how creative writing has changed the world for the better

The rise and rise of creative writing

Professor of Writing and Director - Centre for New Writing, University of Technology Sydney

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The phrase “creative writing” is believed to have been first used by Emerson when he referred to creative writing and creative reading in his address ‘The American Scholar’ in 1837.

The first classes in creative writing were offered at Harvard University in the 1880s and were wildly popular from the beginning with over 150 students enrolling in 1885.

Today Creative Writing as a discipline is booming in Australia and the extraordinary rise in student demand is most visible in postgraduate writing coursework award programs of which there are over 70 in Australian universities.

What defines Creative Writing as innovative is its emphasis on praxis. Students learn how a literature is made, how it is put together, and what its cultural context is and then they recombine this knowledge to produce their own creative works.

Creativity is the key. Einstein called it ‘combinatory play’, a matter of sifting through data, perceptions and materials to come up with combinations that are new and useful. This is what happens in a writing workshop and what distinguishes writing as a discipline from other areas of study that are more critical than creative.

Teaching writing is really a valiant effort by the writing teacher to put into words what he or she understands about creativity and about creating a work and trying to pass this on and to guide and inspire others.

To be a good writer a student must first of all be a good reader.There is a special vitality that comes from the creative writing workshop and the way in which writing as a discipline overlaps with, and exists in, the public sphere, in a way that many other academic disciplines do not. This external engagement impact is important and brings considerable prestige to the University.

In the past Creative Writing programs in Australia existed merely as an adjunct to literary studies or cultural studies, and struggled within the academy for proper recognition.

It was sometimes thought that Creative Writing lacked a theoretical underpinning although the workshop model, developed at the University of Iowa in the 1930s, has long ago reshaped, refined and incorporated theories of narrative, literature and creativity into a unified and successful pedagogical approach.

It has been a struggle for Creative Writing in Australian universities to gain the same degree of acceptance that it receives in colleges and universities across the US.

Despite opposition here it has gradually emerged as one of the leading disciplines in the Humanities and one that encourages students to think and create with integrity.

By 2010, Creative Writing had a higher national rating in the Australian Government’s Excellence in Research (ERA) report than either literary studies or cultural studies, and produced twice as many research outputs.

In recent years Non-Fiction has become a significant growth area for postgraduate coursework students, with the first Australian Masters of Non –Fiction introduced at UTS in 2011, and creative non-fiction and literary journalism classes overflowing at many of the 36 Australian university writing programs.

The interest in non-fiction has being driven in part by the desire for a greater number of professionals to communicate more lucidly with a broader range of people.

Genre writing, short fiction, novel writing, novella, memoir and life writing, poetry, writing for multimedia and scriptwriting, all continue to prove extremely attractive subject choices for a wide range of students, including a disproportionate number of lawyers and journalists who have returned to university to take up higher research degrees based around their creative practice.

In terms of coursework students, creative writing has always paid its way; now under ERA it might start to receive appropriate research funding.

We have been teaching writing in the academy for over a hundred and twenty five years, and Ian McEwan who first studied creative writing with Malcolm Bradbury at East Anglia in the 1970s, or Raymond Carver who was mentored at Chico University by the novelist John Gardner, or our own Tim Winton who was taught by Elizabeth Jolley at Curtin University, are all testament to the fact that not only can writing be taught at university, but also that writing actually flourishes in a university environment.

Writing is thinking. The great novels, poems, stories and films from our many graduates have helped shape our culture and allowed us to reflect on the way we live.

The future of Creative Writing in Australia is in good hands.

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Creative Writing: What It Is and Why It Matters

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: January 13, 2023  - Last updated: January 15, 2023

Categories Writing

Writing can be intimidating for many people, but creative writing doesn’t have to be. Creative writing is a form of self-expression that allows writers to create stories, characters, and unique settings. But what exactly is creative writing? And why is it important in today’s society? Let’s explore this further.

How We Define Creative Writing

Creative writing is any form where writers can express their thoughts and feelings imaginatively. This type of writing allows authors to draw on their imagination when creating stories and characters and play with language and structure. While there are no boundaries in creative writing, most pieces will contain dialogue, description, and narrative elements.

The Importance of Creative Writing

Creative writing is important because:

• It helps us express ourselves in ways we may not be able to do with other forms of communication.
• It allows us to explore our creativity and think outside the box.
• It can help us better understand our emotions by exploring them through storytelling or poetry.
• Writing creatively can also provide much-needed escapism from everyday life, allowing us to escape into a world of our creation.
• Creative writing helps us connect with others by sharing our experiences through stories or poems they can relate to. This way, we can gain insight into other people’s lives while giving them insight into ours.

Creative Writing: A Path to Mental and Emotional Wellness

Writing is more than just a way to express your thoughts on paper. It’s a powerful tool that can be used as a form of therapy. Creative writing has been shown to improve emotional and mental well-being.

