The Wizard of Oz

Welcome to the World of Creative Writing

Here, The Muse Of Language Arts explores the nature of creative writing as opposed to expository writing. The Muse addresses the subject of how, why, whether, and when to write creatively.

about this feature

In this feature The Muse Of Language Arts considers the nature of creative writing and the reasons why writers should seek to write creatively.

The Muse also explains techniques and methods writers can use to help them be more creative and identifies resources they can call upon that will help them develop their writing abilities. Along the way, The Muse defines and examines the creative writing process itself.

What is creative writing?

If a literary work's fictional or nonfictional character has little or nothing to do with determining its creativity, then what does? What is creativity, where does it come from, and what properties make a literary work creative?

The answers to these questions are simple:

To create—To create is to cause something to come into being that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes. To create is to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention.

To write creatively—To write a creative literary work is to evolve from one's own thought or imagination original ideas or insights, kinds of subjects, modes of expression, points of view, or other literary features or techniques that are significantly new, different, and literarily important. It is a departure from the commonplace and mundane.

Creative writing—The creativity exhibited by a literary work is its originality of thought or expression. A work that is creative results from and displays its author's originality of thought or expression and his imagination.

The act of writing creatively demands and is the product of an approach to writing, an attitude toward writing, rather than an adherence to an artistic formula. Indeed, creative writing is anti-formulaic; it's the opposite of writing that conforms to rules and conventions.

Seen from a broader perspective, any composition that exceeds the normal bounds of professional, journalistic, academic, film, stage, or technical writing can be creative. Writing that is creative can be accomplished by a professional writer—one who is paid for writing—or by one who is not paid. Whether fictional or nonfictional, and whatever the field—prosodic, poetic, dramatic, or journalistic—written works of any kind are creative if and only if they flow from their author's original, imaginative thoughts or expressions.

About creative writing

In many minds, it's proper to reserve the expression creative writing for creatively written fictional narrative prose works such as novels, short stories, and detective stories; the expression should not refer to nonfiction prose works of any kind, or to nonfictional poetry or drama.

This mind-set stems from the fact that many people strongly and exclusively associate the term fiction with prose narratives; and they strongly associate the term nonfiction with prose that deals with facts and reality, works such as biographies, histories, or essays. For some of these people, poetry or drama seem to hang suspended in limbo, as being neither fiction nor nonfiction, although if you press them about which they are, they'll usually say fiction.

These associations are misguided. Many important nonfictional prose works are creative. A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift is but one example. And further, many important nonfictional works of poetry and drama are creative, as well. Tennyson's In Memoriam is a nonfiction poem about the death of the poet's English friend Arthur Henry Hallam; it's about a real occurrence described truthfully. Sunrise at CampoBello is a play about the American president Franklin Roosevelt's struggle with polio; it's about a real episode in Roosevelt's life, a true story told with historic accuracy.

Indeed, many poems are neither fictional nor factual. For instance, Bobby Burns' To a Mouse is a highly creative poem about mice, creatures who are real; but it's not about any particular mouse, real or imagined, and it tells no real or imaginary story. If a creative poem like this one is neither fictional nor factional, how can its creativity said to be linked either to its factual or its fictional character?

It's an error to claim that a work must be fictional to be creative. It is correct, however, to assert that the majority of narrative novels and poems are fictional, not factual. Perhaps that's why the false notion that creative writing must be fictional became popular—because so many works that are creative are fictional.

Clearly, it's more inclusive and accurate to assert that any kind of literary work can be creative or uncreative regardless of its form. Fiction and non fiction are not indices of the creativity of a work; that the fictional or nonfictional character of a work has an apples-and-oranges relationship to its form. Whether its a novel, short story, poem, stage play, or screenplay, a work composed in any of these forms can be based on fact or fiction yet can be creative.

Can creative writing be taught?

In recent years, courses in creative writing have been added to the curricula at a large number of different kinds of educational institutions at academic levels ranging from high school to graduate school. Commonly they have been housed within English departments, creative writing departments, creative writing academies, or in seminars at private, non-academic institutions. Today it's possible to obtain a master degree or even a doctor's degree in creative writing at some schools.

