How to Write Original Creative Writing Essays Complete Guide for Arts Essays

How to Write Original Creative Writing Essays Complete Guide for Arts Essays Have a creative writing essay due soon? Our film theatre studies guide covers both long-term strategies to writing essays and emergency tips for extra quick writing techniques. Read on to save yourself and let creative juices flow. What is a Creative Essay? Creative essays are an all-time favourite. They are spontaneous essays with no restrictions, guidelines or structure. Creative essays are non-fiction essays written from the point of view of the author. They are aesthetic, imaginative and as far as non-fiction can allow, factual. Creative essays include; memoir, biographies, book reviews, travel reports. Other forms of fictitious creative writing include; short stories, poems, hybrid essays, dramatic monologues, plays and flash fiction. However, all creative essays have one thing in common: they are all focused on telling a story, whether real, imagined or both. As fun as creative writing may be, a lot of folks still struggle to get a piece out. This is because unlike most essays, creative essays are written from the heart and depend majorly on originality and imagination.   So, before we get started, my first advise will be this: write from your heart. Choosing the Right Topic: A Few Suggestions from Our Writers What story do you want to tell? How do you want to tell it? Who is your audience? These are a few of the questions to put in mind before writing a creative essay. Like it was said before, write from your heart. It is easier to tell your story than tell someone elses. In telling your story, you can easily draw from the rich store of memories, personal experiences, imaginations and dreams you have. Take time to brainstorm. Think about what you want to write on. Most times in a fit of excitement, you may be tempted to start writing immediately without thinking through. If the idea is not deep and sustaining enough, the flow of ideas may cease and you may be disappointed or discouraged to continue. Take a walk. Go to a quiet place or go to your favourite spot to get your muse on. If you keep a journal, now is the best time to read it to recollect memories and gather inspiration. You may want to read a few pages of your favourite book or literary journals to get inspiration, watch your favourite movie or put your favourite song on replay. Soon enough ideas will begin to trickle in:   it may be a dream you had, an idea, a memory or interactions with your friends and family. Get out your writing materials and pen these ideas down. Ideas are fleeting and may come in with such a rush yoyo may forget them. You will want to capture as many as you can on paper. Dont be bothered if your ideas dont have a flow or structure. There are no worries, let them be as loose and as spontaneous as they can be, when you begin to write you will see them take form. Over time, the more you write, the more you will be able to arrange the flow of your ideas and put them in order, even in the first draft without having to write a second draft. A couple of ideas/writers prompts that may come to mind for fictitious creative writing include: Some lines from a favourite song; A favourite childhood memory; A rewrite of a favourite romantic or comedy movie; A re-adaptation of a favourite book; A favourite writing quote; A creative essay on a favourite author; A recurring dream; A life turning experience: accident, death of a loved one or a near death experience. Another couple of sample topics for writing creative non-fiction essays include: A short biography of a favourite author; A travel report on a tour destination with significant historical cultural and artistic value; A book report on an engaging book you read during the course; perhaps a compelling story from Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or Toni Morrison. Pre Writing Tips: Get Ready to Be Creative As the ideas trickle in, dont be in a hurry to put and arrange them into paragraphs or structure them. You may stifle the stream of thoughts that come in. Before you set out to start writing, do following steps. Free Writing Write as much as you can, as fast you can. This is called speed writing. The aim of speed writing is to get your natural voice and flow. Sometimes in an effort to make the first draft coherent and creative you may alter your writing voice and sound like some popular creative writer. Because you are not being yourself,   you lose your writing voice and make a poor imitation of a skilled writer who took time to develop his own writing voice.   