Through creative writing, we can gain insight into our emotions, develop self-expression and communication skills, cultivate empathy and understanding of others, and boost our imagination and creativity.

Let’s examine how creative writing can relieve stress and emotional catharsis.

Stress Relief and Emotional Catharsis

Writing has the power to reduce stress levels significantly. Writing about our experiences or about things that are causing us anxiety or distress helps us to release those complicated feelings constructively. By expressing ourselves through creative writing, we can work through the emotions associated with stressful situations without having to confront them directly.

This is especially helpful for people who struggle to share their emotions verbally or in person.

Improved Communication and Self-Expression

Creative writing is also beneficial for improving communication skills. Through creative writing, we can explore our thoughts and feelings more intensely than by speaking them aloud. This allows us to think more clearly about what we want to say before actually saying it out loud or in written form, which leads to improved self-expression overall.

Additionally, writing out our thoughts before speaking aloud allows us to articulate ourselves better when communicating with others—which is essential for healthy personal and professional relationships.

Increased Empathy and Understanding of Others

Through creative writing, we can also increase our empathy towards others by exploring different perspectives on various topics that may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for us—such as racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.—and allowing ourselves the opportunity to see the situation from someone else’s point of view without judgment or bias. This helps us become better communicators and more understanding individuals overall.

The Professional Benefits of Creative Writing

Creative writing is a powerful tool that can help you communicate better and more effectively in the professional world. It can also help you develop various skills that prove invaluable in many industries. Whether you’re looking to build your résumé or improve your communication, creative writing can effectively achieve both.

Let’s take a closer look at how creative writing can benefit your career.

Preparing Students for Careers in Writing, Editing, and Publishing

Creative writing is the perfect foundation for anyone interested in pursuing a career in writing, editing, or publishing. It teaches students the basics of grammar and composition while allowing them to express their ideas in imaginative ways.

Creative writing classes also allow students to learn from professionals who have experience as editors, agents, and publishers. They can use this knowledge to learn creative writing, refine their craft and gain valuable experience before entering the job market.

Improving Skills in Storytelling and Marketing for Various Careers

Creative writing teaches students to think critically about stories and craft compelling narratives that draw readers in. This skill is precious for those who wish to pursue careers outside traditional writing roles—such as marketing or advertising—where storytelling is key.

People who understand the fundamentals of creative writing will be able to create persuasive copy that resonates with readers and effectively conveys a message.

Enhancing Team Collaboration and Leadership Skills

Creative writing isn’t just about expressing yourself through words; it also provides an opportunity to practice working collaboratively with others on projects. Many creative writing classes require students to work together on group projects, which helps them develop essential teamwork skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.

As they work together on these projects, they will also gain confidence in their ability to lead teams effectively—an invaluable asset no matter what industry they pursue after graduation.

Uncovering the Power of Creative Writing

Creative writing has become an increasingly powerful force in shaping our society. Creative writing has many uses, from preserving cultural heritage to promoting social change.

Preserving Cultural Heritage with Creative Writing

Creative writing has long been used to preserve and share cultural heritage stories. This is done through fictional stories or poetry that explore a particular culture or group’s history, values, and beliefs. By weaving these stories in an engaging way, writers can bring a culture’s history and traditions to life for readers worldwide. This helps bridge cultural gaps by providing insight into what makes each culture unique.

Promoting Social Change & Activism with Creative Writing

Creative writing can also be used for activism and social change. Writers can craft stories that help promote awareness about important issues such as poverty, race relations, gender equality, climate change, and more.

With the power of words, writers can inspire readers to take action on these issues and work towards creating positive change in their communities.

Through creative writing, writers can raise awareness about important topics while fostering empathy toward individuals who may be facing difficult or challenging situations.

Fostering Creativity & Innovation with Creative Writing

Finally, creative writing can foster creativity and innovation in various fields. For example, businesses can use creative copywriting techniques to create compelling content that captures the attention of customers or potential investors.

Aspiring entrepreneurs can use storytelling techniques when pitching their ideas or products to potential partners or investors to make their cases more persuasive and memorable.

By harnessing the power of words through creative writing techniques, businesses can create content that resonates with their target audience while inspiring them to take action on whatever message they’re trying to convey. It often aids the overall creative process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of creative writing.

Creative writing has many benefits, both for the writer and the reader. For the writer, it can be therapeutic, helping them to explore their emotions and better understand themselves. It can also be used as entertainment or communication, allowing them to share their ideas with the world. For the reader, creative writing can provide enjoyment, escapism, and insights into the human condition.

How can I improve my creative writing skills?

There are several ways you can improve your creative writing skills. Firstly, make sure you allow yourself time to write regularly. Use a writing prompt to inspire a short story. Secondly, read as much as you can; great writers are also great readers. Thirdly, experiment with different styles and genres to find one that suits you best. Fourthly, join a writers’ group, writing workshop, or creative writing program to get feedback from other writers. Finally, keep a journal to track your progress and reflect on your work as a creative writer.

