Creative Writing: A Conclusion

This class has taught us a series of things: we began this Creative Writing Workshop by talking about the decisions we need to make before, during and after writing. In that section we were able to learn about how to gather material to write about, how to make choices when it comes to what we want to write about and also how to employ certain habits that will make us good creative writers, such as always bringing a notebook and always proofreading our drafts.

Once we’d taken that up we moved onto the common problems that beginning writers face: these included being distracted, not having time to write and encountering Writer’s Block. We concluded that it’s important to know about these roadblocks so that we can figure out how to move past them.

After we understood this we were able to delve deeper into the writing process and we were able to tackle how to put ourselves in the right frame of mind to write. We were also able to talk about what it takes to write well—and in turn, we were able to identify the things that prevent that success and how to avoid them. We learned how to keep creative, write only what is necessary and that we should be careful of our use of punctuation.

Furthermore, our classes were able to give us the concrete tools that we’d need to learn in order to write well. These included being able to find inspiration anywhere and being imaginative as well as learning how to translate our thoughts, feelings and experiences onto the page. Once we were done discussing this, we moved onto the importance of wording and how it changes the quality of what we write. We were able to identify which tenses and voices to use in order to create interesting content.

Next we were able to try on new voices—or rather, old voices; we learned about the importance of learning to emulate our favorite writers so that we can learn from them. However, we also talked about how this can prevent us from progressing: we concluded that it’s important for us to add our own flavor to everything we write and that this is the only way through which we can find our own unique voice.

Along with finding our voices as writers, it is important to discuss the different forms that our writing can take. First, we tackled poetry—both its elements and how to write it ourselves. We discussed wordplay and different techniques we can use to become good at identifying patterns and rhythms in speech. Next, we talked about short stories and how the shorter a work of fiction is, the more pressure there is for it to create an impression upon the reader. After this we moved onto the ordeal of the novel: we talked about how short stories relate to this lengthier body of prose work and how every chapter in a novel should be a short story in itself which lends to the bigger picture.