many dictionaries and thesauruses have their own websites, such as Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and Cambridge. These websites often offer a wide range of features and resources, such as audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word of the day features.
• Apps : Many dictionaries and thesauruses also have their own dedicated apps, which offer additional features and convenience, such as voice search and offline access.
• Voice Search and Speech Translation Features
• Many online dictionaries and thesauruses, such as Google Translate and Forvo, offer voice search and speech translation features, which can be helpful for language learners and travelers.
• Real-Life Example Sentences, Proper Names, and Literary Arts References
• Some online dictionaries and thesauruses, such as Oxford and Cambridge, provide real-life example sentences that help writers understand how words are used in context.
• Proper names and literary arts references can also be helpful for writers and language learners who are looking for specific examples or context for a word.
• Privacy Policy and Internet Connection Requirements
• It's important to consider the privacy policy and internet connection requirements when choosing an online dictionary or thesaurus, especially if you're using it for sensitive information or in areas with limited internet access.
• Different Features for Learners of English, Writers, Language Learners, and More
• Many online dictionaries and thesauruses offer different features and resources for different target audiences, such as learners of English, writers, language learners, and more. For example, some online dictionaries and thesauruses offer resources for specific industries or professions, such as medical or legal terminology.

By considering the different platforms and features available for online dictionaries and thesauruses, you can choose the right resource for your needs and improve your language skills and writing abilities.

To conclude, as a writer, having the right tools is crucial to bring your ideas to life.

Online dictionaries and thesauruses are a writer's best friend, offering a wealth of information and vocabulary at your fingertips. Choosing the right one can improve your writing and take it to the next level.

Our top picks include:

Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, Power Thesaurus, and Merriam-Webster Thesaurus.

In addition, the rise of new writing tools and apps makes it easier than ever to enhance your writing skills. 

Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, and ProWritingAid are just a few examples of the many new tools available that can help you catch errors, streamline your writing process, and improve your style.

As technology continues to evolve, it's important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements.

AI technology, such as ChatGPT , a language model trained by  OpenAI , is an excellent example of AI technology that can assist writers in their creative process, automate tasks, and enhance productivity.

By embracing new technologies like AI, we can harness their power to achieve our goals.

In the end, utilizing these tools and resources can help writers improve their craft, express their ideas more clearly and effectively, and bring their writing to the next level.

So, go ahead and give them a try, bookmark the ones you love, and watch your writing skills soar!

Privacy Overview

Creative Writing: Definition, Types, Examples

Creative writing is the art of creating original works of self-expression that entertain and give voice to the human experience. Unlike technical or academic writing , the purpose of creative writing is not to present facts but to give rein to the writer’s imagination through poetics and storytelling. A creative writer invites the reader to step out of reality and enter a fantasy realm created by the writer’s own imagination.

Some of the techniques used by creative writers include plot and character development, underlying themes, vivid settings, point of view , dialogue, anecdotes , figures of speech , and emotional appeal.

Types of Creative Writing

One of the most popular and artistic types of creative writing, poetry uses the aesthetic and rhythmic characteristics of language, along with other linguistic and poetic devices (phonesthetics, meter, alliteration, assonance, rhythm, ambiguity , irony, symbolism , among others) to evoke an emotional response, suggest a variety of interpretations to words, or to achieve musical effects.

Below is an example of a lyric poem by the Romantic poet John Keats :

“O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

A play is a work of literature that is performed on stage in a theater or on television, or heard on the radio. Plays have a dialogue between actors/characters and are watched/listened to rather than read by an audience. There are 6 major kinds of plays: tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, melodrama, domestic drama, and symbolic.

Below is a soliloquy from Macbeth , a Shakespearean tragedy, when Macbeth learns of the queen’s death:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

A work of fiction is a piece of creative writing that portrays characters, events, or places in ways that are strictly imaginary rather than based on facts or history. A fictional narrative might be inspired by reality or contain some emotional truth, but the writer always seeks to take the reader to an imaginary place. Works of fiction generally use poetic and descriptive language. The term fiction is commonly used for written prose narratives such as novels, novellas, and short stories.

Below is an excerpt from J. K. Rowling ’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets :

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.

A memoir is a personal narrative written about an important part of the author’s life. Unlike an autobiography, with which it is often confused, a memoir spans a specific period of time rather than the author’s entire life. Memoirists choose a critical period in their lives and narrate it from their perspective. Their thoughts and feelings are central to the narrative.

Famous memoirs (and memoirists) include:

• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
• Becoming by Michelle Obama

5. Personal Essays

The personal essay (also known as a narrative essay ) is a piece of non-fiction writing that narrates an interesting, entertaining, humorous, or thought-provoking story based on the writer’s personal (or second-hand) experiences. The story in a personal essay must, in essence, be based in fact, even if the writer has modified conversations, condensed timelines, or changed names/descriptions to make the story more interesting or to protect identities.

Famous personal essays (and essayists) include:

• Goodbye to All That by Joan Didion
• Once More to the Lake by E. B. White
• Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf
• Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

6. Screenplays

Screenwriters or script writers write screenplays for movies, television shows, or video games. They need to carry out research for the story, develop the narrative, write the script, screenplay and dialogues, and deliver the whole package in the requisite format to development executives. The creative direction and emotional impact of the screenplay and of the finished product largely depend on how well the screenwriter has done their job.

Songwriting is the process of creating a song. A songwriter is an artist who creates musical compositions and writes lyrics for songs. The 6 elements of songwriting are lyrics, melody, harmony, tempo, meter, and rhythm.

The list of most iconic songs of all time includes:

• Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
• Imagine by John Lennon
• Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
• Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan
• Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

No matter what the genre, all types of creative writing allow writers to express themselves in unique, imaginative ways. Each of these employs a variety of techniques, serving to grip readers and keep them hooked throughout.

What is Creative Writing? Definition, Types, and How to Get Started

Discover all that creative writing has to offer and begin your journey as a creative writer. 

By Julie Tyler

Creative writing definition 

Creative writing refers to a broad range of texts that draw upon writers' creativity (as the term suggests), facility with words, emotional depth, and intellectual rigor to convey meaning. Creative writing is also an area of study and college major at many colleges and universities. 

Creative writing is, by nature, an artistic expression, characterized by originality, invention, imagination, and inspiration. Creative writers use language as their primary medium, putting words together in new ways and using literary devices like symbolism or foreshadowing, to create original works. As we'll explore further down, creative writing encompasses fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, and even hybrid forms.  

Exceptional pieces of creative writing are considered literature and often appear on reading lists for students of all ages, from elementary to graduate school.   While opinions vary on what makes something a work of literature, there are some qualities that many people associate with literary value, including the innovative use of language, universal themes, cultural and historical significance, and a timeless take on the human condition. 

What is the purpose of creative writing?

Creative writing serves several purposes, depending on a writer's intentions. As a writer, you could set out to:

• Entertain and enlighten readers
• Evoke emotions in the reader and challenge them intellectually
• It can explore history, culture, or politics
• Draw attention to the power and beauty of language
• Offer fresh perspectives on life
• Express a range of ideas
• Connect with readers and foster a shared love of reading

To achieve these goals, you would need to learn how to write skillfully in your genre, gather feedback from experienced writers and writing teachers, and find a publishing route that gets your work into readers' hands. 

Types of creative writing

Many types, forms, and styles of writing can be considered creative , from novels that tell fictional stories across 300 pages, to poems that consist of a few words. There are five main categories of creative writing: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, drama, and hybrid forms. 

Creative writing typically excludes professional, academic, and technical writing, factual reporting, as well as documents you might generate at work to communicate with colleagues. 

Genres like investigative journalism, marketing or sales content, social media content may often exhibit the writers' creativity, even though these genres are not traditionally included in creative writing. 

Let's explore the four main categories of creative writing in more depth: 

Fiction  

Fiction refers to imaginative storytelling. In any story, there is at least one main character (protagonist) who undergoes a transformative experience or journey. In the first few pages, the reader invests in the character's predicament and keeps turning pages to find out what the character does and how the story will turn out in the end. 

Fiction can be realistic, in that the characters and situations resemble real life, or contain fantastical, supernatural, or futuristic elements that ask readers to explore the idea of a world that doesn't exist. What distinguishes fiction from nonfiction is the fact that it's not strictly based on fact. 

Popular genres of fiction include:

• Mystery and suspense
• Sci-Fi and fantasy
• Thrillers and horror
• Women's fiction
• Literary fiction
• Young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG)

Works of fiction vary in length. Here are some typical word counts, according to data compiled from a 2024 WorldMetrics report [ 1 ]: 

• Novels fall between 70,000 and 90,000 words.
• Novelas range from 20,000 and 50,000 words. 
• Short stories typically range from 1,000 to 8,000 words.
• Flash fiction is less than 1,000 words.
• Micro-fiction is 100 words or less. 