What is the importance of imagery in creative writing?

Imagery is an important element of creative writing, as it helps to create a more vivid picture for the reader. By using sensory and descriptive language, writers can transport readers into their stories and help them relate to their characters or themes. Imagery can bring a scene alive with detail and evoke emotion by helping readers create strong visual images in their minds. Furthermore, imagery can help make stories more memorable by giving readers a deeper connection with the characters or setting.

What are the elements of creative writing?

The elements of creative writing include plot, character, dialogue, setting, theme, and point of view. The plot is the structure or main storyline, while the character is the personage involved in this story. Dialogue includes conversations between characters to give insight into their emotions and relationships. Setting refers to the place or time in which a story takes place, while theme explores deeper meanings behind a story’s narrative. Finally, point of view defines how readers experience a story through first-person or third-person omniscient narration.

What’s the difference between creative writing and other types of writing?

The main difference between creative writing and other types of writing is that it allows the writer to create their own story, characters, settings, and themes. Creative writing also encourages writers to be inventive with their style and use descriptive language to evoke emotion or bring stories alive in readers’ minds. Other academic or technical writing types typically involve more research-based information and are usually more objective in their presentation. Additionally, most forms of non-creative writing will have stricter rules regarding grammar, structure, and syntax.

What is the golden rule of creative writing?

The golden rule of creative writing is to show, not tell. It’s the core creative writing skill. When it comes to creative writing, it’s essential to use descriptive language that immerses readers in the story and allows them to experience the events through their emotions and imaginations. This can be done through metaphors, similes, sensory language, and vivid imagery.

How important is creativity in writing?

Creativity is essential in writing as it allows writers to craft a unique story and evoke emotion from the reader. Creativity can bring stories alive with fresh perspectives and exciting plot lines while creating an escape for readers and giving them more profound insights into the human condition. Writers who combine creativity with technical aspects such as grammar, structure, language usage, and flow will create pieces that capture their audience’s attention and provide an enjoyable reading experience.

How Writing Changed the World

Each Monday, this column turns a page in history to explore the discoveries, events and people that continue to affect the history being made today.

Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity.

But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history we call, well … history.

The presence of written sources denotes the technical dividing line between what scholars classify as prehistory versus what they call history, which starts at different times depending on what part of the world you're studying.

In most places, writing started about the same time ancient civilizations emerged from hunter-gatherer communities, probably as a way to keep track of the new concept of "property," such as animals, grain supplies or land.

By 3000 B.C. in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), and then soon after in Egypt, and by 1500 B.C. in China , people were scribbling, sketching and telling their world about their culture in a very permanent way.

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When ancient Mesopotamians started settling down onto farms surrounding the first cities, life became a bit more complicated. Agriculture required expertise and detailed recordkeeping, two elements that led directly to the invention of writing, historians say.

The first examples of writing were pictograms used by temple officials to keep track of the inflows and outflows of the city's grain and animal stores which, in the bigger Sumerian urban centers such as Ur, were big enough to make counting by memory unreliable.

Officials began using standardized symbols — rather than, say, an actual picture of a goat — to represent commodities, scratched into soft clay tablets with a pointed reed that had been cut into a wedge shape. Archaeologists call this first writing "cuneiform," from the Latin "cuneus," meaning wedge.

The system developed quickly to incorporate signs that represented sounds, and soon all of Mesopotamia was taking notes, making to-do lists and (presumably) writing love letters.

Egyptian writing — the famous hieroglyphics — developed independently not long thereafter, under similar circumstances, historians think.

A few thousand years later, as variations on the two systems spread throughout the region, the entire ancient world had writing schemes that vastly improved the efficiency of economies, the accountability of governments and, maybe most importantly to us, our understanding of the past.

Literacy a privilege

Reading and writing in ancient times wasn't for the masses, however. Daily life in Mesopotamia and Egypt was time-consuming, and so writing became a specialized profession, usually for members of the elite class. The highly-regarded scribes of ancient Mesopotamia were even depicted in art wearing cuneiform writing implements (a bit like a set of chopsticks) in their belts as a mark of their importance.

Literacy remained a privilege of aristocratic males in most societies all the way until the 19th-century, when public education became more widespread around the world.

That means that while the historical period is exponentially better understood than the experiences of humans before writing was invented, written accounts are largely about the experiences of the upper classes, historians say.

About one in five people today, concentrated mostly in Third World nations, are illiterate.

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Why writing still matters in today's tech-driven world.

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While at a conference a few months ago, I ate lunch in the hotel restaurant. When the bill came, I decided to sign for it instead of paying it immediately. As I signed, I was struck by a sense of nostalgia. It was the first time in years I’d signed for a purchase, as I’ve been tapping my cards, or at least swiping them, these days.

