Creative Writing

LESSON TITLE

Imaginative Writing vs. Technical Writing

CONTENT STANDARD

The learners have an understanding of imagery,

diction, figures.

PERFORMANCE STANDARD

OBJECTIVE(S)

Differentiate imaginative writing from technical

writing

Creative writing is any form of writing which is written with the creativity of mind: fiction
writing, poetry writing, creative nonfiction writing and more. The purpose is to express
something, whether it be feelings, thoughts, or emotions.
Rather than simply giving information or inciting the reader to make an action beneficial to
the writer, creative writing is written to entertain or educate someone, to spread awareness
about something or someone, or to simply express ones thoughts.
But there are two kinds of creative writing: good and bad. Bad creative writing cannot make
any impression on the reader. You dont want to do that, do you? Of course not. So whether
youre a novelist, a poet, a short-story writer, an essayist, a biographer or just an aspiring
beginner, youll want to perfect your craft. But the question is: how?
When you write great fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, amazing things can happen. Readers
cant put it down. The work you wrote becomes a bestseller. It becomes famous. But you
have to reach to that level first.
The best way to increase your proficiency in creative writing is to write, write compulsively,
but it doesnt just mean write whatever you want. There are certain things you should know
first it helps to start with the right foot.
http://www.writerstreasure.com/creative-writing-101/

An Introduction to Creative Writing

1 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
By Idrees Patel
What is creative writing? Is there a correct definition anywhere? That is what I hoped to find
when I Googled the term creative writing a while back. But the answers were disappointing
for me as a pure beginner, and puzzling. Heres what is written as a definition for creative
writing in Wikipedia:
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes
outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of
literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems.
Writing for the screen and stage, screenwriting and playwriting respectively, typically have
their own programs of study, but fit under the creative writing category as well.
Yeah well take that for creative writing But its clear that even Wikipedia does not give a
clear definition but only says that it is considered any writing which is outside the bounds. To
rephrase that:
In any subject, concepts can only be understood by examples. Fiction, poetry and nonfiction are all examples of creative writing. Well look at them in detail in future instalments of
this series. For now, lets see what constitutes creative writing.
The Work Which You Can Recognise as Creative Writing

As said before, fiction, poetry and non-fiction are the examples of creative writing. They are
examples because they are obviously creative and not necessarily true (with the exception
of non-fiction). Fiction is written to entertain and educate. We love reading stories. Although
there are some true stories, most stories are nothing but fiction. Then there is poetry, of
which there are many forms. Poetry books, sonnets, haikus, pantoums, etc.
The above examples are obviously creative writing. But now we come to more subjective
material. Ever heard of an autobiography or a biography? Im sure you have. Then there is
its distant cousin the memoir. Famous people make millions by publishing memoirs, and
some of them are popular reading material. Famous personalities also write autobiographies
or pay someone to write their biography. This is also constituted under creative writing.

2 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
The fact is that these types of writing are not written to entertain (and personally Im bored to
sleep by them) but to educate (in some cases) and to inform (in most cases). In bookstores,
biographies and autobiographies are sold along with stories. If I may be honest, I have
never seen people buy them. Then again, this may be because Im too busy checking out
the latest novels.
And so that is what constitutes creative writing in a nutshell. Now lets look at the work which
you can recognise as not creative writing, and to use its technical term, technical writing.
The Work Which You Can Recognise as Other Professional Forms of Writing

Most of the writing written in the world falls under this category, technical writing.
Advertisements. Web copy. Copywriting. Product descriptions. Textbooks. Reference
material such as encyclopaedias. Letters (of a certain kind such as formal letters to get an
interview etc).
Words which appear everywhere, on your TV screen, on the computer and on the paper. All
technical writing. Technical writing is in some ways easier to write than creative writing. But it
too is governed by rules, and has its own dos and donts.
A further comparison of creative writing and technical writing will be made in a future post.
Writers which compose the material of books are called authors regardless of the content
and style of the material. This is one area where creative writing and technical writing share
a similarity.
It goes without saying that technical writing is not written to entertain therefore I find it rather
boring to read and so do other people. Surely youve read the Terms & Conditions of some
website. How boring it is to read. Though you see words that make sense, you are not
moved by them. Whereas in creative writing if its really good you cant put it down.
Creative Writing Means What You Believe It Means