Famous examples of fiction:  F. Scott Fitzgerald's  The Great Gatsby  and Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."

Poetry 

Poetry is a highly distinct form of creative writing that comes in many forms and often defies strict rules. This freedom and versatility allow poets to experiment with different approaches to express their ideas in original and even usual ways. In  free verse , for example, poems don't have to follow a rhythm or rhyme scheme and can resemble the cadence and flow of natural speech. 

Some of the features that set poetry apart from prose include:

• Unique forms and structures.  Line lengths, rhyme schemes, and visual layouts can convey meaning, in addition to the actual words in a poem. 
• Brevity and efficiency of language. Poetry uses fewer words than prose, requiring poets to choose words carefully and pack a lot of meaning into less volume.  
• Figurative language.   Images, metaphors, and symbols can enliven language and evoke emotions.

NOTE: Epic poems, such as Beowulf , The Iliad and Odessey , and Paradise Lost,  can be roughly the size of a novel and tell stories, but are written in verse rather than prose.

Even with poetry's freedom and versatility, there are several specific poetic forms that do adhere to certain parameters. For example, a haiku consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third, while a sonnet consists of 14 lines and follows a specific rhyme scheme. 

Famous examples of poetry: Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven.

Drama is a form of creative writing that is meant for stage, screen, or radio performances. A dramatic work is called a play, screenplay, or script. Like fiction, dramatic works tell stories about characters in various predicaments. It's important to note that the script is not the "end product." Although scripts for movies, plays, or radio performances are fun to read on their own, they serve mainly as reference documents that directors, actors, designers, and filmmakers use to bring stories to life on set. 

Scripts vary in their structures and formats, several features are common to most, including: 

• Dialogue, indicating what characters say, to whom, and when
• Stage directions, describing characters' movements, costumes, sets, lighting, and sound
• Acts and scenes,  providing a clear structure and pace for the story's action 
• Storytelling elements, like tension, conflict and character development, to draw the audience in

Famous dramatic works: Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf , and David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross , both written for stage and adapted to film.

Creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction uses literary techniques and styles to present true accounts of events or factual information about a topic. Oftentimes, creative nonfiction has strong narrative elements, as in the case of a memoir, and can read like fiction, while exhibiting journalism's commitment to the truth. 

Genres include:

• Biography, a narrative about a person's life written by someone else
• Autobiography, a comprehensive narrative about the author's life
• Memoir, a narrative about a particular aspect of the author's life
• Self-help or inspirational books , offering advice or wisdom about a topic, often with illustrative examples, that readers can apply to their own lives 
• Personal essay, a short work of autobiography that may include instructions or a takeaway beyond the narrative elements
• Blogging,  online content published that reflects the author's personal style and interests and employs literary techniques to engage audiences  

Many authors of creative nonfiction conduct extensive research into their topics or draw upon personal experience in order to educate readers, while offering a compelling reading experience. 

Examples of creative nonfiction:  Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle.  

Hybrid forms

Hybrid forms of creative writing combine two or more genres or writing with other media in order to push the boundaries of what's possible on the page. For example, graphic novels and comic books combine storytelling with visual artwork, while digital interactive literature allows readers to choose their own adventure through a story by clicking hypertext. 

Other possibilities include: 

• Poems printed on subway doors.
• Novels that features other forms such as postcards, photos, letters, and marginal notes. 
• Collages that piece together scraps of writing from diverse sources to create new meaning.

As a creative writer, you can combine traditional writing with new technologies, media, and art forms to engage readers in fresh, unexpected ways.

Hybrid creative writing examples: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood  and Art Spiegelman's Maus .

Benefits of creative writing

Creative writing offers many rewards to writers and readers alike, as well as to society at large. As a writer, you can express your ideas in a variety of ways, create an outlet for your creativity, and even launch a writing career . 

In encountering creative works, readers can feel inspired and entertained, while gaining exposure to different viewpoints and ways of life.  

Society benefits from creative writing, particularly from works that are culturally and historically significant, call for social change, and motivate communities to take action . 

How to start creative writing

Getting your start in creative writing is an exciting endeavor, given all the options you have and the benefits you can enjoy. The beginning of the journey is often full of inspiration, as well as questions about the best place to start and how to write your best work.

This guide will walk you through five strategies for getting started with confidence and see your ideas take shape on the page:    

1. Explore the creative writing possibilities. 

Spend some time investigating your options in creative writing, including the styles and categories that most interest you, the different techniques you can practice, and what it feels like to express your ideas in writing. Understanding the full scope of what's possible gives you the freedom to choose the best creative path for you. For example, you might start out writing poetry and later discover that you are truly a storyteller with a whole book (or several!) inside you. 

A few ways to explore possibilities include reading extensively across genres, searching the internet for more information about creative writing, and using writing prompts . 

2. Invest in basic creative writing tools.

To get words on paper and unlock your creativity, you'll need tools that you enjoy using and that offer several key functions. At the most basic, you'll need a notebook and writing utensil. Writing by hand can be a fulfilling experience, in that you can feel the sensations of your hand holding a pen and hear the scribbling sounds of words appearing. You can also thumb through the pages of your notebook, unlike writing in electronic files, and see a tangible record of your ideas 

Eventually, however, you will likely find it useful to invest in a laptop or tablet or install writing software and productivity apps on devices you already have. Keeping digital files of your writing makes it easier to organize your work and revise it directly in the electronic documents.  

3. Take creative writing classes.

You can find creative writing classes that focus on a variety of topics and techniques, like storytelling, poetry, screenwriting, developing characters, writing outlines, and more. Taking classes in creative classes, whether in person or online, is a valuable early step in starting your creative writing journey. You gain experience with the latest techniques in a given genre and have access to an experienced instructor who can guide you through different exercises and answer your questions. 

There are also plenty of self-study online courses that allow you to learn in private at your own pace. 

To choose the right class or course for you, read the descriptions carefully, particularly what you'll learn and the outcomes you can anticipate, to make sure you are working toward your writing goals. 

4. Establish a writing habit.

Writing consistently is what helps you to build skills and complete projects you may have in mind. Set aside time each week, such as every evening after dinner or every Saturday morning, to create a routine you can rely on. Always have a goal for each writing session, such as:

• Practice a new technique. 
• Finish the story you're working on.
• Revise three of your best poems.  

The more consistent you practice and learn writing, the better and more sophisticated your work will become. 

Learn more about the writing process and its importance   HERE .    

1. WorldMetrics. "WorldMetrics Report 2024: Average Novel Length Statistics,"  https://worldmetrics.org/average-novel-length/ . 

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• What Is Creative Writing? The ULTIMATE Guide!

At Oxford Royale Academy, we offer a range of summer school programmes that have become extremely popular amongst students of all ages. The subject of creative writing continues to intrigue many academics as it can help to develop a range of skills that will benefit you throughout your career and life.

Nevertheless, that initial question is one that continues to linger and be asked time and time again: what is creative writing? More specifically, what does it mean or encompass? How does creative writing differ from other styles of writing?

During our Oxford Summer School programme , we will provide you with in-depth an immersive educational experience on campus in the colleges of the best university in the world. However, in this guide, we want to provide a detailed analysis of everything to do with creative writing, helping you understand more about what it is and why it could benefit you to become a creative writer.

The best place to start is with a definition.

What is creative writing?

The dictionary definition of creative writing is that it is original writing that expresses ideas and thoughts in an imaginative way. [1] Some academics will also define it as the art of making things up, but both of these definitions are too simplistic in the grand scheme of things.

It’s challenging to settle on a concrete definition as creative writing can relate to so many different things and formats. Naturally, as the name suggests, it is all built around the idea of being creative or imaginative. It’s to do with using your brain and your own thoughts to create writing that goes outside the realms of what’s expected. This type of writing tends to be more unique as it comes from a personal place. Each individual has their own level of creativity, combined with their own thoughts and views on different things. Therefore, you can conjure up your own text and stories that could be completely different from others.

Understanding creative writing can be challenging when viewed on its own. Consequently, the best way to truly understand this medium is by exploring the other main forms of writing. From here, we can compare and contrast them with the art of creative writing, making it easier to find a definition or separate this form of writing from others.

What are the main forms of writing?

In modern society, we can identify five main types of writing styles [1] that will be used throughout daily life and a plethora of careers:

• Narrative Writing
• Descriptive Writing
• Persuasive Writing
• Expository Writing
• Creative Writing

Narrative writing refers to storytelling in its most basic form. Traditionally, this involves telling a story about a character and walking the readers through the journey they go on. It can be a long novel or a short story that’s only a few hundred words long. There are no rules on length, and it can be completely true or a work of fiction.