It got me thinking about writing, both by physically putting pen to paper and also how we text or type. It doesn’t stop at the act of writing; even reading the written word is different today. Instead of reading a book or newspaper article, we can listen to an audiobook or podcast.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I wonder if our reliance on technology is impacting our personal and professional lives in ways we’re not even aware of. Does writing still matter in today’s tech-driven world?

Your writing can affect your job prospects.

Would you hire someone with typos and grammar mistakes in their resume? What about their LinkedIn profile? Some hiring managers would never hire someone who had typos or grammar mistakes because proper grammar is a sign of professionalism, attention to detail and learning ability.

Grammarly did a survey of LinkedIn profiles of native English language speakers a few years ago and found that people with fewer errors in their profiles earned higher positions and got more promotions. They also changed jobs more frequently, possibly because they were more ambitious, but likely also because they reviewed their resumes more regularly and caught any errors.

But should a typo disqualify you from a job? That question always generates a lot of debate online. In my opinion, typos should only affect jobs that require high levels of detail, such as scientists, copy editors, QA analysts, etc. What matters more is being responsive to errors and knowing how and when to revise your writing. That’s a better test of someone’s attention to detail than a perfect resume. After all, the candidate may have just paid someone to write the resume for them.

Good writing is a sign of good leadership.

The former CEO of Yahoo famously ignored capital letters in his emails . The Wall Street Journal found the “epidemic of grammar gaffes” in the workplace to be so rampant that it created a quiz to test people’s grammar skills. However, is it bad for leaders to write poorly in the workplace?

Like with many grammar questions, it depends, but most people would say that business leaders should write properly. The written word can be a powerful tool for leaders, encouraging and affecting employees deeply.

We can forgive the misuse of “you and I” instead of “you and me,” but basic errors and strange formatting can distract from the message and confuse readers who may then make incorrect assumptions or decisions. It can also reduce the chances people will read the message because they think it won’t be useful.

Writing can strengthen relationships.

Writing has a way of creating and developing relationships between people. That applies to the handwritten thank-you note from your boss and the email marketing message you got from a retailer. A personalized message has the power to make other people feel recognized and valued, which can make them more productive.

I know I loved getting these notes from bosses and managers in the past — even more so when they were handwritten! Sending a customized note in a business context can deepen relationships with clients and improve their loyalty, helping businesses sustain conversion rates and revenues.

Writing is good for the mind and body.

Hollywood screenwriter and Billions showrunner Brian Koppelman writes three pages every morning , without fail, as described in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. He uses it to access his “most creative place” because it allows him the freedom to write without censoring or rereading. The act of putting pen to paper helps him to ease his doubts, quiet his inner critic and get into the writing flow.

Aside from the creative benefit of writing, scientists have  found it can improve your memory and aid in learning. It can slow down mental aging because it forces people to use more motor skills and engage different parts of the brain. Handwriting researchers have also found that writing by hand can have a calming effect on the brain and reduce stress and anxiety.

Even as technology creeps into all areas of our lives, the written word still lives. It’s a basic form of communication that will always be used, no matter if we write by hand or use technology. Writing will continue to impact all areas of our lives, both at home and at work.

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A Brief History of Creative Writing

by Matt Herron | 20 comments

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There are hundreds of new programs, websites, and apps to help with your creative writing, but it might help you put them into perspective by examining the history out of which these technologies have emerged.

Like all technology, new tools are built on the foundation of the ones that came before them. Let's take a quick journey through the history of creative writing tools so that we can evaluate modern creative writing tools in a historical context.

Oral Storytelling

Originally, stories were passed from generation to generation through oral storytelling traditions .

In these traditions, the primary “writing” tool was the storyteller’s memory and voice , though stories were often augmented by instruments and dance. Stories were imbued with the personality of the teller, and took on color in the creative exchange with the audience.

Stories  evolved over time through the retelling. They improved, were embellished, or were transformed into myth and legend.

The Written Word

It wasn't until (relatively) recently, with the invention of the written word ( archaeologists place its formation around 3200 BC , depending on location) that we started writing stories down.

This is where the history of creative writing really begins.

Some of the earliest examples of written stories in the Western tradition are the Bible and Homer's Odyssey; in the Eastern Tradition, the Indian Vedas and Sanskrit poems; in central America, the Mayan Codices.

It’s likely that many of these early texts were simply being transcribed from the oral tradition. The legend that Homer was blind—whether it’s true or not—gives us a symbolic link connecting the oral and written storytelling traditions.

In any case, storytellers started writing their stories down. Once that happened, the process of creative writing evolved.

Instead of telling and retelling stories orally and making them better over time, written language gave storytellers the ability to tell themselves the story over and over again using a drafting process. It gave them a way to record more stories by providing them a physical extension of their memory: ink and paper .

The art of writing was an esoteric discipline for a long time. At first, only monks and the rich and educated classes were taught how to write. Inks and quills were expensive. Paper was hard to come by and difficult to make. World literacy skyrocketed in the second half of the 20 th century. As late as 1950, world literacy was estimated at a mere  36% .

