Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
reflection on creative writing
reflection on writing
personal reflection about your experience WITH WRITING
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: reflection on creative writing
Writing about people can be hard, especially when they are boring and seem incapable of doing anything interesting. In terms of writing this should seem like something that can easily be avoided and for the most part it can, however something cannot be exploding nor can someone pull out a gun every time you’re stumped for dialogue. Your characters need to be vibrant enough than even when they aren’t fighting fallen deities and ransacking millennia old tombs you should care about what they are saying. Certainly you shouldn’t always do this, but you should be able to.
The more things you have packed into a small amount of space the more you and your characters are compensating for not being interesting. Don’t hesitate to take a couple pages here and there to delve into the minds of your characters. While finding the right places can be tricky when done correctly it can increase the amount of heart the reader has invested into the characters so when they fight their battles the reader will feel they are there with them and actually care when everything goes pear-shaped.
An important way of doing this is dialogue. While it is all well and good to have an omnipotent narrator tell us how a character is feeling (Thanks again romanticism!) the trend has given way to the far more involving process of having the characters expressing it themselves through subtlety and tact.
This is the thing that most writers, including myself, struggle with constantly. You have attempt to capture two different voices simultaneously and understand why they are saying what they are saying and why they are saying what they are saying the way they are saying it.
Take the following comic as an example:
Wrong
We are given two characters having a ...
... middle of paper ...
...can never be taught. Picking up verbal cues and personality traits that are attached to them are best learned by understanding and watching those around you and noticing how they walk and talk.
To see this at its best read anything that Garth Ennis has written. Ignoring the plot, look at the dialogue. The guy’s good. Too good. Any voice he decides he wants; he has, and can use at the drop of a hat. One of his favorite things to do is impersonate his friends and those around him. He also carries a notebook and pen with him wherever he goes where he writes down actual conversations he overhears (or variations thereof so he can use them later). I recommend all of these things, unless you like having friends and abhor being called nerd and given swirlies. (Ennis is Scottish, he can get away with it).
Once again it all comes down to characters. Damn things, anyway.
What makes a person relate to a character? In the 1980’s authors began to utilize more imagery in their works to grasp audiences. With each character comes different languages and different viewpoints. When using imagery, the images the author wishes to convey come naturally. Louise Erdrich dug deep into her own ancestry which overtime inspired her short stories, poems, and novels (Louise). With background knowledge, she has been inspired to write about the relationships between Native and non-Native cultures. Erdrich was inspired by the family bonds and the ties of kinship, along with the inspiring storytellers she grew up with (Louise). All of these emotions are tied into her very first short story, “Love Medicine.” Lipsha, the protagonist
dialogue, he paints a beautiful picture as he speaks and tells a story that gets everyone
Welty’s use of physical description, action, and dialogue enables Old Phoenix to become animated in the mind of the reader. By using physical description Old Phoenix becomes a dimensional figure that manifests out of the pages into ingraining herself into the reader’s mind. Pairing her physical description with Phoenix’s actions causes the reader to become emotionally invested in the character, creating a certain bond that makes Phoenix more than just a character in a story. Furthermore, with dialogue the reader is given a better understanding of Phoenix’s life, be it her present or past, making Phoenix more than just words on a page. Due to the use of these techniques Welty is able to build a relationship between the reader and the main character using understanding and emotions.
relate to the characters’ feelings, by providing vivid descriptions of the setting, as well as
For example, in the few minutes of the previous scene before Andy begins to escape we have a narration from Red telling the audience that he believes that Andy is going to kill himself from his recent behaviour when he left solitary after two months of being with his own thoughts. Red says “I’ve had some long nights… alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts, time can draw out like a blade. That was the longest night of my life.” because of these specific wording of Red’s narration we as the audience automatically expect the worst. This narration and the character of Red is one of the most significant and influential elements of the film to manipulate the audiences emotions towards the one particular scene. The scene following Red’s narration is of the aftermath of Andy Dufresne’s disappearance from the Shawshank prison, we see the Warden unbox what he expects to be his black dress shoes, that he made Andy polish the previous night, yet opens the box to find a set of brown prisoner shoes. The audience then begin to see a flashback of what happened the previous night, and we see Andy switching the corrupt account books as well as dress himself in the Warden’s dry cleaned suit. This scene that follows Red’s night in his cell worrying about Andy is one of the best for
knows the thoughts and feelings of the main character; however, it is told from a more
Anyone who is doing any type of writing piece has a process. They may not know it but it is there and it exists. It is one’s approach to their piece and how they go about accomplishing it. It has to do with how you write it, how many drafts you do, as well as your revision process if you even have one. My writing process however has room for improvement. A summation of my writing process consist of heavy planning, one draft, and little revisions. Anne Lamott, Shirley Rose, and Kathleen Yancey all drew attention to major points through their writing pieces that support and dispute my writing process. Through their pieces they have found a way to inspire, inform, and entertain me all at the same time while passing along great information that
serve to allow the reader to perceive not only the story presented in front of them but
I am sitting in my bed, thinking about my process of writing as I am trying to go through it. It seems the more I think about it, the less I understand it. When I am writing, I don’t think. Which I know, sounds bad. But, I spend every single moment of every single day over thinking, over analyzing, and over assuming every aspect of my life. When I’m writing, I’m free from that for just a little bit. Until of course, my hands stop typing or the pencil (no pens- never pens) stops moving, then I’m right back on the carousel that is my brain. Heidi Estrem says, “...writers use writing to generate knowledge that they didn’t have before.” (Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity 18). I believe my ability to write without an exact destination
author is the one thinking of what the characters are going to do and say.
Dialogue gives the audience a clear view of what is happening in the story, but the
I am not the kind of person who talks or writes much. Putting my thoughts on papers is something I have always struggled with doing. I believe this class will help me improve on transferring my thoughts to paper, in an organized fashion. I look forward to becoming a better writer because of this class.
Learn to Listen: Listening is not the same as hearing; learn to listen not only to the words being spoken but how they are being spoken and the non-verbal messages sent with them. Use the techniques of clarification and reflection to confirm what the other person has said and avoid any confusion. Try not to think about what to say next whilst listening; instead clear your mind and focus on the message being
feelings more clearly to the reader, so that they have a better comprehension to what he is
Taking a creative writing class was a good way for me to express my thoughts and feelings onto paper, as well as read my other classmates stories. Reading stories created by other people lead me into their mind brain to experience what type of writer they were, it was an overall exquisite class. I believe that every person has a way of expressing who they are through writing stories of their own, fiction is the best way to express your creative imagination. This class that I took for two years helped me become a better writer and helped me understand the types of writers we have.