A fundamental aspect of narrative writing that makes it different from other forms is that it should includes the key elements of storytelling. As per UX Planet, there are seven core elements of a good story or narrative [2] : the plot, characters, theme, dialogue, melody, decor and spectacle. Narrative writing will include all of these elements to take the ready on a journey that starts at the beginning, has a middle point, but always comes to a conclusion. This style of writing is typically used when writing stories, presenting anecdotes about your life, creating presentations or speeches and for some academic essays.

Descriptive writing, on the other hand, is more focused on the details. When this type of writing is used, it’s focused on capturing the reader’s attention and making them feel like they are part of the story. You want them to live and feel every element of a scene, so they can close their eyes and be whisked away to whatever place or setting you describe.

In many ways, descriptive writing is writing as an art form. Good writers can be given a blank canvas, using their words to paint a picture for the audience. There’s a firm focus on the five senses all humans have; sight, smell, touch, sound and taste. Descriptive writing touches on all of these senses to tell the reader everything they need to know and imagine about a particular scene.

This is also a style of writing that makes good use of both similes and metaphors. A simile is used to describe something as something else, while a metaphor is used to show that something is something else. There’s a subtle difference between the two, but they both aid descriptive writing immensely. According to many writing experts, similes and metaphors allow an author to emphasise, exaggerate, and add interest to a story to create a more vivid picture for the reader [3] .

Looking at persuasive writing and we have a form of writing that’s all about making yourself heard. You have an opinion that you want to get across to the reader, convincing them of it. The key is to persuade others to think differently, often helping them broaden their mind or see things from another point of view. This is often confused with something called opinionative writing, which is all about providing your opinions. While the two seem similar, the key difference is that persuasive writing is built around the idea of submitting evidence and backing your thoughts up. It’s not as simple as stating your opinion for other to read; no, you want to persuade them that your thoughts are worth listening to and perhaps worth acting on.

This style of writing is commonly used journalistically in news articles and other pieces designed to shine a light on certain issues or opinions. It is also typically backed up with statistical evidence to give more weight to your opinions and can be a very technical form of writing that’s not overly emotional.

Expository writing is more focused on teaching readers new things. If we look at its name, we can take the word exposure from it. According to Merriam-Webster [4] , one of the many definitions of exposure is to reveal something to others or present them with something they otherwise didn’t know. In terms of writing, it can refer to the act of revealing new information to others or exposing them to new ideas.

Effectively, expository writing focuses on the goal of leaving the reader with new knowledge of a certain topic or subject. Again, it is predominately seen in journalistic formats, such as explainer articles or ‘how-to’ blogs. Furthermore, you also come across it in academic textbooks or business writing.

This brings us back to the centre of attention for this guide: what is creative writing?

Interestingly, creative writing is often seen as the style of writing that combines many of these forms together in one go. Narrative writing can be seen as creative writing as you are coming up with a story to keep readers engaged, telling a tale for them to enjoy or learn from. Descriptive writing is very much a key part of creative writing as you are using your imagination and creative skills to come up with detailed descriptions that transport the reader out of their home and into a different place.

Creative writing can even use persuasive writing styles in some formats. Many writers will combine persuasive writing with a narrative structure to come up with a creative way of telling a story to educate readers and provide new opinions for them to view or be convinced of. Expository writing can also be involved here, using creativity and your imagination to answer questions or provide advice to the reader.

Essentially, creative writing can combine other writing types to create a unique and new way of telling a story or producing content. At the same time, it can include absolutely none of the other forms at all. The whole purpose of creative writing is to think outside the box and stray from traditional structures and norms. Fundamentally, we can say there are no real rules when it comes to creative writing, which is what makes it different from the other writing styles discussed above.

What is the purpose of creative writing?

Another way to understand and explore the idea of creative writing is to look at its purpose. What is the aim of most creative works of writing? What do they hope to provide the reader with?

We can look at the words of Bryanna Licciardi, an experienced creative writing tutor, to understand the purpose of creative writing. She writes that the primary purpose is to entertain and share human experiences, like love or loss. Writers attempt to reveal the truth with regard to humanity through poetics and storytelling. [5] She also goes on to add that the first step of creative writing is to use one’s imagination.

When students sign up to our creative writing courses, we will teach them how to write with this purpose. Your goal is to create stories or writing for readers that entertain them while also providing information that can have an impact on their lives. It’s about influencing readers through creative storytelling that calls upon your imagination and uses the thoughts inside your head. The deeper you dive into the art of creative writing, the more complex it can be. This is largely because it can be expressed in so many different formats. When you think of creative writing, your instinct takes you to stories and novels. Indeed, these are both key forms of creative writing that we see all the time. However, there are many other forms of creative writing that are expressed throughout the world.

What are the different forms of creative writing?

Looking back at the original and simple definition of creative writing, it relates to original writing in a creative and imaginative way. Consequently, this can span across so many genres and types of writing that differ greatly from one another. This section will explore and analyse the different types of creative writing, displaying just how diverse this writing style can be – while also showcasing just what you’re capable of when you learn how to be a creative writer.

The majority of students will first come across creative writing in the form of essays . The point of an essay is to present a coherent argument in response to a stimulus or question. [6] In essence, you are persuading the reader that your answer to the question is correct. Thus, creative writing is required to get your point across as coherently as possible, while also using great descriptive writing skills to paint the right message for the reader.

Moreover, essays can include personal essays – such as writing a cover letter for work or a university application. Here, great creativity is needed to almost write a story about yourself that captivates the reader and takes them on a journey with you. Excellent imagination and persuasive writing skills can help you tell your story and persuade those reading that you are the right person for the job or university place.

Arguably, this is the most common way in which creative writing is expressed. Fictional work includes novels, novellas, short stories – and anything else that is made up. The very definition of fiction by the Cambridge Dictionary states that it is the type of book or story that is written about imaginary characters and events not based on real people and facts. [7] As such, it means that your imagination is called upon to create something out of nothing. It is a quintessential test of your creative writing skills, meaning you need to come up with characters, settings, plots, descriptions and so much more.

Fictional creative writing in itself takes on many different forms and can be completely different depending on the writer. That is the real beauty of creative writing; you can have entirely different stories and characters from two different writers. Just look at the vast collection of fictional work around you today; it’s the perfect way to see just how versatile creative writing can be depending on the writer.

Similarly, scripts can be a type of creative writing that appeals to many. Technically, a script can be considered a work of fiction. Nevertheless, it depends on the script in question. Scripts for fictional television shows, plays or movies are obviously works of fiction. You, the writer, has come up with the characters and story of the show/play/movie, bringing it all to life through the script. But, scripts can also be non-fictional. Creating a play or movie that adapts real-life events will mean you need to write a script based on something that genuinely happened.

Here, it’s a perfect test of creative writing skills as you take a real event and use your creative talents to make it more interesting. The plot and narrative may already be there for you, so it’s a case of using your descriptive writing skills to really sell it to others and keep readers – or viewers – on the edge of their seats.

A speech is definitely a work of creative writing. The aim of a speech can vary depending on what type of speech it is. A politician delivering a speech in the House of Commons will want to get a point across to persuade others in the room. They’ll need to use creative writing to captivate their audience and have them hanging on their every word. A recent example of a great speech was the one by Sir David Attenborough at the recent COP26 global climate summit. [8] Listening to the speech is a brilliant way of understanding how creative writing can help get points across. His speech went viral around the world because of how electrifying and enthralling it is. The use of many descriptive and persuasive words had people hanging onto everything he said. He really created a picture and an image for people to see, convincing them that the time is now to work on stopping and reversing climate change.

From this speech to a completely different one, you can see creative writing at play for speeches at weddings and other jovial events. Here, the purpose is more to entertain guests and make them laugh. At the same time, someone giving a wedding speech will hope to create a lovely story for the guests to enjoy, displaying the true love that the married couple share for one another. Regardless of what type of speech an individual is giving, creative writing skills are required for it to be good and captivating.

Poetry & Songs

The final example of creative writing is twofold; poetry and songs. Both of these formats are similar to one another, relying on creativity to deliver a combination of things. Poetry can take so many forms and styles, but it aims to inspire readers and get them thinking. Poems often have hidden meanings behind them, and it takes a great deal of imagination and creativity to come up with these meanings while also creating a powerful poem. Some argue that poetry is the most creative of all creative writing forms.