Today, 83% of people can read and write.

The Printing Press

Apart from the expense of writing in ancient times, many obstacles to distribution had to be surmounted. The Bible is an example of a collection of stories that found early success and popularity. But access was limited. Bibles were copied out by hand and manually bound.

This laborious process continued for several hundred years, until Gutenberg came along in 1450 and invented the printing press. Though it was not the first printing press (the Chinese are often given credit for inventing the first moveable type ), it changed everything.

The printing press made the first mass production of books possible. It’s important to understand that Gutenberg’s press led not to an improvement of the writing process, but to the distribution process. This is an important distinction. Writing a story was still laborious as ever, but now a writer could reach their readers in a more affordable way.

Typewriters

Around the late 1800s, the invention of the typewriter  began to develop the creative writing process in earnest.

The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for writers. Instead of writing a story by hand, then having it typeset by a printing press, a writer could now push buttons to get their words printed directly on the page. It made the writing process faster and more efficient, and the wide and rapid adoption of the typewriter proved its worth.

It’s not a novel thing to you and I that a writer can push buttons and see their words appear before them—we grew up with computers. Yet, to writers at the tail end of the 19th century, it must have been a magical experience.

A hundred years later, computers were invented and another dramatic shift in the writing process was made possible. Instead of typing a story on paper, writers could type it on a screen—no more white out, no more wasted paper.

The invention of computers, and the writing software developed for them, marks the next evolutionary step in writing tools.  A Brief History of Word Processing  explains: “With the screen, text could be entered and corrected without having to produce a hard copy. Printing could be delayed until the writer was satisfied with the material.”

This was followed by increased storage capacity, which upped the volume and number of works which could be edited or worked on simultaneously, spell check, instantly accessible dictionaries, and other innovations.

Non-Linear Word Processing Software

This brief history of creative writing tools brings us to the present day.

And yet, word processing software has not changed all that much in recent years. Modern versions of Microsoft Word, for example, are almost identical to the version from 1997 on which I first learned word processing. That annoying paperclip fellow is gone, but the interface of the software and its core functionality remains the same. Namely, the writer is presented with a single vertical column of digital “pages” on which to type. In most word processing software, that linear structure cannot be changed.

The well-informed among you are now thinking about the exceptions to this rule, or what I like to call the next milestone in creative writing tool history : non-linear creative writing programs like Scrivener and Ulysses .

Instead of trying to imitate the typewriter, these programs approach writing from a structural angle.  They allow you to write out of order and rearrange components (pages, scenes, chapters, etc.) in a hierarchical tree structure. They also give you the ability to apply meta-data to your work—things like point of view, draft status, etc.—in an effective, tangible way that increases understanding and, if used correctly, productivity and enjoyment in the writing process.

In the history of creative writing tools, non-linear word processing software is the cutting edge.

Digital Publishing

Modern authors also need tools that gives them a leg up on the digital first approach. Anyone who has ever tried to convert a Microsoft Word document into an ebook will sympathize with this challenge—Word has a penchant for adding hidden formatting tags and making it difficult for writers to convert their stories into publishable digital formats.

Tools like Scrivener help remove that pain by giving you a compile process that is designed to export for all the modern e-book formats.

I don’t want you to struggle with out-dated linear word processing software anymore. I want you to be an evolved writer.

I want you to think digital first. I want you to write in a way that’s natural to you—whether that’s out of order or linearly—using a modern piece of software that’s designed for both.

Scrivener is my tool of choice, and I've already written several articles about how to use it . Over the coming weeks, I'll continue to cover the writing process with Scrivener in detail, from planning a story all the way through compiling to publication-ready formats.

I hope that with this historical context, you'll be able to see the benefits of working with the most modern creative writing tools. And if the learning curve of a program like Scrivener intimidates you, you're not alone. Stay tuned, and I'll walk you through it from beginning to end.

Which tools do YOU use to write?  Let us know in the comments section .

Consider these questions as they relate to your own writing process:

• Do you write out of order? Why or why not?
• How does your current set of writing tools fit your process?
• Have you tried new tools to improve your process? If so, what blockers have you come up against?

Post your answers in the comments so we can discuss and address your concerns in the upcoming series of articles.

Matt Herron

Matt Herron is the author of Scrivener Superpowers: How to Use Cutting-Edge Software to Energize Your Creative Writing Practice . He has a degree in English Literature, a dog named Elsa, and an adrenaline addiction sated by rock climbing and travel. The best way to get in touch with him is on Twitter @mgherron .

20 Comments

I have used them all. Went to college carrying an Olivetti manual portable, that I think was originally used in WW II. I will say this for manual typewriters, they worked. Period. Didn’t need batteries, or power cords, or nothing, but fingers, brains, and a little oil now and then. Ok good stiff vellum paper and an eraser were additional required equipment, unless you wrote perfect papers, the first time, or could afford to pay someone to type them. Actually did that once. I think she was dyslexic because most two letter words came out reversed … “is” was “si” and “it” was “ti”. Couldn’t say much as she was my sister-in-law.

