Creative Writing

Writing is a means of communicating our thoughts and ideas. In the modern world, writing is a valuable skill that is used for professional and technical documentation. Documents that are used to convey important information must be well organized. They must be clear and precise, and they must use good grammar in order to be effective. It is essential that the documents should not have spelling errors that can distract the reader. Mistakes in the text are usually interpreted as carelessness or ignorance on the part of the author, and they devalue the worth of the message.

Creative writing may be less restrictive than technical writing when its purpose is to entertain rather than to provide information. Creative writing is any original written composition that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. Creative writing may be used to describe a new scientific hypothesis as a thesis, dissertation or a book, but it can also be used to tell fictional stories and express feelings that usually take the form of novels, short stories, plays and poetry. The creative process makes it possible to consider fantasies and hypothetical situations that would not be acceptable in factual reports. There are several genres of fictional literature that have wide appeal, such as romance novels, detective stories and science fiction.

Dramatizations of historical events sometimes blur the boundaries between a documentary narrative that depicts actual events and a fictional account of how things might have happened. Such speculation is inappropriate for journal articles that are intended to present an unbiased description of events. Inaccurate reporting and false statements that damage a person's reputation can trigger libel suits for which the writer and the publisher may pay dearly. For this reason, many stories that may bear a resemblance to actual events carry a disclaimer such as the following:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Why do we need Creative Writing?
The main characteristic of creative writing is its novelty and uniqueness. A work of literature cannot be considered creative if it is similar to other published works. As a matter of fact, plagiarism, which is copying someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as your own is a serious offense that can damage your reputation or result in legal action for copyright violations.

Colleges and universities emphasize that a thesis or a dissertation for an advanced degree, such as a Ph.D., must show originality and enough depth of knowledge to enable the writer to meet the challenges of a particular profession. Writing a thesis or dissertation may take several years of collecting data, organizing the description, and subjecting the drafts to critical reviews. These are some of the characteristics of a dissertation:

• The dissertation needs to be an original extended piece of work.
• It needs to be an independent piece of work based on research or inquiry.
• It needs to be relevant to a discipline or take an interdisciplinary approach.
• It needs to be built on a range of relevant sources with at least 35 references.
• It needs to show critical and analytical thinking.
• It needs to be clear about what it is contributing.
• It needs a clearly defined and justified methodology.
• It needs to build up to its conclusions and, if appropriate, include a reflective commentary and recommendations.
• It needs to communicate the research outcomes appropriately and effectively.

Creative Writing Styles
The style of a dissertation for an advanced degree from a university is highly constrained in its style because the text must be factual and convincing. A report on a new scientific topic requires that the creativity should be expressed in the originality of the technical details, rather than in the writing style. There is much more freedom of expression outside of the technical areas where figurative and metaphorical language can be used without obfuscating the clarity of the ideas.

A novel or a short story can use a wide diversity of linguistic devices, such as flashbacks, introspective thoughts, dialogs between the characters, or just plain narrative in either the first person form or the third person form. Interesting novels sometimes develop multiple story lines which eventually are integrated into a grand finale. Mysteries generally give enough information to maintain an aura of suspense, and the revelation of how all the pieces fit together is disclosed in the final chapter.

Kurt Vonnegut offered eight essential tips on how to write a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

It takes practice to write a suspenseful and interesting story. There are many workshops for writers that try to provide feedback and training to novices. With good writing skills, proper marketing, and lots of luck, you can perhaps produce a best seller that will make you rich.