Songwriting is similar in that you use creativity to come up with lyrics that can have powerful meanings while also conjuring up a story for people. The best songwriters will use lyrics that stay in people’s minds and get them thinking about the meaning behind the song. If you lack imagination and creativity, you will never be a good songwriter.

In truth, there are so many other types and examples of creative writing that you can explore. The ones listed above are the most common and powerful, and they all do a great job of demonstrating how diverse creative writing can be. If you can hone your skills in creative writing, it opens up many opportunities for you in life. Primarily, creative writing focuses on fictional pieces of work, but as you can see, non-fiction also requires a good deal of creativity.

What’s needed to make a piece of creative writing?

Our in-depth analysis of creative writing has led to a point where you’re aware of this style of writing and its purpose, along with some examples of it in the real world. The next question to delve into is what do you need to do to make a piece of creative writing. To phrase this another way; how do you write something that comes under the creative heading rather than another form of writing?

There is an element of difficulty in answering this question as creative writing has so many different types and genres. Consequently, there isn’t a set recipe for the perfect piece of creative writing, and that’s what makes this format so enjoyable and unique. Nevertheless, we can discover some crucial elements or principles that will help make a piece of writing as creative and imaginative as possible:

A target audience

All creative works will begin by defining a target audience. There are many ways to define a target audience, with some writers suggesting that you think about who is most likely to read your work. However, this can still be challenging as you’re unsure of the correct demographic to target. Writer’s Digest makes a good point of defining your target audience by considering your main motivation for writing in the first place. [9] It’s a case of considering what made you want to start writing – whether it’s a blog post, novel, song, poem, speech, etc. Figuring out your motivation behind it will help you zero in on your target audience.

Defining your audience is vital for creative writing as it helps you know exactly what to write and how to write it. All of your work should appeal to this audience and be written in a way that they can engage with. As a simple example, authors that write children’s stories will adapt their writing to appeal to the younger audience. Their stories include lots of descriptions and words that children understand, rather than being full of long words and overly academic writing.

Establishing the audience lets the writer know which direction to take things in. As a result, this can aid with things like character choices, plot, storylines, settings, and much more.

A story of sorts

Furthermore, great works of creative writing will always include a story of sorts. This is obvious for works such as novels, short stories, scripts, etc. However, even for things like poems, songs or speeches, a story helps make it creative. It gives the audience something to follow, helping them make sense of the work. Even if you’re giving a speech, setting a story can help you create a scene in people’s minds that makes them connect to what you’re saying. It’s a very effective way of persuading others and presenting different views for people to consider.

Moreover, consider the definition of a story/narrative arc. One definition describes it as a term that describes a story’s full progression. It visually evokes the idea that every story has a relatively calm beginning, a middle where tension, character conflict and narrative momentum builds to a peak and an end where the conflict is resolved. [10]

Simplifying this, we can say that all works of creative writing need a general beginning, middle and end. It’s a way of bringing some sort of structure to your writing so you know where you are going, rather than filling it with fluff or waffle.

A good imagination

Imagination is a buzzword that we’ve used plenty of times throughout this deep dive into creative writing. Every creative writing course you go on will spend a lot of time focusing on the idea of using your imagination. The human brain is a marvellously powerful thing that holds the key to creative freedom and expressing yourself in new and unique ways. If you want to make something creative, you need to tap into your imagination.

People use their imagination in different ways; some will be able to conjure up ideas for stories or worlds that exist beyond our own. Others will use theirs to think of ways of describing things in a more creative and imaginative way. Ultimately, a good imagination is what sets your work apart from others within your genre. This doesn’t mean you need to come up with the most fantastical novel of all time to have something classified as creative writing. No, using your imagination and creativity can extend to something as simple as your writing style.

Ultimately, it’s more about using your imagination to find your own personal flair and creative style. You will then be able to write unique pieces that stand out from the others and keep audiences engaged.

How can creative writing skills benefit you?

When most individuals or students consider creative writing, they imagine a world where they are writing stories for a living. There’s a common misconception that creative writing skills are only beneficial for people pursuing careers in scriptwriting, storytelling, etc. Realistically, enhancing ones creative writing skills can open up many windows of opportunity throughout your education and career.

• Improve essay writing – Naturally, creative writing forms a core part of essays and other written assignments in school and university. Improving your skills in this department can help a student get better at writing powerful essays and achieving top marks. In turn, this can impact your career by helping you get better grades to access better jobs in the future.
• Become a journalist – Journalists depend on creative writing to make stories that capture audiences and have people hanging on their every word. You need high levels of creativity to turn a news story into something people are keen to read or watch.
• Start a blog – In modern times, blogging is a useful tool that can help people find profitable and successful careers. The whole purpose of a blog is to provide your opinions to the masses while also entertaining, informing and educating. Again, having a firm grasp of creative writing skills will aid you in building your blog audience.
• Write marketing content – From advert scripts to content on websites, marketing is fuelled by creative writing. The best marketers will have creative writing skills to draw an audience in and convince them to buy products. If you can learn to get people hanging on your every word, you can make it in this industry.

These points all demonstrate the different ways in which creative writing can impact your life and alter your career. In terms of general career skills, this is one that you simply cannot go without.

How to improve your creative writing

One final part of this analysis of creative writing is to look at how students can improve. It begins by reading as much as you can and taking in lots of different content. Read books, poems, scripts, articles, blogs – anything you can find. Listen to music and pay attention to the words people use and the structure of their writing. It can help you pick up on things like metaphors, similes, and how to use your imagination. Of course, writing is the key to improving; the more you write, the more creative you can get as you will start unlocking the powers of your brain.

Conclusion: What is creative writing

In conclusion, creative writing uses a mixture of different types of writing to create stories that stray from traditional structures and norms. It revolves around the idea of using your imagination to find a writing style that suits you and gets your points across to an audience, keeping them engaged in everything you say. From novels to speeches, there are many forms of creative writing that can help you in numerous career paths throughout your life.

[1] SkillShare: The 5 Types of Writing Styles with Examples

[2] Elements of Good Story Telling – UX Planet

[3] Simile vs Metaphor: What’s the Difference? – ProWritingAid

[4] Definition of Exposure by Merriam-Webster

[5] The Higher Purpose of Creative Writing | by Terveen Gill

[6] Essay purpose – Western Sydney University

[7] FICTION | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

[8] ‘Not fear, but hope’ – Attenborough speech in full – BBC News

[9] Writer’s Digest: Who Is Your Target Reader?

[10] What is a Narrative Arc? • A Guide to Storytelling Structure

What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer’s Toolbox

Not all writing is the same and there’s a type of writing that has the ability to transport, teach, and inspire others like no other.

Creative writing stands out due to its unique approach and focus on imagination. Here’s how to get started and grow as you explore the broad and beautiful world of creative writing!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that extends beyond the bounds of regular professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. It is characterized by its emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or poetic techniques to express ideas in an original and imaginative way.

Creative writing can take on various forms such as:

• short stories
• screenplays

It’s a way for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a creative, often symbolic, way . It’s about using the power of words to transport readers into a world created by the writer.

5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing

Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression:

1. Imagination and Creativity: Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work. It allows writers to explore different scenarios, characters, and worlds that may not exist in reality.

2. Emotional Engagement: Creative writing often evokes strong emotions in the reader. It aims to make the reader feel something — whether it’s happiness, sorrow, excitement, or fear.

3. Originality: Creative writing values originality. It’s about presenting familiar things in new ways or exploring ideas that are less conventional.

4. Use of Literary Devices: Creative writing frequently employs literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, and others to enrich the text and convey meanings in a more subtle, layered manner.

5. Focus on Aesthetics: The beauty of language and the way words flow together is important in creative writing. The aim is to create a piece that’s not just interesting to read, but also beautiful to hear when read aloud.

Remember, creative writing is not just about producing a work of art. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to share your perspective with the world. Whether you’re considering it as a hobby or contemplating a career in it, understanding the nature and characteristics of creative writing can help you hone your skills and create more engaging pieces .

For more insights into creative writing, check out our articles on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree and is a degree in creative writing worth it .

Styles of Creative Writing

To fully understand creative writing , you must be aware of the various styles involved. Creative writing explores a multitude of genres, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses expressive language to evoke emotions and ideas. Poets often employ rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices to create pieces that are deeply personal and impactful. Poems can vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter, making this a versatile and dynamic form of creative writing.

Short Stories

Short stories are another common style of creative writing. These are brief narratives that typically revolve around a single event or idea. Despite their length, short stories can provide a powerful punch, using precise language and tight narrative structures to convey a complete story in a limited space.

Novels represent a longer form of narrative creative writing. They usually involve complex plots, multiple characters, and various themes. Writing a novel requires a significant investment of time and effort; however, the result can be a rich and immersive reading experience.