I have tried new tools. The problem is every one of them had a developer with a feather up their butt that thought “they” new how to do it better. So, you get used to keystrokes you use in one, go to another and lose your document. Google Docs is my latest nemesis.

I write out of order. Usually, what happens is, I set my music and slip my headphones on and pace in a vaguely elliptical pattern around my office, thinking, until, eventually, a nice line comes to mind, some felicitous arrangement of words, and I type them into a note taking program, which I use in lieu of the 1,000+ randomly titled “note.txt” files that would otherwise clutter my hard drive. This process repeats, or fails to, for hundreds of iterations, until, at last, the floodgates open and I write thousands of words in the span of an hour in a fit of fervid fury. On exactly zero occasions have the ideas come in order. The rest of the process involves me sitting down with a lot of caffeine and, paradoxically, enough tranquilizers to anxiolytize a small eastern European country, and try to stitch it all together.

When I try to sit down and write from A to B like a normal human being, it sucks, which is why all my comment-type posts are so boring.

I love fountain pens. I love all pens. Love calligraphy, penmanship, nice paper, etc. And that sucks, because my handwriting is so bad, even I can’t read it, and I write too slowly to keep up with myself, and my hands cramp and start to hurt after only a minute or so of writing. I do all my writing in ancient, old-fashioned programs you’ve never heard of, and really ought not to, because they’re terrible.

I’ve tried to use typewriters, but I get cramps in my wrist if I don’t use my keyboard; it’s ergonomic and it folds in half, so you can keep your hands in a nice, neutral position. This is a major pain, because you can’t take the stupid thing anywhere. Popping open a laptop to write in the park? Nope. I’m thinking about buying a tablet and building some sort of convoluted keyboard/tablet carrying device, so I can write where I please without worrying about the distraction of wrist pain, but with my luck, my editing programs won’t work on a tablet, and I’ll be totally screwed.

In short, my ideal writing environment is a space station, I hate technology, I can’t work without technology, and writing is a gigantic pain. The end.

I used to write all in Google Docs because I like being able to access my work anywhere on any device, but it’s not really the greatest for organizing your writing. I love the ability to rearrange. Scrivener’s great, but you can’t access it anywhere on any device, so I’ve just started using a web-based program called Novelize, and I’m very impressed with it. It gives me the ability to outline, write, and re-organize, and it goes with me anywhere. GetNovelize [dot] com for anyone interested.

I use CMAP for arranging concepts and relationships, Scrivener to gather research and format the document, and sometimes TextEdit for random text creation to slot into scenes or other spots.

I am not in the modern generation. When I attended college, we wrote our papers. And, I might add, we knew cyrillic. Kids aren’t taught to do more than a little printing. Granted, I can do ‘search’ and find information. I was fine with my Britannica. I am behind the times and look backward in time. I can use my computer, but more complicated business as submitting typed papers, I still can’t do. In HS, the smart ones studied Latin, me included. I should have taken typing, but that course was not for the bright ones, me. I can’t keep up with modern technology, because I wasn’t taught that way in the 50s.

Jean, I can understand the challenge (I have a side line coaching fellow seniors on the transition to technology, so am familiar with the difficulties). An advantage in diving in rests with the ability to get exposure to ways of approaching your writing that otherwise might not occur. You can still act on this exposure in an analog, i.e. paper and pencil, way. For example, one post mentions mind-mapping and I mentioned CMAP, an application for working with logic and concepts and relationships between ideas, concepts–or characters 😉 Each of these approaches can be carried out manually with the advantage that the application can’t drive you along the path it wants. Happy writing–whether printing or cursive!

Hi Matt! I’ve read about Scrivener, and I’m sure it is every writer’s ambition to have this writing tool. I use Microsoft Word for writing my stories, poems, novels. I used to write all my first drafts in longhand. I switched to the key board when I learned to type faster, and use the handy tools provided in Word. I try and write in order, and cut or copy and paste when I’m revising. I haven’t tried any new tools. I’d love to know about Scrivener. I’ll appreciate any information you post on WP.

Many thanks, Lilian

I’m still a devotee of Word.

It’s a versatile tool when you get to know it, and while it certainly tempts me to rip my hair out sometimes, we make our troubled relationship work.

I’d be interested in trying Scrivener out. However, many aspiring authors spend too much time and treasure on software or hardware, thinking that this will make them successful. I want to achieve success with the tools I currently have, due to my DEDICATION, and then upgrade when my attitude is right.

I use a free version of Microsoft Office called Open Office. It works pretty much the same way. Sometimes, when I write the first rough draft, I turn to pen and paper.