Patiently develop yours too. Write freely and try not to bother if the piece is not logical or coherent enough. Stay on track and see where your train of thought takes you. You will be pleasantly surprised. Research So you have a story you want to tell, and just enough framework to build your story. Where do you get meat to add to your skeleton? Research. You may not need to browse the internet to get the information you need. Interviewing friends, families, cross checking dates, tracing family trees and scouting old newspapers are just a few of the methods of researching information to add to your story. Research adds depth and originality to fiction writing and makes non-fiction writings verifiable and factual. If you plan on writing a biography or a book report, take time to research on the author you wish to write on. Of course, you cant cover the entire aspect of the person you wish to write on, so how about covering a significant aspect of the persons life? Was the person engaged in a social reformation? Do you love the persons style of writing or use of words? Is there an aspect of his personal life that means something to you? Go ahead and delve in detailed research. You dont want to mar the image of the author because of inadequate research. Journaling The importance of a journal can never be over emphasised. Journals help you build patience, consistency, good observatory skills and an   ability to write whether you are inspired or not. Journals also make excellent muses when you need inspiration to write. Reading through past writings can birth ideas that make good foundations for a different story entirely. You dont have to record day to day experiences, you can record dreams, memories, quotes, phrases and songs that strike deep chords between you. Record moods, feelings, observations and certain bouts of ideas that seem to pop from nowhere. When you write your creative essay and you seem stuck, get out your journal and write anything that comes to mind. Sketching an Outline As you follow these tips, you will see your essay slowly take shape and form. It shows you are almost there. After researching and gathering just the right amount of information to enrich your essay, the next thing is to sketch an outline of the essay. A creative essay, like every other essay has 4 parts: A title, An introduction, A body, A conclusion. In your sketch, make these four parts into headers and list the necessary points under each. You will learn how to develop an outline as you read on. Write the First Draft The first draft may be just as messy as the free writing.   Not to worry. The aim of the first draft is to arrange sentences into paragraphs that are logical and flow into each other. You write freely, but with focus. Use the sketched outline as a guide, building slowly on the points listed under each heading. Dont worry about grammar, spellings 6 and punctuation. Just focus on writing out your ideas logically. Shape up the Title Most creative writers dont bother about the title of their essay until they are done writing. By the time they are finished writing, the title comes naturally to them. Here are a few points to consider when choosing a title: Titles should be catchy. A good way to do this is to use short sentences that sum up the essay. Sentences could be made of two or more sentences, usually beginning with an article. For example: A Forgotten Memory. The Scary Dream, The Cafeteria, The Three Brothers. Another way to create catchy titles is using figures of speech: metaphor, personification, oxymoron, paradox, hyperbole is just a few of the figures of speech to use. For example, A Nest of Lies, Chasing Shadows, The Tall Tale. The title could be gotten from the subject matter itself. For example, My Father, My Favourite Author, My Favourite Thinking Spot. The title can be lifted word for word from the source of inspiration; a quote, a song, a book or a movie. For example, As you Like it. Writing an Impressive Creative Essay A creative essay is structured like any other essay; it has the introduction, body and conclusion. However to further understand how a creative essay on structured   the online can also be divided into Set up Confrontation Resolution Introduction/ Set up There are no hard and fast rules on how to introduce your creative essay. However since its a short story, its better to get right into the action without wasting time. In the set up, you introduce the setting of the story, the characters involved and how they relate to one another. Also introduce the scene of the story; describe the time, day and environment where the story takes place. Introduce your main character and the other supporting characters that build up your story. Engage the senses of your readers by using vivid descriptions or narratives, imagery and appropriate tone. In the introduction, your readers should be able to infer a plot development from the description you have given. Body/ Confrontation The body consists of paragraphs that are chronological and connected. Slowly build up the plot in the body or change the mood and setting of the story. The body also contains the confrontation, which is the turning point of the story. The turning point could be a point of conflict when things suddenly go the opposite way, or when the main character faces an opposition or challenge. This moment can build up tempo gradually