Screenplays

Screenplays are written works intended for the screen, be it television, film, or online platforms. They require a specific format, incorporating dialogue and visual descriptions to guide the production process. Screenwriters must also consider the practical aspects of filmmaking, making this an intricate and specialized form of creative writing.

If you’re interested in this style, understanding creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree can provide useful insights.

Writing for the theater is another specialized form of creative writing. Plays, like screenplays, combine dialogue and action, but they also require an understanding of the unique dynamics of the theatrical stage. Playwrights must think about the live audience and the physical space of the theater when crafting their works.

Each of these styles offers unique opportunities for creativity and expression. Whether you’re drawn to the concise power of poetry, the detailed storytelling of novels, or the visual language of screenplays and plays, there’s a form of creative writing that will suit your artistic voice. The key is to explore, experiment, and find the style that resonates with you.

For those looking to spark their creativity, our article on creative writing prompts offers a wealth of ideas to get you started.

Importance of Creative Writing

Understanding what is creative writing involves recognizing its value and significance. Engaging in creative writing can provide numerous benefits – let’s take a closer look.

Developing Creativity and Imagination

Creative writing serves as a fertile ground for nurturing creativity and imagination. It encourages you to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and create unique and original content. This leads to improved problem-solving skills and a broader worldview , both of which can be beneficial in various aspects of life.

Through creative writing, one can build entire worlds, create characters, and weave complex narratives, all of which are products of a creative mind and vivid imagination. This can be especially beneficial for those seeking creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Enhancing Communication Skills

Creative writing can also play a crucial role in honing communication skills. It demands clarity, precision, and a strong command of language. This helps to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, making it easier to express thoughts and ideas effectively .

Moreover, creative writing encourages empathy as you often need to portray a variety of characters from different backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to a better understanding of people and improved interpersonal communication skills.

Exploring Emotions and Ideas

One of the most profound aspects of creative writing is its ability to provide a safe space for exploring emotions and ideas. It serves as an outlet for thoughts and feelings , allowing you to express yourself in ways that might not be possible in everyday conversation.

Writing can be therapeutic, helping you process complex emotions, navigate difficult life events, and gain insight into your own experiences and perceptions. It can also be a means of self-discovery , helping you to understand yourself and the world around you better.

So, whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, the benefits of creative writing are vast and varied. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, check out our articles on creative writing prompts and how to teach creative writing . If you’re considering a career in this field, you might find our article on is a degree in creative writing worth it helpful.

4 Steps to Start Creative Writing

Creative writing can seem daunting to beginners, but with the right approach, anyone can start their journey into this creative field. Here are some steps to help you start creative writing .

1. Finding Inspiration

The first step in creative writing is finding inspiration . Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. Observe the world around you, listen to conversations, explore different cultures, and delve into various topics of interest.

Reading widely can also be a significant source of inspiration. Read different types of books, articles, and blogs. Discover what resonates with you and sparks your imagination.

For structured creative prompts, visit our list of creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Editor’s Note : When something excites or interests you, stop and take note – it could be the inspiration for your next creative writing piece.

2. Planning Your Piece

Once you have an idea, the next step is to plan your piece . Start by outlining:

• the main points

Remember, this can serve as a roadmap to guide your writing process. A plan doesn’t have to be rigid. It’s a flexible guideline that can be adjusted as you delve deeper into your writing. The primary purpose is to provide direction and prevent writer’s block.

3. Writing Your First Draft

After planning your piece, you can start writing your first draft . This is where you give life to your ideas and breathe life into your characters.

Don’t worry about making it perfect in the first go. The first draft is about getting your ideas down on paper . You can always refine and polish your work later. And if you don’t have a great place to write that first draft, consider a journal for writing .

4. Editing and Revising Your Work

The final step in the creative writing process is editing and revising your work . This is where you fine-tune your piece, correct grammatical errors, and improve sentence structure and flow.

Editing is also an opportunity to enhance your storytelling . You can add more descriptive details, develop your characters further, and make sure your plot is engaging and coherent.

Remember, writing is a craft that improves with practice . Don’t be discouraged if your first few pieces don’t meet your expectations. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, enjoy the creative process.

For more insights on creative writing, check out our articles on how to teach creative writing or creative writing activities for kids.

Tips to Improve Creative Writing Skills

Understanding what is creative writing is the first step. But how can one improve their creative writing skills? Here are some tips that can help.

Read Widely

Reading is a vital part of becoming a better writer. By immersing oneself in a variety of genres, styles, and authors, one can gain a richer understanding of language and storytelling techniques . Different authors have unique voices and methods of telling stories, which can serve as inspiration for your own work. So, read widely and frequently!

Practice Regularly

Like any skill, creative writing improves with practice. Consistently writing — whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly — helps develop your writing style and voice . Using creative writing prompts can be a fun way to stimulate your imagination and get the words flowing.

Attend Writing Workshops and Courses

Formal education such as workshops and courses can offer structured learning and expert guidance. These can provide invaluable insights into the world of creative writing, from understanding plot development to character creation. If you’re wondering is a degree in creative writing worth it, these classes can also give you a taste of what studying creative writing at a higher level might look like .

Joining Writing Groups and Communities

Being part of a writing community can provide motivation, constructive feedback, and a sense of camaraderie. These groups often hold regular meetings where members share their work and give each other feedback. Plus, it’s a great way to connect with others who share your passion for writing.

Seeking Feedback on Your Work

Feedback is a crucial part of improving as a writer. It offers a fresh perspective on your work, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Whether it’s from a writing group, a mentor, or even friends and family, constructive criticism can help refine your writing .

Start Creative Writing Today!

Remember, becoming a proficient writer takes time and patience. So, don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep enjoying the process. Who knows, your passion for creative writing might even lead to creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Happy writing!

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

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10 Types of Creative Writing (with Examples You’ll Love)

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Savannah Cordova

Savannah is a senior editor with Reedsy and a published writer whose work has appeared on Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. Her short fiction has appeared in the Owl Canyon Press anthology, "No Bars and a Dead Battery". 

About Rebecca van Laer

Rebecca van Laer is a writer, editor, and the author of two books, including the novella How to Adjust to the Dark. Her work has been featured in literary magazines such as AGNI, Breadcrumbs, and TriQuarterly.

A lot falls under the term ‘creative writing’: poetry, short fiction, plays, novels, personal essays, and songs, to name just a few. By virtue of the creativity that characterizes it, creative writing is an extremely versatile art. So instead of defining what creative writing is , it may be easier to understand what it does by looking at examples that demonstrate the sheer range of styles and genres under its vast umbrella.

To that end, we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of works across multiple formats that have inspired the writers here at Reedsy. With 20 different works to explore, we hope they will inspire you, too. 

People have been writing creatively for almost as long as we have been able to hold pens. Just think of long-form epic poems like The Odyssey or, later, the Cantar de Mio Cid — some of the earliest recorded writings of their kind. 

Poetry is also a great place to start if you want to dip your own pen into the inkwell of creative writing. It can be as short or long as you want (you don’t have to write an epic of Homeric proportions), encourages you to build your observation skills, and often speaks from a single point of view . 

Here are a few examples:

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

This classic poem by Romantic poet Percy Shelley (also known as Mary Shelley’s husband) is all about legacy. What do we leave behind? How will we be remembered? The great king Ozymandias built himself a massive statue, proclaiming his might, but the irony is that his statue doesn’t survive the ravages of time. By framing this poem as told to him by a “traveller from an antique land,” Shelley effectively turns this into a story. Along with the careful use of juxtaposition to create irony, this poem accomplishes a lot in just a few lines. 

“Trying to Raise the Dead” by Dorianne Laux

 A direction. An object. My love, it needs a place to rest. Say anything. I’m listening. I’m ready to believe. Even lies, I don’t care.

Poetry is cherished for its ability to evoke strong emotions from the reader using very few words which is exactly what Dorianne Laux does in “ Trying to Raise the Dead .” With vivid imagery that underscores the painful yearning of the narrator, she transports us to a private nighttime scene as the narrator sneaks away from a party to pray to someone they’ve lost. We ache for their loss and how badly they want their lost loved one to acknowledge them in some way. It’s truly a masterclass on how writing can be used to portray emotions. 

If you find yourself inspired to try out some poetry — and maybe even get it published — check out these poetry layouts that can elevate your verse!

Song Lyrics

Poetry’s closely related cousin, song lyrics are another great way to flex your creative writing muscles. You not only have to find the perfect rhyme scheme but also match it to the rhythm of the music. This can be a great challenge for an experienced poet or the musically inclined. 

