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Essay writing is a very important activity in the life of any student. Writing one requires you to create the perfect balance between your skills, writing ability, and diligence. If you haven’t written creative essays in the past, it can be time-consuming at the start. You are likely to have several questions in your mind about creative essays and how you should approach them. In this piece, we shall answer all your questions and share secret tips that will help you write captivating essays.
What is a Creative Essay?
Let us start with understanding what creative essays are. As basic Internet research would tell you essays can be categorized into four types – Expository Essays, Argumentative Essays, Descriptive Essays, and Narrative Essays. Creative essays fall into the narrative category of essays. They let you follow an open-minded and free-spirited style of writing. They follow the self-expression narrative where you express your opinion.
Popular Topics and Creative Paper Ideas
Before you set out to write a creative essay it is important to choose the right topics. As we have already stated creative essays are narrative and hence these essays are generally written around life events, thoughts, fantasies, and beliefs. Creative essays let you stretch your imagination far and write captivating stories. Here are some of the most popular topics and creative paper ideas that you can try –
- Adventure Story
- Apocalyptic Story
- Fantasy Story
- Fictional Crime Story
- Fictional Speeches
- Horror Stories
- Love and Relationship Stories
- Mythological Story
- Story Based on a Place
- Science Fiction
How to Combine the Art of Essay Writing and Storytelling?
The best creative essays are those that use the art of storytelling. If you can grab the attention of your reader in the first few lines of your essay, they are likely to read it in its entirety. Pro essay writers always use this strategy whereby they narrate their ideas in the form of a story instead of writing an opinion piece.
Your creative essay must have an interesting plot and you will need to take it through a compelling path! You will need to arouse curiosity in the minds of your readers with twists and turns in the story. You must attempt to engage readers with emotional content. Storytelling lets you get your readers emotionally invested in the characters of the plot. Think of your readers as you write the story and choose characters they can identify with.
How to Tackle the Creative College Essay?
It is natural to be overwhelmed when you must write a creative college essay. If you are seeking admission, the essay might be the deciding factor and hence you are not alone if you are feeling the heat! However, great essays are all about an organized approach. If you do things the right way, your essay will stand out. Here are a few tips that would help you deal with the creative college essay challenge –
- Start Early– College essays aren’t a walk in the park and hence you must start early. You will have to spend dozens of hours planning and brainstorming before you write the first words. The earlier you start, the better it is for you.
- Brainstorm– There are several ways in which you can pen your story and you need to choose one that reflects the most powerful narrative. Ask yourself questions – Is my essay going to move them? Is it the best story I can narrate? You must convince yourself about the narrative before you can convince others.
- Choose A Topic – At this stage, you will have to narrow down on a story that you plan to write. It might take you a few weeks to reach this stage and that’s why we have suggested you start early.
- Plan Thoroughly – The choice of topic is only half the task done and you will now need to start planning on your essay. Choose your plots and subplots carefully to keep the readers engaged in the essay. Like a thriller, your essay needs to have its twists and turns and make the readers second guess.
- Write– You are now in the business stage of the essay and here you will start writing the essay. As a pro tip, you should write the essay in one go instead of trying to concurrently write and edit. At this stage, you shouldn’t aim for perfection and just keep notes of sections where you would like to rework the draft. It is important to get through the first draft instead of trying to perfect smaller sections.
- Edit – Once done you must start editing it thoroughly. Depending on how well you can translate your thoughts into words, you may need to undertake multiple rounds of editing to make the story captivating. It is a good practice to edit a week or two after you have written as this would add more objectivity to the editing process.
- Finalize Your Draft – Many confuse this with editing but finalizing the draft is more about meeting the technical requirements of the essay such as length, styling, and doing away with common errors that you may have missed out on at the editing stage. Repeat this process at least twice before you submit the essay.
How to Structure a Creative Essay?
If you are drafting a creative essay for the very first time, you should follow the Three Act Structure in scriptwriting – Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution which can be also called introduction, body, and conclusion. Each of these aspects is important to your narrative as they would keep the reader hooked on your essay. Let us look at what they mean for your essay.
- Setup – This is the introduction part of your essay where you will establish the main characters of your narrative along with their relationship. It is important to establish the relationship between the different characters as this will generate interest among your readers. You must use this as a teaser without divulging details as this would make the readers infer the narrative that you have presented to them at this stage. A good essay is one where the setup makes the reader curious to read more.
- Confrontation – This is the part of your essay where you will establish the different conflicts in your narrative. It is in this stage that you must force the reader to question their earlier inferences. You can use hints in your story that takes the readers’ attention toward a conclusion but at the same time introduce sub-plots that change the course of the narration completely.
- Resolution – This is the final part of your narrative where you unlock the different conflicts in the narrative one by one and settle down things. Here you present your final arguments of the narrative and explain to the readers the reasoning behind the different narratives. You have the liberty to end the narration open-ended where the reader is left to settle it in their minds.
Creative Essay Example
Creative essays have no limits and yes you can stretch your imagination to the limits. Here are some of the most popular creative essay examples.
- Writing about an event that went out of control before you finally managed to resolve it
- Authoring an apocalyptic story about the end of mankind and what would trigger that event
- Building a story about how technology would shape the future and change it completely
- Choosing an issue that hurts you and writing your thoughts about that
- Writing a story about a protagonist’s beliefs and how it has reformed the society
- Creating an essay around a person you can’t live without and what that person means to you
- Narrating the most horrifying event in your life and how you came out of it
- Writing a romantic story with its usual plots and subplots
- Choosing a mythological character and writing a story with your narrative
To sum up, creative essays are fun to write as they don’t restrict your creative freedom. Your aim with a creative essay is to express your feelings and opinions in a way that captivates the reader. Unlike other academic writing, they don’t need to be boring and explore the technicalities of a subject. In this piece, we have covered all that you need to know about writing creative essays and looked at the approach one must adopt in this form of essay writing.
If you must write one, don’t waste any more time and get started with brainstorming. The words would naturally flow out of your mind.
FAQs
Is creative essay writing tough?
No, creative essay writing is the easiest writing assignment that you will receive. You must choose a topic close to your heart and you will be able to write a captivating story.
Do I have to write a personal story?
Though most people write about their own experiences you can write fiction or borrow inspiration from the lives of others.
Do creative essays have a word limit?
There is no standard length for a creative essay, but it shouldn’t be less than 500 words. Do refer to any word limitations as prescribed by your college before writing one.
Summary
In this write-up, we look at all that you need to know about writing a creative essay. We also look at examples of the most popular creative essay ideas.