or suddenly come out of nowhere, it all depends on how you want to write it. Conclusion/Resolution In this part, the conflict is resolved, either completely or partially. The drama in the story sharpens, settles down then reaches a peak. Some writers make use of cliff hangers to whet the appetite of their readers and keep them hungry for more. It all depends on how you want to tidy up the story. Be sure to do justice to all your characters in the story. Post-Writing Tips So you are done writing your creative essay. What next? Take a Break It may be hard to take a break after completing your work. You may be so excited and in a hurry to get your essay submitted or published. No rush. Take a mental break and file your work away for a few hours or days. You will want to rest your mind so that the next time you get back to the work, you see it with fresh eyes. That way you begin to notice errors, bulky paragraphs, overflowing sentences and redundant words that either add bulk or dont fulfil the original intent.   Who knows you may see a better way of telling the story and start all over. Re-read and Re-write Read your story critically. Are there overflowing sentences, dead words, redundant paragraphs? Is the story too loose and flabby? Can you rewrite it in a more compact way? Then get back to rewriting. Seasoned writers know the story is not in the first or second draft but in the third and fourth.   The more you rewrite   the more you chisel away flab and fluff and refine existing ways of telling the story. Make each word earn its space on the page. Or perhaps you discovered a better perspective of capturing your story, dont be scared to haul out the work and start from the top. It will be worth the effort. Proofread Give your work to a second party to read. You may not be as critical as you ought to about your writings and a second pair of eyes may just be what you need to highlight errors. Dont take corrections and criticism too hard, welcome them. They may be just what you need to give your work the shine it needs. Formatting A lot of people forget to format their writing according to the editors/teachers specifications. This can be the reason why your work is rejected or poorly scored. Before submissions, take time to note the required formatting for submissions. Font type, font size, line spacing, page numbering and use of headers are a few of the specifications to have in mind. Perhaps the Most Useful Tip from Our Top Writers: Creative writing essays are fun to write. Spontaneity, variety and freedom of expression are a few of the characteristics that make these essays an all-time favourite. The key to writing successfully is to write from the heart. Once you have a sufficient pool of thought and ideas to draw from, it gets easy from there. Research, free writing, sketching, outlining and writing the first and second drafts are just additional tips to help you refine and sculpt your ideas. If you have a hard time coming up with an idea, start keeping a journal today. You will be amazed!

Study Guide for Albert Camuss The Fall

Study Guide for Albert Camus's The Fall Delivered by a sophisticated, outgoing, yet often suspicious narrator, Albert Camus’s The Fall employs a format that is rather uncommon in world literature. Like novels such as Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Sartre’s Nausea, and Camus’s own The Stranger, The Fall is set up as a confession by a complicated main character- in this case, an exiled French lawyer named Jean-Baptiste Clamence. But The Fall- unlike these famous first-person writings- is actually a second-person novel. Clamence directs his confession at a single, well-defined listener, a â€Å"you† character who accompanies him (without ever speaking) for the duration of the novel. In the opening pages of The Fall, Clamence makes this listener’s acquaintance in a seedy Amsterdam bar known as Mexico City, which entertains â€Å"sailors of all nationalities† (4). Summary In the course of this initial meeting, Clamence playfully notes the similarities between him and his new companion: â€Å"You are my age in a way, with the sophisticated eye of a man in his forties who has seen everything, in a way; you are well dressed in a way, that is as people are in our country; and your hands are smooth. Hence a bourgeois, in a way! But a cultured bourgeois!