To see how music can add something extra to your poetry, check out these two examples:

“Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

 You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well, really, what's it to ya? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah 

Metaphors are commonplace in almost every kind of creative writing, but will often take center stage in shorter works like poetry and songs. At the slightest mention, they invite the listener to bring their emotional or cultural experience to the piece, allowing the writer to express more with fewer words while also giving it a deeper meaning. If a whole song is couched in metaphor, you might even be able to find multiple meanings to it, like in Leonard Cohen’s “ Hallelujah .” While Cohen’s Biblical references create a song that, on the surface, seems like it’s about a struggle with religion, the ambiguity of the lyrics has allowed it to be seen as a song about a complicated romantic relationship. 

“I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie

 ​​If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark

You can think of song lyrics as poetry set to music. They manage to do many of the same things their literary counterparts do — including tugging on your heartstrings. Death Cab for Cutie’s incredibly popular indie rock ballad is about the singer’s deep devotion to his lover. While some might find the song a bit too dark and macabre, its melancholy tune and poignant lyrics remind us that love can endure beyond death.

Plays and Screenplays

From the short form of poetry, we move into the world of drama — also known as the play. This form is as old as the poem, stretching back to the works of ancient Greek playwrights like Sophocles, who adapted the myths of their day into dramatic form. The stage play (and the more modern screenplay) gives the words on the page a literal human voice, bringing life to a story and its characters entirely through dialogue. 

Interested to see what that looks like? Take a look at these examples:

All My Sons by Arthur Miller

“I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.” 

Arthur Miller acts as a bridge between the classic and the new, creating 20th century tragedies that take place in living rooms and backyard instead of royal courts, so we had to include his breakout hit on this list. Set in the backyard of an all-American family in the summer of 1946, this tragedy manages to communicate family tensions in an unimaginable scale, building up to an intense climax reminiscent of classical drama. 

💡 Read more about Arthur Miller and classical influences in our breakdown of Freytag’s pyramid . 

“Everything is Fine” by Michael Schur ( The Good Place )

“Well, then this system sucks. What...one in a million gets to live in paradise and everyone else is tortured for eternity? Come on! I mean, I wasn't freaking Gandhi, but I was okay. I was a medium person. I should get to spend eternity in a medium place! Like Cincinnati. Everyone who wasn't perfect but wasn't terrible should get to spend eternity in Cincinnati.” 

A screenplay, especially a TV pilot, is like a mini-play, but with the extra job of convincing an audience that they want to watch a hundred more episodes of the show. Blending moral philosophy with comedy, The Good Place is a fun hang-out show set in the afterlife that asks some big questions about what it means to be good. 

It follows Eleanor Shellstrop, an incredibly imperfect woman from Arizona who wakes up in ‘The Good Place’ and realizes that there’s been a cosmic mixup. Determined not to lose her place in paradise, she recruits her “soulmate,” a former ethics professor, to teach her philosophy with the hope that she can learn to be a good person and keep up her charade of being an upstanding citizen. The pilot does a superb job of setting up the stakes, the story, and the characters, while smuggling in deep philosophical ideas.

Personal essays

Our first foray into nonfiction on this list is the personal essay. As its name suggests, these stories are in some way autobiographical — concerned with the author’s life and experiences. But don’t be fooled by the realistic component. These essays can take any shape or form, from comics to diary entries to recipes and anything else you can imagine. Typically zeroing in on a single issue, they allow you to explore your life and prove that the personal can be universal.

Here are a couple of fantastic examples:

“On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years” by Min Jin Lee (Literary Hub)

There was so much to learn and practice, but I began to see the prose in verse and the verse in prose. Patterns surfaced in poems, stories, and plays. There was music in sentences and paragraphs. I could hear the silences in a sentence. All this schooling was like getting x-ray vision and animal-like hearing. 

This deeply honest personal essay by Pachinko author Min Jin Lee is an account of her eleven-year struggle to publish her first novel . Like all good writing, it is intensely focused on personal emotional details. While grounded in the specifics of the author's personal journey, it embodies an experience that is absolutely universal: that of difficulty and adversity met by eventual success. 

“A Cyclist on the English Landscape” by Roff Smith (New York Times)

These images, though, aren’t meant to be about me. They’re meant to represent a cyclist on the landscape, anybody — you, perhaps. 

Roff Smith’s gorgeous photo essay for the NYT is a testament to the power of creatively combining visuals with text. Here, photographs of Smith atop a bike are far from simply ornamental. They’re integral to the ruminative mood of the essay, as essential as the writing. Though Smith places his work at the crosscurrents of various aesthetic influences (such as the painter Edward Hopper), what stands out the most in this taciturn, thoughtful piece of writing is his use of the second person to address the reader directly. Suddenly, the writer steps out of the body of the essay and makes eye contact with the reader. The reader is now part of the story as a second character, finally entering the picture.

Short Fiction

The short story is the happy medium of fiction writing. These bite-sized narratives can be devoured in a single sitting and still leave you reeling. Sometimes viewed as a stepping stone to novel writing, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Short story writing is an art all its own. The limited length means every word counts and there’s no better way to see that than with these two examples:

“An MFA Story” by Paul Dalla Rosa (Electric Literature)

At Starbucks, I remembered a reading Zhen had given, a reading organized by the program’s faculty. I had not wanted to go but did. In the bar, he read, "I wrote this in a Starbucks in Shanghai. On the bank of the Huangpu." It wasn’t an aside or introduction. It was two lines of the poem. I was in a Starbucks and I wasn’t writing any poems. I wasn’t writing anything. 

This short story is a delightfully metafictional tale about the struggles of being a writer in New York. From paying the bills to facing criticism in a writing workshop and envying more productive writers, Paul Dalla Rosa’s story is a clever satire of the tribulations involved in the writing profession, and all the contradictions embodied by systemic creativity (as famously laid out in Mark McGurl’s The Program Era ). What’s more, this story is an excellent example of something that often happens in creative writing: a writer casting light on the private thoughts or moments of doubt we don’t admit to or openly talk about. 

“Flowering Walrus” by Scott Skinner (Reedsy)

I tell him they’d been there a month at least, and he looks concerned. He has my tongue on a tissue paper and is gripping its sides with his pointer and thumb. My tongue has never spent much time outside of my mouth, and I imagine it as a walrus basking in the rays of the dental light. My walrus is not well. 

A winner of Reedsy’s weekly Prompts writing contest, ‘ Flowering Walrus ’ is a story that balances the trivial and the serious well. In the pauses between its excellent, natural dialogue , the story manages to scatter the fear and sadness of bad medical news, as the protagonist hides his worries from his wife and daughter. Rich in subtext, these silences grow and resonate with the readers.

Want to give short story writing a go? Give our free course a go!

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From pacing to character development, master the elements of short fiction.

Perhaps the thing that first comes to mind when talking about creative writing, novels are a form of fiction that many people know and love but writers sometimes find intimidating. The good news is that novels are nothing but one word put after another, like any other piece of writing, but expanded and put into a flowing narrative. Piece of cake, right?

To get an idea of the format’s breadth of scope, take a look at these two (very different) satirical novels: 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I wished I was back in the convenience store where I was valued as a working member of staff and things weren’t as complicated as this. Once we donned our uniforms, we were all equals regardless of gender, age, or nationality — all simply store workers. 

Keiko, a thirty-six-year-old convenience store employee, finds comfort and happiness in the strict, uneventful routine of the shop’s daily operations. A funny, satirical, but simultaneously unnerving examination of the social structures we take for granted, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman is deeply original and lingers with the reader long after they’ve put it down.

Erasure by Percival Everett

The hard, gritty truth of the matter is that I hardly ever think about race. Those times when I did think about it a lot I did so because of my guilt for not thinking about it.  

Erasure is a truly accomplished satire of the publishing industry’s tendency to essentialize African American authors and their writing. Everett’s protagonist is a writer whose work doesn’t fit with what publishers expect from him — work that describes the “African American experience” — so he writes a parody novel about life in the ghetto. The publishers go crazy for it and, to the protagonist’s horror, it becomes the next big thing. This sophisticated novel is both ironic and tender, leaving its readers with much food for thought.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction is pretty broad: it applies to anything that does not claim to be fictional (although the rise of autofiction has definitely blurred the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction). It encompasses everything from personal essays and memoirs to humor writing, and they range in length from blog posts to full-length books. The defining characteristic of this massive genre is that it takes the world or the author’s experience and turns it into a narrative that a reader can follow along with.

Here, we want to focus on novel-length works that dig deep into their respective topics. While very different, these two examples truly show the breadth and depth of possibility of creative nonfiction:

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Men’s bodies litter my family history. The pain of the women they left behind pulls them from the beyond, makes them appear as ghosts. In death, they transcend the circumstances of this place that I love and hate all at once and become supernatural. 