Sometimes, I write out of order if I don’t know how to transition from one paragraph to another, or from going from one event to another. Sometimes, I don’t know how to start a story, and so I will start with a bullet point I have in my outline. I’ve heard that short stories usually take a couple of hours—at most, a day—to write. I’m not wired that way.

I don’t write out of order, but I plan out of order. I have a full page somewhere here detailing plot points and what set what in motion. But the majority of the process stays in my brain. It froths and boils there, taking new forms and new twists until I pick out the ones I like best with a pencil.

Wordpad fits my process perfectly because I can write page after page and stuff it all into one document I can find easily. But I am a hybrid Writer. I like to type and write stories and ideas down as they come, primarily ideas into paper and stories into the computer.

I have not tried out any new tools to improve my process but, I think after reading this I might try out a few new programs.

Looking forward to reading these upcoming articles. I don’t know a thing about Scrivener, but I do know that handing my WordPerfect document to my illustrator has caused her hours of grief trying to insert the art — and the printer says, “No wonder. It doesn’t work.”

I do write out of order. I write in my sleep and wake up and head to the computer. I write for hours until I’ve downloaded my dream. I call it dream simply because I’ve done this for 20 years and I don’t know what wake to call it.

I have written and self published one book and I can relate to this article. I was almost in tears trying to convert the word document into epub format. Finally I got the job done through a professional for a fee. I tried using Scrivener, I downloaded the trial version but I somehow could not figure it out. I have gone back to using word.

But … Scrivener does have a compile option that outputs an epub format. I do understand about flipping between interfaces. It can be a pain.

I try not to write out of order, but sometimes I get so stuck on a part of my story it’s just easier to move on and go in a different direction for a while until I can figure out how to get out of what is blocking me.

I use Microsoft Word for writing. Suits me because I can edit again and again and try out different techniques without having to waste paper.

“And if the learning curve of a program like Scrivener intimidates you, you’re not alone.” This is my first red flag recognizing “non-user friendly” incompetent software program design – non-intuitive use difficulty by computer literate beginners. If the intuitive program design hurdle hasn’t been removed, then the software is not ready for prime time use – rather its by programming geeks – for programming geeks, and as you know writers aren’t usually software geeks.

The next thing you will tell me is how powerful Scrivener is. However, I’m way ahead of you. My brother-n-law is a senior Apple platform software engineer and over the last 10 years I have learned that is that anything he describes as “powerful”- has nothing to do with “power,” but translating from geek speak – simply means “unnecessarily complex” and saturated with lots of options that you will never use – unless you are a software engineer.

I have tried Scrivener and unfortunately it is far from and intuitive writing tool and has lots of features that most writers will either ignore and never use, or just be confused by. I agree that Word has its share of bugs and formatting frustrations. However, exchanging those frustrations for additional new and unknown frustrations in a long learning curve – especially while in the middle of a complex writing project is not a solution, but rather just another problem for the writer.

Scrivener should hire some successful writers that also have programming and software design skills, not the other way around. Unfortunately, software programs are almost never designed and built by the specifically skilled who actually need them. Scrivener seems to be the same. Additionally, software programmer populations are composed of people with higher than average Asperger’s Syndrome personality types. In fact, Asperger Syndrome personality types (like my B-n-L) are actively sought out for their unique focus abilities by software companies, but this has software design down side. The most common disability of Asperger’s Syndrome is difficulty in communication skills. Having communication ability challenges to start with, presents its own challenges in communication software design in general. I can see this as being an even greater challenge in developing useful writer and other communication software tools. Scrivener I don’t believe is as “evolved” as you perceive. That said, I will always appreciated your efforts in untangling its maze.

Hi dduggerbiocepts, after reading your post on Scrivener I have decided to stick to Word for writing my stories and novels. I’m not and never will be a computer geek, and the advanced programme of Scrivener awes me, probably because I’ll be lost in trying to make good use of all the aps. Thanks for clearing my curiousity.

I have just fallen in love, because as a windows user and cheapskate, Scrivener doesn’t hold much promise… Bibisco. Seriously, try it! If Bibisco was a person, I’d marry it! And I’m not even joking.

That looks pretty cool, Meg! But just out of curiosity, do you find Scrivner prohibitively expensive? It seems really really cheap to me… $50 for a lifetime license is GOOD.

I’m from India, Matt.

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Why learn creative writing? Truthfully, creative writing is one of the most misunderstood disciplines in the 21st century. When people think of a creative writing course, they often imagine a group of lofty, out-of-touch people who wear argyle sweater vests and have unproductive conversations about abstract concepts.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth: the best writing classes remain engaged with the real world, and the skills gained in a creative writing course apply to nearly every facet of daily life.

If you’re wondering whether it’s worth picking up a course in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, we have five reasons to learn creative writing. But first, let’s talk about what actually happens in a creative writing course.

The Basics of a Writing Workshop

Whether you’re enrolled in a poetry, fiction, or nonfiction writing class, you can expect the following writing process – at least in a quality writing course like the ones at Writers.com.

