Five Tips for Better Creative Writing

For many of us, the illustrious goal of drafting any well-known writing lies frustratingly out of reach. Often, there are just too many things in our life that get in the way: maybe you have kids, maybe you are spending all of your free time trying to make kids, maybe you are still a kid yourself, and wondering about how kids are even made (if that's the case, there is probably a more informative, yet awkward talk you may wish to have with your parents). And why so much talk about kids anyways? You must have a skyrocketing baby fever, you silly goose.

Regardless of all tangents, there are ways to attain success in your writing! It's true! I shall guide you up this mountain of knowledge as your own personal Mr. Miyagi. Five tips; Five are what I offer you today to ramp your writing up to the next level. What? You don't think that's enough? Have you already forgotten the sage karate master's greatest advice?

Now that I've appropriately inducted you into my writing-karate dojo, let's take a look at the strategies you can use every day: from your meaningful poetry, to those steamy, 40-page romance novellas you keep hiding under your bed. Fifty Sultry Applications of Easy Cheese...? Hey, um, no judgement here.

1. Write What You Love

I was once asked to write an article about historic buildings around my area, and a bit of history surrounding them. Now I'm not a historian, and I've fallen asleep in every history class I've ever taken. History of Architecture sounded even worse, and unfortunately I was right. It was awful. I didn't like writing it. Readers didn't like reading it. My editor nearly bored a red pen through their gilded-mahogany desk editing it (I'm sure this wasn't actually the case: editors would never make enough money for something like that). But, the lesson was golden: never, NEVER write anything you can't pour your heart and soul into. Never, ever; it just isn't worth it.

This isn't to say that you won't have days where writing is hard, in fact, it's entirely the opposite (I swear I just heard a room full of sleep-deprived grant writers moan at an insinuation that writing should be easy).

The topics you write about should spark your ancient crocodile brain into pumping a train of ideas through your mind as you write. The text you create, whatever it is, ought to serve as a route through an old atlas. You remember those, don't you? Think Apple Maps but on paper. Of all the possible backroads and highways you could take, your text should flow as one particular route. You can stop and smell the roses, sure, but you can't usually write about every single idea you come up with.

Bad writing, writing you don't love, is quite the opposite. Writer's block creeps constantly in the shadows, and every time you take one misstep, it rears its horrifying, stagnant maw! Suddenly, the words are dull and uninspired, and you find yourself at a loss for words: your whole atlas map of potential ideas and possible routes falls on its face. If you don't love what you are writing about, or aren't true to yourself as a writer, there is no quicker way to find yourself mercilessly slapping your face against a keyboard.

2. Break the Rules, but Don't be a Poser

Never be afraid to rebel. The greatest advancements in literature and art have taken place because the status quo was challenged to fulfill a creative expression. If this wasn't the case, then we would still be teaching photography classes inside of pre-neolithic cave systems. Ironically, that actually would resemble the dungeon of a drawing course I attended in college. But wait! I know that your clenched fists are itching to dive into some literary kung fu, but you must first learn the rules that you wish to bend, break, burn, or wear... are we still talking about words?

The hardest thing to ever do in our writing is to be original. I know it doesn't seem like it, but this dilemma is the written equivalent of the persistent guffaw, "Working hard or hardly working?" We get it, you're a comedian. Ha-ha. Never heard that one before.

How will you know how original you are, or the reasons for your written decision-making, if you don't know the customs that you might be altering in the first place? Plus, if you are aware of the choices in your poetic, creative, and imaginative writing, you can help to form and alter genres themselves. It's easy to say that your writing choices were made "just because you felt like it," but more than impressive to state that you didn't like the conformity of a genre or principle, and decided to make a stand/express yourself by omitting it.

This excludes the oxford comma. If you don't use an oxford comma I don't like you, and you're just plain wrong. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

3. Write Opportunistically

As much as we hate to admit it, we are all human: we make mistakes, we tend to prematurely judge others' music choices (Nickelback is a good band and I'll die on that hill), and we just generally step on each others' toes. We feel things. It may seem frustrating that we aren't perfect, but this is actually how we should write! The best content made within our creative spaces stems from the interactions between the mind and the heart.

For writers, we must look for a perfect storm: your best writing will happen when you can blend the knowledge you have about a writing topic with the emotions to accurately convey those emotions onto a page. Without feelings, the content you write will at the very best sound hollow and uninspired, and at the very worst, never make it off of the writing desk (or laptop, or phone; c'mon, we're busy people).

With this in mind, save your drafting for the moments in life when you experience the most stress, grief, happiness, or anger: they are worth their weight in gold. Feeling blue because Starbucks is closed today? Great! Use that emotion to craft a touching requiem! Were you cut off in traffic, and need to vent before violence may very well seem like a reasonable solution? Awesome! Sounds like the perfect time for that death metal composition you've been procrastinating on (though, maybe consider a bit of anger management therapy as well).

If you want to create something truly masterful, look at your surroundings, and wait to write until you feel the very emotions you want to express. Not only will they be more proximate, they can also be productive!

4. Practice, Practice, Practice

When I first began writing poetry, my finished work resembled a steaming pile of prepositions, grammatical inconsistencies, and eye-watering gerunds. Now, I can do the same thing, but distract my critics with a shiny Bachelor of Arts degree in English! All seismically large loan-jokes aside, if you don't want your hard-fought writing to resemble a raging dumpster fire, you have to start somewhere and just keep trying. People might tell you you're bad. They may even ask, nay, beg you to stop, but you must persevere—you will eventually find yourself cushioned and warmed by praise!

While many people expect talent to simply exist within others, the truth is that good writing takes time to develop. I still cringe when I see a misplaced comma in my previous work, and I still try to understand the differences between there, their, and they're (If this is you too, they're-they're, their's still lots of time to learn there differences).

Ultimately, for you to train yourself into the writing black-belt warrior I know you can be, you must recognize the importance of experience. People don't step out of the street into a ring-o-combat against judo masters, and neither should any writer expect to draft masterpieces every time they write. Instead, go for the slow burn: write something short! Write something fun! Try experimenting with what you know, and expanding into what you don't! You'll find yourself notably better than when you started, and you will have built a journey of writing to be proud of when looking back.

Don't force it either! Not only do people not like being around coffee-addled, nihilistic writers, the page won't like it either. Patience will be key for a well-balanced diet of words.

5. Go Easy on Yourself

Before sprinting into the public square, shouting in glee about your new-found writing inspiration, consider what is quite possibly the most-important tip to remember about improving your writing—don't be afraid to forgive yourself! Things happen to everyone; sometimes they are in our control to change, and sometimes they aren't. As long as you carry the will to continue improving, and to create something meaningful, you're on the right track.

And my wonderful dojo disciples, with that, you have what you need to crack open the secrets of writing greatness. It was in you all along! You simply had to nurture it, humor your hankering for an internet blog, and believe in yourselves after all. While corny enough to be the plot of an upcoming Disney movie, I can't help it. I'm proud of you: you have the heart of a poet! Let your creative spirit shine forth, and keep the wisdom of Mr. Miyagi close at heart:

Like what you've read? Be sure to check out my entire poetry collection at https://allpoetry.com/Chris_Dyrland-Marquis, or my newest love poetry book, Bitter Blossom Thunderclouds on the Apple iBook store! You can also see all of my available texts here on the site's "Available Books" section.

Yours,

Christopher Dyrland-Marquis