Students who take creative writing courses tend to emphasize either fiction or poetry; they strengthen their writing skills and techniques by taking classroom courses and workshops in subjects such as literature, education, and writing technique. Film and theater schools offer courses in screenwriting and playwriting that turn out professional and amateur movie writers.

But the kind of creative writing that goes on in schools is not the kind of creative writing that The Muse is referring to here. Writing well and competently can be taught in classrooms; and authors can hone their skills in writing fiction or poetry by taking instruction, doing homework, listening attentively to lectures, and by practice, practice, practice. But "creative" creative writing cannot be taught. In the sense that The Muse is using the expression, creative writing only comes from within.

Indeed, some of our most successful and popular writers never took a writing course but wrote creatively. Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example, who wrote only at a barely adequate level, was so creative with his Tarzan and the John Carter of Mars series had a powerful and lasting influence on the writing arts. And many other successful writers have been able to write well, even excellently, without formal training.

Writing well and competently is certainly an asset if one hopes to write creatively, but only some writers need to acquire talents like these through formal education. Skills like these come naturally to many.

In fact, many of our most creative and imaginative writers have been able to write excellently without taking lessons. What holds true for adequate and good writers holds true for great ones. Many of our greatest writers never took a writing course, either, and they wrote masterfully. This observation applies to writers ranging from Shakespeare to Dostoyevsky to Joyce and to many, many more. They wrote masterfully not just because they wrote superbly well; they wrote masterfully because they also wrote creatively.

The ability to write well is an important asset for any creative writer, but it's not always an absolute necessity. Most brilliant creative writers have the talent to write spectacularly well most or all of the time, but even they occasionally fall short technically. Because they are creative, however, they produce flawed masterpieces that have stood the test of time despite the fact that they exhibit technical shortfalls. Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel and Gogol's Diary of a Madman are two cases in point.

Is it possible for a writer to learn how to be creative if he isn't born that way? If so, how does he accomplish this feat?

The ability to write creatively does not have to be inborn, although possessing a natural creative bent and an innovative personality helps greatly. The ability to write creatively can be acquired from an intense pursuit of life.

Writers often find external incentives to write creatively if they live in a period when society is undergoing fundamental changes that they strongly embrace, if they identify with a great artist whom they believe to be a kindred spirit, or if they affiliate with an artistic movement toward which they feel strongly attracted, especially a revolutionary one.

Notice that, like a magnetic pole that needs a magnetically opposing pole to attract, these kinds of external-world factors can only exert powerful forces on a writer's creative juices if he possesses powerful opposing internal poles.

Creative writing takes place most often when an author has a strong desire to see and feel external worldly forces differently from the way other people see them and when he is highly motivated to express his unique viewpoint as well as he can. If a writer is on a personal mission...if he has fire in the belly...if he burns with a thirst to reform or to awaken some aspect of society or human nature...then he inwardly experiences a font of ideas, emotions, and words.

This fount springs forth spontaneously, naturally, without straining; it's the easier part of the creative writing process. The rest of the task is a relatively painful and laborious one in which the writer tries to accurately convert these honest, inward, subjective apprehensions to outward, objective expressions and to capture them on paper.

Achieving creatively is not so much a matter of conformance to a set of learned procedures as it is of being good at imagination and innovation. It's partly the result of being willing and constitutionally able to strike out into new territory and fertile ground. These truisms apply anywhere that writing goes on, at home, at the office, in writing clubs, working on school-based newspapers or magazines, signing up for writing contests, in writing colonies, taking online courses, or at any other venue where the written word is made into a creative enterprise.

Should people stop referring to fictional narrative works as creative writing?

Getting back to the notion that some people reserve the term creative writing to describe fictional narrative prose works such as novels, short stories, and detective stories, The Muse suggests that there's nothing wrong with describing these kinds of works as creative if you genuinely see them as being imaginative and original. Many of them are. If you use the expression creative to describe such a work, you'll have plenty of company and you won't be off the mark.

But, as we've seen, the term creative writing can justly be applied to any written work, whether it be fictional or nonfictional prose, poetry, drama, screenplay, or any other form, so long as it meets the criteria for being creative.