Is creative writing an art or a craft? Of course, the debate will never finish. But I do believe
that it is both. Therefore it is something special of an art and a craft. Forget about definitions.
Use your own creativity and find your very own meaning of creative writing. Somebody said

3 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
that writers have a gift. Especially creative writers. Creative writers have the power to
entertain someone, to make someone laugh, to make someone cry. To make
someone think.
And so we see that creative writing does not deserve a clear definition, but attention and a
special meaning. I love creative writing. I love reading it and I love writing it. Are you like
me? If you are, then what are you waiting for? Open that word processor, and start typing.
You never know, you might find a hidden masterpiece.
How to Get Started in Creative Writing in Just Three Steps

By Idrees Patel
Youve gone to the next step: you now know what creative writing is. Youd like to get started
in it. The inevitable question is how?
For reference, look at Daily Writing Tips awesome article Creative Writing 101. There are
quite a few steps given there. I will be adding my own touches to them.
So, without any further ado, here are the three steps for you to climb and emerge as victor
(sorry,
couldnt
resist
it).

Know the Genres and Subgenres of Creative Writing

It might not seem important now, but if you know the genres and subgenres of creative
writing, youve done yourself a great service. Why? Because many great
authors specialize in one big broad genre such as fiction or poetry or non-fiction. That is
why you see that great novelists write only novels, great short-story writers write only
short stories, great poets only write poetry and so on. You dont want to become Jack of all
trades; master of none. And you can only specialize by knowing all of them.
Note: Now, of course, there are exceptions. Some novelists do write short stories and vice
versa. But these types of authors are not common; they are rare. Thats not to say that you
shouldnt step outside of your broad genre and be afraid to experiment with other ones, its
just to say that you should, first and foremost, go with the one you like most.
So do yourself a favour and read on the creative writing genres. Theyre all known, of
course. Fiction is branched into four sub-genres, of which only two are really popular:
novels, novelettes, novellas and short-stories.

4 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
If you want to dig under the surface, you will find more and more sub-genres. Stories under
1000 words are called micro-fiction. Recently a new type of sub-genre has come into
light: Twitter fiction, fiction of 140 characters. The people who make such fiction must be
talented, because I cant seem to close up a story under 1000 words. Concise writing, of
course, is the issue.
Then there is poetry. I dont write any poetry now, because I find it harder than writing fiction
and hence I specialized and chose fiction as my broad genre. There are many sub-genres
under poetry. Sonnet, haiku, ballad, tanka, pantoum, roundel, etc. My head hurts just looking
at so many forms. Wow.
Creative Non-fiction. Its strange that non-fiction is a part of creative writing, but then, as
goes a saying, the truth is sometimes better than fiction. Memoirs, autobiographies,
biographies, essays and journals, etc are all part of non-fiction.
Pick Out Your Own Genre

This is sometimes easy work, and sometimes hard work. It took me nearly a year to find out
my own genre: writing fiction. Before I was experimenting with all forms without success and
in vain (yeah they say the same thing). As soon as I started writing only fiction, my writing
improved.
Every writer has his own genre of which he seeks to become the master of. It shouldnt
necessarily be fiction or a popular form. It can be as obscure as can be. Only enjoyment
should be gained out of it, at least at the beginning. (Youre free to make money from it if
youre really good enough!)
It might be fun sometimes to step out of your genre and write something fun. I tried this with
essays and it was a success. But remember that you should first write inside your genre and
then after some time do what you like.
Start Writing (Regularly)

If you dont know how to write for a period of time, check out the Daily Writing Tips article.
Their idea of notebooks and finding ideas works for me.
It doesnt matter whether you write once a day or a week or a month or anything else. Your
writing should not be set on a schedule in which you cant match your other work. Write
Every Day is outdated advice now the newer and better advice is Write Regularly as
much as you can inside your genre. If you continue the practice you should start seeing
results. Never break off from your work. I tried it one time and the results were not uplifting.
It took me a whole month to get back to my earlier standard.

