What is Creative Writing?

Not such a crazy question! Some would say it is an activity (the act of writing creatively); others would be more likely to point to novels, books of poetry, short stories or the script of a film or of a play and suggest Creative Writing is a thing, an end result, the products of writers’ actions.

Of course, Creative Writing is both of these. It is also a way of approaching ideas, things, people, a way of investigating what is around us or, indeed, what is in our minds. And it is a way of communicating our investigations in interesting and thought-provoking ways that will encourage others to also consider their ideas, the things around them, their actions, emotions, attitudes, thoughts.

Creative Writing also leaves behind a vast range of evidence – not all of which is contained in books, or found on television or cinema screens, on the stage or on the web. The evidence of Creative Writing includes the communications of writers to their families and friends, the correspondence between writers and editors, writers and their fans. It also includes complementary pieces of writing (writing done beside the creative writing being undertaken, writing that potentially shows the writer’s influences and ideas), it involves the instruments writers use (whether these are pencils, pens or a computer) and it involves non-writing (for example, pictures, photographs, the doodles on the side of the page). And these are just a few examples of the evidence of Creative Writing!

We have not yet examined the acts and actions, and much of the results, of Creative Writing. We have tended to believe that studying published works, or looking at only completed pieces of Creative Writing is enough. We have tended to think, also, that biographies of famous creative writers cover enough of the study of people who write creatively. But both of these things are not the studying of Creative Writing. Rather, they are the study of publishing, or the study the canonical literary culture, or the study of celebrity.  Creative Writing is more than that. If we are to understand Creative Writing better, we need to recognise that it is both a range of activities and a range of end results, and that the activities and the end results are accessed by us in various ways. Creative Writing is one of the foundational ways in which humans have shared their thoughts and experiences, their ideals, their dreams, their relationships with each other. And this, surely, is worthy of our celebration.

Graeme Harper, Professor of Creative Writing, Bangor, University. Honorary Professor of Creative Writing, Bedfordshire. Series Editor: “Approaches to Writing” (Palgrave). Latest novel: “Moon Dance” (Parlor, 2008)

Comments

[Katrina]

Hi I am a short story writer with about 6 stories. May I know which publishers accept first time writers? I've tried many but usually they reject me or do not reply.

Thank you, hope u will reply me soon!