It's not wrong to apply the expression creative writing to narrative prose works, but applying it to all types of literary works that are genuinely creative is a more consistent and comprehensive practice. Not to restrict it to prose narrative literature demonstrates a more significant grasp of its meaning.

L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published 1900

about Oz, fantasy, and creative writing

You may have noticed a cover for the Hollywood film The Wizard of Oz pictured at the top-right corner of this page. It's possibly the most popular film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published in 1900. L. Frank Baum, the author of the book, is pictured at the right.

Baum wrote the original Oz book and almost twenty additional books in the Oz series. His series has inspired countless book and movie adaptations by others, and new adaptations are being produced today, over 100 years later. Baum's works are among the most-adapted works in the lexicon of fantasy.

Fantasy is a fictional genre that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting.

Today fantasy is usually classified along with science fiction as a subgenre of speculative fiction. Horror is a related genre usually classified as a subgenre of fantasy.

Although there's a great deal of overlap between these three speculative fiction subgenres, the fantasy genre is distinguished from science fiction and horror by the fact that it steers clear of pseudo-scientific and macabre themes. Many fantasies are set in imaginary worlds where magic is common.

Oz exhibits the properties that characterize the fantasy literary genre. The rules of cause and effect that that make the story advance are based on magic, not science or horror. It's premise is completely fictional, making it a work that is totally a product of Baum's creative imagination. These properties place it squarely at the center of the fantasy literary genre.

Baum wrote the first book about OZ that appeared anywhere in the world; it was unique when it appeared. He devised the premise and story, invented and developed the world of OZ, Dorothy, and its other characters, and he put them together on paper. Its story is imaginative, thoughtful, and excellently written. For these reasons, the Oz book ranks as a quintessential work of creative writing, a consummate work of Baum's fantastic imagination.

Baum's many accomplishments mark him as a creative genius. He not only wrote the many additional works in the Oz series, he wrote a large number of other works in a variety of other genres as well, far too many to mention here. He wrote books, short stories, and other kinds of publications, both fictional and nonfictional.

• Explore Baum's life. See an exhaustive bibliography of Baum's Oz works and his many other works; see a list of some of the adaptations that his works inspired. Visit the Wikipedia page on his biography titled L. Frank Baum: click here.
   
• Fantasy is a subgenre of speculative fiction. Explore fantasy and the other speculative fiction subgenres at The Muse Of Literature's blog titled Speculative Fiction: click here.

can non-fiction writing be creative?

Because of the way the term creative writing is often used in literature, it's important to clarify the distinction between nonfiction writing and fiction writing.

Generically, fiction denotes something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story, an imaginary thing or event postulated for the purposes of argument or explanation.

Technically, in literature, nonfiction is opposed to fiction and is distinguished from poetry or drama:

• Especially when books are catalogued in libraries or bookstores, nonfiction consists of all writing or books not fiction, poetry, or drama, including non-fictive narrative prose and reference works. It is the broadest category of written works.
• Fiction is defined as the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially works written in prose form. Works of this class include the kinds of novels or short stories one encounters when reading detective fiction.

In the minds of many readers, creative writing is usually associated with fiction writing and not with nonfiction writing; but this is far from the case. A little thought will convince most readers that both fiction and nonfiction can be creative or dull and uncreative, depending on a work's style and on how well a piece is written.

The term creative has been most closely associated with fiction writing because of the way nonfiction authors weave non-literal "truth" out of literal truth. The term uncreative has often been associated with non-fiction writing because most non-fiction writing is aimed at the transmission of literal truth. But some "truths" are far from literal, depending on the nature of the subject and the viewpoint of the writer.

For reasons like these, creativity is not limited to a particular form, style, or type of writing. Mundane poetry, for example, is not creative, and some essays or accounts are highly creative.

• To explore some of the factors that can make essays and other nonfiction works creative, visit the feature titled Can Expository Prose Writing Be Creative?: click here.

Acknowledging this notion, The Muse Of Language Arts has chosen to address both fictional and non-fictional works in this feature of this web site, The Muses have chosen to address works of both fiction and non-fiction and to explore the issues that surround the subject of how to produce creative, writing of all kinds.