5 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
Bottom line is: just write (regularly), and youre started in creative writing! You can say with
pride, Im a writer. Just write. Thats it.
But whats the purpose?

If your purpose is to get published and make money from your writing straight away, Im
sorry to say that you will be bitterly disappointed. Even the best authors first novels were
proper garbage (not my words; their words) unless they were edited previously. So you
might as well give up creative writing if you only want the money.
But if your purpose is to enjoy your ride and perfect your writing and just be pleased by
writing, then you are welcome inside the camp of writers. Youre a writer. So you might just
as well dodo what?write.
Tomorrow we will look
You are here: Home / Technical Writing / Creative Writing vs. Technical Writing
Creative Writing vs. Technical Writing

By Idrees Patel

What is the difference between creative writing and technical

writing?
Today, after learning what creative writing is and how to get started in it, were going to
compare the two of them.
There are writers all over the world in the two categories and it boggles the mind to hear
that millions have been made from both creative writing and technical writing. Some have
made fortunes. While some have not made anything.
Enjoyment can be gained from both types, but its fair to say that they both serve different
purposes. They both have their own dos and donts and they both have their own rules.
Both are governed by grammar and style. Both appear everywhere. So whats the
difference?

Heres my take: creative writing is written for the right brain (creative) and technical writing is
written for the left brain (logical). Confused yet? Wait, theres more

6 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
A Further Look into Creative Writing

Creative writing is written to entertain and educate. We enjoy reading novels and stories, not
because they are necessary to read or helpful for us, just because we get a certain pleasure
from reading them, the pleasure which cant be got from reading technical writing.
Creative writing has so many genres and sub-genres that they deserve a whole section of
an article for themselves. It sometimes follows a given set of rules, and sometimes throws
caution to the winds and breaks all of them. Either way, talent is somewhat of a necessary
ingredient if you want to write creatively. Of course, writing can be improved by practice. But
if you dont have the necessary talent, your writing would not give pleasure to anyone.
Skills and talent both make up creative writing. Hence, they are its constituents.
Further reading: An Introduction to Creative Writing
A Further Look into Technical Writing

Technical writing is wholly written to inform and sometimes to trigger the person reading into
making an action beneficial to the one of the writer. Whoa, what a mouthful. Thats not a
subject Im going to cover here (copywriting), but if you want to know more about it, you can
visit the master of its game, Copyblogger.com.
I already gave the examples of technical writing in the first post of the series. If you look at
them with the context of copywriting, they make much more sense. Copywriters are some of
the highest paid writers, says Copyblogger. Sales letters, pitches, advertisements, etc
constitute copywriting.
Technical writing is not written to entertain. It has its own set of rules, conventions, dos and
donts, masterpieces and pieces of rubbish. There is a whole art to mastering technical
writing, although it too is branched: online technical writing and offline technical writing.
Personally, I think that if you want to master technical writing, you should first master
concise and magnetic writing that draws the reader in, regardless of whether its creative or
technical.
Are you a master or a learner of concise writing? If you are, so am I, and Im going to cover
it here in future posts. Creative leads or hooks contribute to it.
So thats it for creative writing. The differences between creative writing and technical writing
are that creative writing is written mainly to entertain with the creativity of the mind and
technical writing is written mainly to inform in a formal manner or to incite the reader to make
an action such as purchase the writers product.