† (8-9). However, there is much about Clamence’s identity that remains uncertain. He describes himself as â€Å"a judge-penitent,† yet doesn’t provide an immediate explanation of this uncommon role. And he omits key facts from his descriptions of the past: â€Å"A few years ago I was a lawyer in Paris and, indeed, a rather well-known lawyer. Of course, I didn’t tell you my real name† (17). As a lawyer, Clamence had defended poor clients with difficult cases, including criminals. His social life had been full of satisfactions- respect from his colleagues, affairs with many women- and his public behavior had been scrupulously courteous and polite. As Clamence sums up this earlier period: â€Å"Life, its creatures and its gifts, offered themselves to me, and I accepted such marks of homage with a kindly pride† (23). Eventually, this state of security began to break down, and Clamence traces his increasingly dark state of mind to a few specific life events. While in Paris, Clamence had an argument with â€Å"a spare little man wearing spectacles† and riding a motorcycle (51). This altercation with the motorcyclist alerted Clamence to the violent side of his own nature, while another experience- an encounter with a â€Å"slim young woman dressed in black† who committed suicide by throwing herself off a bridge- filled Clamence with a sense of â€Å"irresistible weakness (69-70). During an excursion to the Zuider Zee, Clamence describes the more advanced stages of his â€Å"fall.† At first, he began to feel intense turmoil and pangs of disgust with life, although â€Å"for some time, my life continued outwardly as if nothing had changed† (89). He then took turned to â€Å"alcohol and women† for comfort- yet only found temporary solace (103). Clamence expands upon his philosophy of life in the final chapter, which takes place in his own lodgings. Clamence recounts his disturbing experiences as a World War II prisoner of war, lists his objections to commonplace notions of law and freedom, and reveals the depth of his involvement in the Amsterdam underworld. (It turns out that Clamence keeps a famous stolen painting- The Just Judges by Jan van Eyck- in his apartment.) Clamence has resolved to accept life- and to accept his own fallen, immensely flawed nature- but has also resolved to share his troubling insights with anyone who will listen. In the final pages of The Fall, he reveals that his new profession of â€Å"judge-penitent† involves â€Å"indulging in public confession as often as possible† in order to acknowledge, judge, and do penance for his failings (139). Background and Contexts Camus’s Philosophy of Action: One of Camus’s greatest philosophical concerns is the possibility that life is meaningless- and the need (in spite of this possibility) for action and self-assertion. As Camus wrote in his tract The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), philosophical discourse â€Å"was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully.† Camus then goes on to declare that â€Å"one of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity.† Even though the Myth of Sisyphus is a classic of French Existentialist philosophy and a central text for understanding Camus, The Fall (which, after all, appeared in 1956) should not merely be taken as a fictional re-working of The Myth of Sisyphus. Clamence does revolt against his life as a Paris lawyer; however, he retreats from society and tries to find specific â€Å"meanings† in his actions in a manner that Camus might not have endorsed. Camus’s Background in Drama: According to literary critic Christine Margerrison, Clamence is a â€Å"self-proclaimed actor† and The Fall itself is Camus’s â€Å"greatest dramatic monologue.† At several points in his career, Camus worked simultaneously as a playwright and a novelist. (His plays Caligula and The Misunderstanding appeared in the mid 1940s- the same period that saw the publication of Camus’s novels The Stranger and The Plague. And in the 1950s, Camus both wrote The Fall and worked on theater adaptations of novels by Dostoevsky and William Faulkner.) However, Camus was not the only mid-century author who applied his talents to both theater and the novel. Camus’s Existentialist colleague Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, is famous for his novel Nausea and for his plays The Flies and No Exit. Another of the greats of 20th century experimental literature- Irish author Samuel Beckett- created novels that read a little like â€Å"dramat ic monologues† (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable) as well as oddly-structured, character-driven plays (Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape). Amsterdam, Travel, and Exile: Although Amsterdam is one of Europe’s centers of art and culture, the city takes on a rather sinister character in The Fall. Camus scholar David R. Ellison has found several references to disturbing episodes in Amsterdam’s history: first, The Fall reminds us that â€Å"the commerce linking Holland to the Indies included trade not just in spices, foodstuffs, and aromatic wood, but also in slaves; and second, the novel takes place after â€Å"the years of World War II in which the Jewish population of the city (and of the Netherlands as a whole) was subject to persecution, deportation, and ultimate death in Nazi prison camps.† Amsterdam has a dark history, and exile to Amsterdam allows Clamence to face his own unpleasant past. Camus declared in his essay â€Å"The Love of Life† that â€Å"what gives value to travel is fear. It breaks down a kind of inner dà ©cor in us. We can’t cheat any more- hide ourselves away behin d the hours in the office or at the plant.