• See more about fiction and non-fiction at The Muse Of Language Arts feature titled Welcome To The World Of Expository Writing. See the section called Prose vs. Fiction vs. Non-fiction: click here.

Send the Muse Of Literature Your original Poem

Have you written an original poem? Do you want to write a new one for publication? In collaboration with Electricka, The Muse Of Literature invites you to submit your original poem for publication at Electricka's web site.

Join the ranks of the likes of Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Eliot, Frost, Plath, Dickenson, Stevens, Rothke, Duffy, Angelou, and hundreds of other published poets.

• Everyone is invited to publish their poetic creations. Find out how at The Poetry Corner. When at The Poetry Corner, be sure to see the guidelines for contributing a poem: click here.

To encourage you to write and submit your own original essay on this subject, The Muse has declared this feature a ByLine feature.

• For more information about this and other ByLine Features, visit the ByLine page at this web site: click here. Click the ByLine logo in the right margin of this page.

Want to learn more about poetry at Electricka's web site?

• Visit The Muse Of Literature feature titled Welcome To the World Of Poetry: click here.

Publish Your original Prose Work on a subject of your own choice

Have you previously written an expository prose work that could be published here? Want to write one especially for publication in these pages? The Muse Of Language Arts invites to submit your non-fiction expository prose work for publication.

It's edifying and it's easy. So long as your work is expository prose, it doesn't have to be an essay.

Join the ranks of the likes of Charles Lamb, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and thousands of others who have written and published their original prose non-fiction works. Whatever your motivation, whatever the type of expository prose you've written, publish it here.

• Learn more about publishing your expository prose work; visit The Muse Of Language Arts feature titled Publish Your Essay. Publish your work there: click here.

publish your Original essay on the subject why write?

Have you written an original essay on the subject of Why Write? Would you like to write one for publication at Electricka's web site?

The Muse Of Language Arts and The Muse Of Literature jointly invite you to write and submit an essay on the subject of why write. They urge you to write and publish your essay no matter where the nature of your writing interest lies. Your work doesn't have to be a masterpiece. You don't have to be a professional writer or be previously published and you don't have to have studied writing.

Join the ranks of the likes of Charles Lamb, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and thousands of others who have written and published their original essays.

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publish your Original essay on the subject why Read?

Have you already written an essay on why read? Want to write an original essay on why read especially for publication at Electricka's web site? Either way, The Muse Of Language Arts invites you to publish your essay on the subject why read at Electricka's web site for other visitors to see.

Why read? There are a zillion reasons. Want to offer visitors some of your own? Feel free to compare or contrast your viewpoint and experiences with those of the ETAF essayist, or take your essay in new directions. Show others the rewards and penalties of of being a reader. Explore and expound on some of the zillion other topics about reading that apply to you or others, as you see them.

When your essay is published, you and other visitors will be able to find and read it in the Publish Your Essay feature. Its title and subject will appear. The name of its author will appear there too, if you choose, and you'll get the credit you deserve.

• Find out how to publish your essay on the subject why read at The Muse Of Literature's page titled Publish Your Essay. Visit the feature called Publish Your Essay now: click here.

Aids for Readers

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resources for writers and authors

The Muse Of Language Arts is pleased to offer visitors a collection of resources for authors and writers who seek to develop their writing skills.

• Visit the page called Welcome To Resources For Writers And Authors: click here.

Technical Aspects Of Literature

The technical aspects of any written work are its properties and techniques as seen from a literary and language perspective.

All writing incorporates and is made up of technical elements like meter, form, sound (rhyme), and figures of speech. Techniques and language elements like these are common to all fields of writing; all writers use them, deliberately or subconsciously. Any particular work can by analyzed, understood, described, and classified by the combination of the writing elements it incorporates.

In this feature, The Muse Of Literature explores writing and writings from a technical and design point of view—structure, organization, tone, style, language constructions, and all the other technical aspects that make for coherent, expressive, and effective writing, or its opposite.

• Explore The Muse Of Literature's feature called Technical Aspects of Literature: click here.

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