Writer Jesmyn Ward recounts the deaths of five men from her rural Mississippi community in as many years. In her award-winning memoir , she delves into the lives of the friends and family she lost and tries to find some sense among the tragedy. Working backwards across five years, she questions why this had to happen over and over again, and slowly unveils the long history of racism and poverty that rules rural Black communities. Moving and emotionally raw, Men We Reaped is an indictment of a cruel system and the story of a woman's grief and rage as she tries to navigate it.

Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker

He believed that wine could reshape someone’s life. That’s why he preferred buying bottles to splurging on sweaters. Sweaters were things. Bottles of wine, said Morgan, “are ways that my humanity will be changed.” 

In this work of immersive journalism , Bianca Bosker leaves behind her life as a tech journalist to explore the world of wine. Becoming a “cork dork” takes her everywhere from New York’s most refined restaurants to science labs while she learns what it takes to be a sommelier and a true wine obsessive. This funny and entertaining trip through the past and present of wine-making and tasting is sure to leave you better informed and wishing you, too, could leave your life behind for one devoted to wine. 

Illustrated Narratives (Comics, graphic novels)

Once relegated to the “funny pages”, the past forty years of comics history have proven it to be a serious medium. Comics have transformed from the early days of Jack Kirby’s superheroes into a medium where almost every genre is represented. Humorous one-shots in the Sunday papers stand alongside illustrated memoirs, horror, fantasy, and just about anything else you can imagine. This type of visual storytelling lets the writer and artist get creative with perspective, tone, and so much more. For two very different, though equally entertaining, examples, check these out:

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure." 

This beloved comic strip follows Calvin, a rambunctious six-year-old boy, and his stuffed tiger/imaginary friend, Hobbes. They get into all kinds of hijinks at school and at home, and muse on the world in the way only a six-year-old and an anthropomorphic tiger can. As laugh-out-loud funny as it is, Calvin & Hobbes ’ popularity persists as much for its whimsy as its use of humor to comment on life, childhood, adulthood, and everything in between. 

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell." 

Comics aren't just the realm of superheroes and one-joke strips, as Alan Moore proves in this serialized graphic novel released between 1989 and 1998. A meticulously researched alternative history of Victorian London’s Ripper killings, this macabre story pulls no punches. Fact and fiction blend into a world where the Royal Family is involved in a dark conspiracy and Freemasons lurk on the sidelines. It’s a surreal mad-cap adventure that’s unsettling in the best way possible. 

Video Games and RPGs

Probably the least expected entry on this list, we thought that video games and RPGs also deserved a mention — and some well-earned recognition for the intricate storytelling that goes into creating them. 

Essentially gamified adventure stories, without attention to plot, characters, and a narrative arc, these games would lose a lot of their charm, so let’s look at two examples where the creative writing really shines through: 

80 Days by inkle studios

"It was a triumph of invention over nature, and will almost certainly disappear into the dust once more in the next fifty years." 

Named Time Magazine ’s game of the year in 2014, this narrative adventure is based on Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. The player is cast as the novel’s narrator, Passpartout, and tasked with circumnavigating the globe in service of their employer, Phileas Fogg. Set in an alternate steampunk Victorian era, the game uses its globe-trotting to comment on the colonialist fantasies inherent in the original novel and its time period. On a storytelling level, the choose-your-own-adventure style means no two players’ journeys will be the same. This innovative approach to a classic novel shows the potential of video games as a storytelling medium, truly making the player part of the story. 

What Remains of Edith Finch by Giant Sparrow

"If we lived forever, maybe we'd have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes, and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is." 

This video game casts the player as 17-year-old Edith Finch. Returning to her family’s home on an island in the Pacific northwest, Edith explores the vast house and tries to figure out why she’s the only one of her family left alive. The story of each family member is revealed as you make your way through the house, slowly unpacking the tragic fate of the Finches. Eerie and immersive, this first-person exploration game uses the medium to tell a series of truly unique tales. 

Fun and breezy on the surface, humor is often recognized as one of the trickiest forms of creative writing. After all, while you can see the artistic value in a piece of prose that you don’t necessarily enjoy, if a joke isn’t funny, you could say that it’s objectively failed.

With that said, it’s far from an impossible task, and many have succeeded in bringing smiles to their readers’ faces through their writing. Here are two examples:

‘How You Hope Your Extended Family Will React When You Explain Your Job to Them’ by Mike Lacher (McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

“Is it true you don’t have desks?” your grandmother will ask. You will nod again and crack open a can of Country Time Lemonade. “My stars,” she will say, “it must be so wonderful to not have a traditional office and instead share a bistro-esque coworking space.” 

Satire and parody make up a whole subgenre of creative writing, and websites like McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and The Onion consistently hit the mark with their parodies of magazine publishing and news media. This particular example finds humor in the divide between traditional family expectations and contemporary, ‘trendy’ work cultures. Playing on the inherent silliness of today’s tech-forward middle-class jobs, this witty piece imagines a scenario where the writer’s family fully understands what they do — and are enthralled to hear more. “‘Now is it true,’ your uncle will whisper, ‘that you’ve got a potential investment from one of the founders of I Can Haz Cheezburger?’”

‘Not a Foodie’ by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell (Electric Literature)

I’m not a foodie, I never have been, and I know, in my heart, I never will be. 

Highlighting what she sees as an unbearable social obsession with food , in this comic Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell takes a hilarious stand against the importance of food. From the writer’s courageous thesis (“I think there are more exciting things to talk about, and focus on in life, than what’s for dinner”) to the amusing appearance of family members and the narrator’s partner, ‘Not a Foodie’ demonstrates that even a seemingly mundane pet peeve can be approached creatively — and even reveal something profound about life.

We hope this list inspires you with your own writing. If there’s one thing you take away from this post, let it be that there is no limit to what you can write about or how you can write about it. 

In the next part of this guide, we'll drill down into the fascinating world of creative nonfiction.

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Creative Writing 101: Everything You Need to Get Started

Creative writing: You can take classes in it, you can earn a degree in it, but the only things you really need to do it are your creative thinking and writing tools. Creative writing is the act of putting your imagination on a page. It’s artistic expression in words; it’s writing without the constraints that come with other kinds of writing like persuasive or expository. 

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What is creative writing?

Creative writing is writing meant to evoke emotion in a reader by communicating a theme. In storytelling (including literature, movies, graphic novels, creative nonfiction, and many video games), the theme is the central meaning the work communicates. 

Take the movie (and the novel upon which it’s based) Jaws , for instance. The story is about a shark that terrorizes a beach community and the men tasked with killing the shark. But the film’s themes include humanity’s desire to control nature, tradition vs. innovation, and how potential profit can drive people in power to make dangerous, even fatal, decisions. 

A theme isn’t the only factor that defines creative writing. Here are other components usually found in creative writing:

• Connecting, or at least attempting to connect, with the reader’s emotions
• Writing from a specific point of view
• A narrative structure can be complex or simple and serves to shape how the reader interacts with the content.
• Using imaginative and/or descriptive language

Creative writing typically uses literary devices like metaphors and foreshadowing to build a narrative and express the theme, but this isn’t a requirement. Neither is dialogue, though you’ll find it used in most works of fiction. Creative writing doesn’t have to be fictional, either. Dramatized presentations of true stories, memoirs, and observational humor pieces are all types of creative writing. 

What isn’t creative writing?

In contrast, research papers aren’t creative writing. Neither are analytical essays, persuasive essays , or other kinds of academic writing . Similarly, personal and professional communications aren’t considered creative writing—so your emails, social media posts, and official company statements are all firmly in the realm of non-creative writing. These kinds of writing convey messages, but they don’t express themes. Their goals are to inform and educate, and in some cases collect information from, readers. But even though they can evoke emotion in readers, that isn’t their primary goal. 

But what about things like blog posts? Or personal essays? These are broad categories, and specific pieces in these categories can be considered creative writing if they meet the criteria listed above. This blog post, for example, is not a piece of creative writing as it aims to inform, but a blog post that walks its reader through a first-person narrative of an event could be deemed creative writing. 

Types of creative writing

Creative writing comes in many forms. These are the most common:

Novels originated in the eighteenth century . Today, when people think of books, most think of novels. 

A novel is a fictional story that’s generally told in 60,000 to 100,000 words, though they can be as short as 40,000 words or go beyond 100,000. 

Stories that are too short to be novels, but can’t accurately be called short stories, are often referred to as novellas. Generally, a story between 10,000 and 40,000 words is considered a novella. You might also run into the term “ novelette ,” which is used to refer to stories that clock in between 7,500 and 19,000 words. 