† By going into living abroad and breaking his earlier, soothing routines, Clamence is forced to contemplate his deeds and face his fears. Key Topics Violence and Imagination: Although there is not much open conflict or violent action directly displayed in The Fall, Clamence’s memories, imaginings, and turns of imagery add violence and viciousness to the novel. After an unpleasant scene during a traffic jam, for instance, Clamence imagines pursuing a rude motorcyclist, â€Å"overtaking him, jamming his machine against the curb, taking him aside, and giving him the licking he had fully deserved. With a few variations, I ran off this little film a hundred times in my imagination. But it was too late, and for several days I chewed a bitter resentment† (54). Violent and disturbing fantasies help Clamence to communicate his dissatisfaction with the life he leads. Late in the novel, he compares his feelings of hopeless and perpetual guilt to a special kind of torture: â€Å"I had to submit and admit my guilt. I had to live in the little-ease. To be sure, you are not familiar with that dungeon cell that was called the litt le-ease in the Middle Ages. In general, one was forgotten there for life. That cell was distinguished from others by ingenious dimensions. It was not high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down in. One had to take an awkward manner and live on the diagonal† (109). Clamence’s Approach to Religion: Clamence does not define himself as a religious man. However, references to God and Christianity play a major part in Clamence’s manner of speaking- and help Clamence to explain his changes in attitude and outlook. During his years of virtue and altruism, Clamence took Christian kindliness to grotesque proportions: â€Å"A very Christian friend of mine admitted that one’s initial feeling on seeing a beggar approach one’s house is unpleasant. Well, with me it was worse: I used to exult† (21). Eventually, Clamence finds yet another use for religion that is admittedly awkward and inappropriate. During his fall, the lawyer made references â€Å"to God in my speeches before the court†- a tactic that â€Å"awakened mistrust in my clients† (107). But Clamence also uses the Bible to explain his insights about human guilt and suffering. For him, Sin is part of the human condition, and even Christ on the cross is a figure of guilt: â€Å"He knew he was not altogether innocent. If he did not bear the weight of the crime he was accused of, he had committed others- even though he didn’t know which ones† (112). Clamence’s Unreliability: At several points in The Fall, Clamence acknowledges that his words, actions, and apparent identity are of questionable validity. Camus’s narrator is very good at playing different, even dishonest roles. Describing his experiences with women, Clamence notes that â€Å"I played the game. I knew they didn’t like one to reveal one’s purpose too quickly. First, there had to be conversation, fond attentions, as they say. I wasn’t worried about speeches, being a lawyer, nor about glances, having been an amateur actor during my military service. I often changed parts, but it was always the same play† (60). And later in the novel, he asks a series of rhetorical questions- â€Å"Don’t lies eventually lead to the truth? And don’t all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion?†- before concluding that â€Å"authors of confessions write especially to avoid confessing, to tell nothing of wha t they know† (119-120). It would be wrong to assume that Clamence has given his listener nothing but lies and fabrications. Yet it is possible that he is freely mixing lies and truth to create a convincing â€Å"act†- that he strategically using a persona to obscure particular facts and feelings. A Few Discussion Questions Do you think that Camus and Clamence have similar political, philosophical, and religious beliefs? Are there any major differences- and if so, why do you think Camus decided to create a character whose views are so at odds with his own?In some important passages in The Fall, Clamence introduces violent images and intentionally shocking opinions. Why do you think Clamence is dwelling on such disconcerting topics? How is his willingness to make his listener uneasy tied to his role as a â€Å"judge-penitent?†Exactly how reliable is Clamence, in your opinion? Does he ever seem to exaggerate, to obscure the truth, or to introduce obvious falsehoods? Find a few passages where Clamence seems especially elusive or unreliable, and keep in mind that Clamence may become significantly more (or significantly less) reliable from passage to passage.Re-imagine The Fall told from a different perspective. Would Camus’s novel be more effective as a first-person account by Clamence, withou t a listener? As a straightforward, third-person description of Clamence’s life? Or is The Fall supremely effective in its present form? Note on Citations: All page numbers refer to Justin OBriens translation of The Fall (Vintage International, 1991).