7 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing
This, in a mouthful, is the main difference. In the beginning of this article, I made my own
claim: right brain vs. Left brain. However, they deserve an article of their own, and not here.
If you want to know more, you can always do your own research.
For my part, Im going to focus on creative writing tips here, mainly because this is a
creative writing blog and Im much more interested by creative writing than by technical
writing. Next post will be solely on fiction writing elements. Stay tuned.

Enjambment: Definition and Examples for Writers

by Liz Bureman | 29 Comments

I love new words. I always get really excited whenever I learn a new word, and I try to use it
as often as is applicable in my daily life. Sometimes this is harder to do than Id like.
However, this is a writing blog, and the word I learned today is a writing word.
Congratulations, you get to learn about enjambments.

8 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing

Definition of Enjambment
The word enjambment comes from the French enjambement, which means to step over, or
put legs across.
The term as a literary device refers to the practice of running lines of poetry from one to the
next without using any kind of punctuation to indicate a stop (periods, commas, etc.).

9 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing

Examples of Enjambment
You see this all the time with Shakespeares later plays and with other Elizabethan poets,
and Homer used enjambment extensively as well.
Heres a passage from Geoffery Chaucers The Canterbury Tails that illustrates enjambment
(see the second line):

Love
will
not
be
constraind
When
mastry
comes,
the
god
Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone.

by
of

love

mastery.
anon

Another example, this from William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet (notice the third and
fourth lines):

When
he
shall
Take
him
and
cut
him
out
in
little
And
he
will
make
the
face
of
heaven
so
That
all
the
world
will
be
in
love
with
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

die,
stars,
fine
night

Enjambment forces the readers eye to the next line before theyve completely processed
the thought, creating tension between word and idea.
Usually when a writer makes use of enjambment, the purpose is to fool the reader. An idea
is presented in the first line of the enjambment, only to be met with a conflicting or
contrasting conclusion in the second line. Enjambments can also allow for a freer flow of
ideas, or continued enforcement of the poems main idea without the encumbrance of
punctuation that is often deemed optional in poetry anyway.

10 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing

End-stopped:
Enjambment

The

Opposite

of

The opposite of enjambment is end-stopped, when a line in a poem ends with a period,
comma, or other punctuation.
Heres an example of end-stopping from Shakespeares Julius Ceasar:

Cowards
die
many
times
before
their
deaths;
The
valiant
never
taste
of
death
but
once.
Of
all
the
wonders
that
I
yet
have
heard,
It
seems
to
me
most
strange
that
men
should
fear;
Seeing
that
death,
a
necessary
end,
Will come when it will come.
Note that enjambment is not the same thing as a run-on sentence. Enjambment is one
thought split between two lines; a run-on sentence is multiple ideas in one sentence with no
punctuation separating them.
Therefore, be judicious with your enjambments.
Have you ever written poetry with enjambment? Does your favorite poem use
enjambment?

PRACTICE
Write for fifteen minutes in enjambment mode. Split ideas across multiple lines, and add
some twists and turns to those ideas. Post your practice inthe comments when youre done.
There's oil on your computer screen (writing prompt)
Want to Write Faster for NaNoWriMo? Try This Trick

11 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)

Creative Writing

About Liz Bureman

Liz Bureman has a more-than-healthy interest in proper grammatical structure, accurate spelling, and the
underappreciated semicolon. When she's not diagramming sentences and reading blogs about how terribly
written the Twilight series is, she edits for the Write Practice, causes trouble in Denver, and plays guitar very
slowly and poorly. You can follow her on Twitter(@epbure), where she tweets more about music of the mid-90s
than writing.

New Writing Contest

This summer, The Write Practice is partnering with Short Fiction Break to host a writing
contest in which every writer gets published. Wed love to have you join us. The enrollment
deadline is July 11, so sign up now. Click tolearn more and enroll.
Join the contest
42
Shares

20

12 Prepared by: Mr. Edsel R. Alapag, Teacher II (Malinao School for Philippines
Craftsmen)