Short stories

Short stories are fictional stories that fall generally between 5,000 and 10,000 words. Like novels, they tell complete stories and have at least one character, some sort of conflict, and at least one theme. 

When a story is less than 1,000 words, it’s categorized as a work of flash fiction.

Poetry can be hard to define because as a genre, it’s so open-ended. A poem doesn’t have to be any specific length. It doesn’t have to rhyme. There are many different kinds of poems from cultures all over the world, like sonnets, haikus, sestinas, blank verse, limericks, and free verse. 

The rules of poetry are generally flexible . . . unless you’re writing a specific type of poem, like a haiku , that has specific rules around the number of lines or structure. But while a poem isn’t required to conform to a specific length or formatting, or use perfect grammar , it does need to evoke its reader’s emotions, come from a specific point of view, and express a theme. 

And when you set a poem to music, you’ve got a song. 

Plays, TV scripts, and screenplays

Plays are meant to be performed on stage. Screenplays are meant to be made into films, and TV scripts are meant to be made into television programs. Scripts for videos produced for other platforms fit into this category as well. 

Plays, TV scripts, and screenplays have a lot in common with novels and short stories. They tell stories that evoke emotion and express themes. The difference is that they’re meant to be performed rather than read and as such, they tend to rely much more on dialogue because they don’t have the luxury of lengthy descriptive passages. But scriptwriters have more than just dialogue to work with; writing a play or script also involves writing stage or scene directions.

Each type of script has its own specific formatting requirements. 

Creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction covers all the kinds of creative writing that aren’t fiction. Here are some examples:

• Personal essays: A personal essay is a true story told through a narrative framework. Often, recollections of events are interspersed with insights about those events and your personal interpretations and feelings about them in this kind of essay. 
• Literary journalism: Think of literary journalism as journalism enhanced by creative writing techniques. These are the kinds of stories often published in outlets like The New Yorker and Salon. Literary journalism pieces report on factual events but do so in a way that makes them feel like personal essays and short stories. 
• Memoirs: Memoirs are to personal essays what novels are to short stories. In other words, a memoir is a book-length collection of personal memories, often centering around a specific story, that often works opinions, epiphanies, and emotional insights into the narrative. 
• Autobiographies: An autobiography is a book you write about yourself and your life. Often, autobiographies highlight key events and may focus on one particular aspect of the author’s life, like her role as a tech innovator or his career as a professional athlete. Autobiographies are often similar in style to memoirs, but instead of being a collection of memories anchored to specific events, they tend to tell the author’s entire life story in a linear narrative. 
• Humor writing: Humor writing comes in many forms, like standup comedy routines, political cartoons, and humorous essays. 
• Lyric essays: In a lyric essay, the writer breaks conventional grammar and stylistic rules when writing about a concept, event, place, or feeling. In this way, lyric essays are like essay-length poems. The reason they’re considered essays, and not long poems, is that they generally provide more direct analysis of the subject matter than a poem would. 

Tips for writing creatively

Give yourself time and space for creative writing.

It’s hard to write a poem during your lunch break or work on your memoir between calls. Don’t make writing more difficult for yourself by trying to squeeze it into your day. Instead, block off time to focus solely on creative writing, ideally in a distraction-free environment like your bedroom or a coffee shop. 

>>Read More: How to Create Your Very Own Writing Retreat

Get to know yourself as a writer

The more you write, the more in tune you’ll become with your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. You’ll identify the kinds of characters, scenes, language, and pieces you like writing best and determine where you struggle the most. Understanding what kind of writer you are can help you decide which kinds of projects to pursue. 

Challenge yourself 

Once you know which kinds of writing you struggle with, do those kinds of writing. If you only focus on what you’re good at, you’ll never grow as a writer. Challenge yourself to write in a different genre or try a completely new type of writing. For example, if you’re a short story writer, give poetry or personal essays a try. 

Need help getting started? Give one (or all!) of these 20 fun writing prompts a try .

Learn from other writers

There are lots of resources out there about creative writing. Read and watch them. If there’s a particular writer whose work you enjoy, seek out interviews with them and personal essays they’ve written about their creative processes. 

>>Read More: How to Be a Master Storyteller—Tips from 5 Experts 

Don’t limit yourself to big-name writers, either. Get involved in online forums, social media groups, and if possible, in-person groups for creative writers. By doing this, you’re positioning yourself to learn from writers from all different walks of life . . . and help other writers, too. 

I wrote something. Where do I go from here?

Give yourself a pat on the back: You did it! You finished a piece of creative writing—something many attempt, but not quite as many achieve. 

What comes next is up to you. You can share it with your friends and family, but you don’t have to. You can post it online or bring it to an in-person writing group for constructive critique. You can even submit it to a literary journal or an agent to potentially have it published, but if you decide to take this route, we recommend working with an editor first to make it as polished as possible. 

Some writers are initially hesitant to share their work with others because they’re afraid their work will be stolen. Although this is a possibility, keep in mind that you automatically hold the copyright for any piece you write. If you’d like, you can apply for copyright protection to give yourself additional legal protection against plagiarizers, but this is by no means a requirement. 

Write with originality

Grammarly can’t help you be more creative, but we can help you hone your writing so your creativity shines as brightly as possible. Once you’ve written your piece, Grammarly can catch any mistakes you made and suggest strong word choices that accurately express your message. 

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creative writing noun

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What does the noun creative writing mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun creative writing . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

This word is used in U.S. English.

How common is the noun creative writing ?

Where does the noun creative writing come from?

Earliest known use

The earliest known use of the noun creative writing is in the 1830s.

OED's earliest evidence for creative writing is from 1837, in the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, lecturer and author.

creative writing is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: creative adj. , writing n.

Nearby entries

• creative accounting, n. 1967–
• creative class, n. 1836–
• creative destruction, n. 1927–
• creative director, n. 1938–
• creative evolution, n. 1908–
• creative evolutionist, n. 1915–
• creatively, adv. 1713–
• creativeness, n. 1805–
• creative sentencing, n. 1975–
• creative writer, n. 1854–
• creative writing, n. 1837–
• creativity, n. 1659–
• creatophagous, adj. 1850
• creator, n. c1300–
• creatorship, n. 1611–
• creatress, n. 1590–
• creatrix, n. 1595–
• creatural, adj. 1642–
• creaturalized, adj. 1649
• creature, n. c1300–
• creature comforts, n. 1641–

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Meaning & use

Entry history for creative writing, n..

Originally published as part of the entry for creative, adj.

creative, adj. was revised in November 2010.

oed.com is a living text, updated every three months. Modifications may include:

• further revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
• new senses, phrases, and quotations.

Earlier versions of this entry were published in:

OED First Edition (1893)

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OED Second Edition (1989)

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Factsheet for creative writing, n., browse entry.

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How to Do the Dictionary Creative Writing Prompt

Rebecca Graf

Writing prompts can be found anywhere from events in your life to ordinary pictures. Even your own ancestry can give you a story. Stories exist all around us. You just have to stop and notice them. Simple acts can turn into the basis of a huge novel. Stop and pay attention. As you grow as a writer, you’ll find yourself going crazy seeing everything as a story line.

You can even get a writing prompt simply from the dictionary. Yes, I said dictionary. It is not just a source of definitions and pronunciations. It can be where to find your next story. Billions of stories exist within the pages of a dictionary.

How does this work? You pull various words from the dictionary. Use no more than five or six. Then use those words to create a short story or flash fiction piece. A short story is usually 700 to 7000 words while a flash fiction piece is 100 to 700 words. This guideline varies but you can use this as a baseline. That’s all you have to do. Okay, fine. Let’s go into more detail.

Step 1 — Open a Dictionary

This first step might be the hardest. For this, don’t use an electronic dictionary. Pick up a print copy, preferably a large one. This is one part that makes it fun. If you absolutely cannot get a print copy, then an ebook version will work in a pinch. I also suggest…

Written by Rebecca Graf

Writer for ten years, lover of education, and degrees in business, history, and English. Striving to become a Renassiance woman. www.writerrebeccagraf.com

Text to speech

Diction is word choice, and the most basic way to talk about diction is to note two kinds: formal and informal.  There are lots of different levels of formality and informality, but when proofreading an academic paper, keep in mind that it’s better to err on the side of being formal than of being informal.  Imagine that you are reading your paper to someone older than you, someone you really respect and want to impress.  If what you are writing is not an academic paper, then you should pay attention to finding the diction that is most appropriate for what you want to communicate. Once again: purpose and audience.

Creative Writing, Creative Process by Matthew Cheney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Creative Writing

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