How to Do Critical and Creative Writing

These are some of the most common types of assignments that a student may have during their studies. Creative writing requires individuals to write their work using the creativity of their mind. Examples include fiction writing, nonfiction writing, and poetry. The main aim of this type of work is to express a person’s feelings and thoughts. Most children love writing and sharing their stories. Helping your child develop her creative writing skills is a wise decision as it will improve their academic performance. The following are some of the benefits of helping your child to develop such writing skills:

1.   Promotes creativity.

The work helps to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a child. The skills will enable a child to develop knowledge on how to develop creative and logical ideas during their studies.

2.   It is detail-oriented.

Creative writing requires learners to use all their senses, which helps them pay attention to details in their work. A child will be able to recognize the unique details of a person or place and provide a detailed description.

3.    It helps to develop new vocabulary.

If a child writes creative writing regularly, they will come across numerous vocabularies that will help them to improve their academic performance. Exercises in creative writing will enable them to know when they should use certain words in their work.

4.   Boosting confidence.

Drafting and writing this type of work is a great achievement, which boosts the confidence of a writer.

5.   It is an effective coping mechanism.

Creative writing involves writing works, such as poems and short stories that help relieve negative emotions such as stress, anger, and frustration.

Main Types of Creative Writing

•   Songs.

•   Poetry.

•   Short fiction.

•   Novels.

•   Scripts.

•   Diaries.

Essential Tips for Creative Writing

a)   Develop a catchy introductory paragraph.

Disclose unexpected content for your first part of your creative writing work. The first few sentences should capture your readers' attention and encourage them to read the other sections. The first part should create some tension among your audience.

b)   Developing characters.

To complete a good piece of creative writing, you need to know how to develop realistic characters. It is recommendable to focus on the following areas when doing your work:

•   Appearance.

Your content should help your readers to have a visual understanding of your characters.

•   Actions.

Your audience will expect you to write your creative work in a way that will help them to have a deeper understanding of your characters by revealing their actions.

•   Thoughts.

Ensure that your work reveals some of the memories and fears that your characters may not have unexpressed.

c)   Writing a dialogue.

Ensure that you help readers understand every part of creative writing work by revealing their moves, such as averting their eyes and fidgeting. A dialogue is a conversation between more than one characters or between themselves.

d)   The setting and context.

It includes time, location or atmosphere where different activities take place. Your content should enable readers to picture the scenes in your creative writing work. However, only use relevant information.

e)   Set up a plot.

Some people define the term as a series of events in a piece of creative writing that reveals the significance of each of them. The following are some elements that can help you to develop a good plot for your work:

•   Come up with a hook.

It is something that will help you to grab the attention of the readers of your work.

•   Conflicts.

The situation can be between an individual and their inner self or with another person in your creative writing work.

•   Complications.

These refer to different challenges that a character may face, making it hard for them to achieve their goals.

•   Flashback.

It is where a character remembers something that occurred earlier in the creative work.

•   Resolution.

It occurs when someone finds solutions to existing conflicts.

Critical Writing

Definition.

It is a form of writing where a person writes conclusions from a workpiece after considering available evidence. Writers should use several sources of information to complete their work to boost their credibility. You should reveal different points of view about your subject matter. Your arguments must be based on credible sources of information.

Steps Involved in Critical Writing

There are many types of this category of work. However, several steps are common in all of them and include the following:

I.   Critical reading.

It is an essential requirement for you to write quality work. Outline some of the main ideas that you find. Identify what the main thesis was and evaluate how the author of the work conveyed his message. If you find terms that you do not understand, do extensive research to ensure that you do not miss out any information about your topic.

II.   Develop an outline.

It makes your work easy when you are doing your critical writing work. The outline will depend on the format that you will use.

III.   Write the work.

The paper will consist of the following parts:

•   Introduction.

It is a crucial step as it will help the readers to determine whether your work is worth their time or not. Incorporate content that your target audience considers interesting and essential in meeting their needs.

•   The body.

It is recommendable to make sure that this section contains at least two paragraphs. Each of the paragraphs should present new points and include supporting examples and evidence.

•   Conclusion.

Avoid the repetition of content that you wrote in your introduction. Restate your point of view and make your final argument about it.

After your conclusion proofread the work to make sure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors, failure to do this may lead to poor grades at the end of your studies. Proofreading also helps to check whether your work is according to instructions given.