• Weekly prompts and writing exercises to sharpen the precision and necessity of each word you use.
• Constructive critiques from a community of writers who are each growing their writing skills alongside you.
• A creative space to explore new ideas, experiment with language, and arrange words in new and exciting ways.
• Focused writing instruction from a master of the craft.

The benefits of creative writing come from engaging with the course material, the writing prompts, and the other class members. These elements help you become a better writer, both in creative realms and in everyday life. How? No matter what form of writing, a creative writing class pushes you to connect ideas and create effective narratives using the best words – and that skill translates into real world success.

The Benefits of Creative Writing

1. why learn creative writing: improved self-expression.

Improving your writing skills leads to stronger communication. When you practice finding the right word in a story or poem, you engage the same parts of your brain that are active in everyday writing and speaking. A creative writing course subconsciously turns you into a more effective communicator.

The importance of precise language and self-advocacy translates well into both interpersonal relationships and working environments. Take it from this expert on how writing and self-advocacy results in career and leadership success.

2. Why Learn Creative Writing: Job Success

This brings us to our next point: great writing leads to job success. Of course, your boss probably isn’t expecting you to write emails in the form of a short story or a sonnet – though if they are expecting this, you have a pretty cool boss.

In reality, almost every job requires some sort of written work, whether that’s simple written communication or something more elaborate, like publishing data or marketing materials. In a creative writing class, you practice the style and grammar rules necessary for effective writing, both within the realms of literature and in career-related writing. Sharpening your writing and creativity skills might just land you your next promotion.

3. Why Learn Creative Writing: Improved Thinking Skills

Strong writing leads to strong thinking. No matter what type of writing you pursue, learning how to write is another form of learning how to think.

That might seem like a bold claim, so think about it this way. Without language, our thoughts wouldn’t have form. We might not need language to think “I’m hungry” or “I like cats,” but when it comes to more abstract concepts, language is key. How would you think about things like justice, revenge, or equality without the words to express them?

When you hone in on your ability to find choice, specific words, and when you work on the skills of effective storytelling and rhetoric , you improve your ability to think in general. Good writing yields great thinking!

4. Why Learn Creative Writing: Empathy

Reading and writing both rely on empathy, especially when it comes to being an effective workshop participant. When we read and write stories, we situate ourselves in the shoes of other people; when we read and write poetry, we let language navigate us through emotion.

The importance of creative writing relies on empathy. We practice empathy whenever we listen to another person’s life story, when someone tells us about their day, and when we sit down with a client or work partner. When we write, we practice the ability to listen as well as to speak, making us more effective communicators and more compassionate human beings.

5. Why Learn Creative Writing: It’s Fun!

In case you’re not convinced that a writing course is right for you, let’s clarify one more fact: creative writing is fun. Whether you’re in a fiction writing course, starting a memoir, crafting a poem, or writing for the silver screen, you’re creating new worlds and characters. In the sandbox of literature, you’re in control, and when you invest yourself into the craft of writing, something beautiful emerges.

The Importance of Creative Writing

Simply put, creative writing helps us preserve our humanity. What better medium to explore the human experience?

To learn creative writing, like any art form, requires compassion, contemplation, and curiosity. Writers preserve the world as they observe it in stories and poetry, and they imagine a better world by creating it in their works.

Through the decades, literature has explored society’s profound changes. Literary eons like the Naturalist movement and the Beat poets responded to the increase in Western Industrialization. Confessional poets like Virginia Woolf helped transform poetry into a medium for emotional exploration and excavation. And, genre movements like the cyberpunk writers of science fiction helped popularize the idea of an “information economy.”

Thus, the importance of creative writing lies in its ability to describe the world through an honest and unfiltered lens. Anyone who engages in creative writing, no matter the genre or style, helps us explore the human experience, share new ideas, and advocate for a better society. Whether you write your stories for yourself or share them with a wide audience, creative writing makes the world a better place.

Jobs for Creative Writers

Because creative writing isn’t a STEM discipline, many people don’t think that learning it will help their job prospects. Why learn creative writing if it doesn’t make any money?

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Creative writing skills are much sought after on resumes, since both creativity and the ability to write are soft skills in decline. Additionally, if you’re considering a career change—or ready to start one!—these are some popular jobs for creative writers.

• Average Starting Salary: $51,000
• Demand: High
• Skills needed: creativity, grammar, timeliness

Copywriters help companies put their branding into words. A copywriter might write emails, blogs, website content, or ad copy that encompasses the company’s voice and purpose. Copywriting requires you to write in a mix of styles and forms, flexing your writing muscles in new and exciting ways.

Grant Writer

• Average Starting Salary: $50,000
• Skills needed: storytelling, research, argumentation

Nonprofits and research facilities rely on local and national grants to fund their projects. Grant writers help secure that funding, writing engaging grants that tell the organization’s story in an engaging, tailored, and convincing way. Creative writers will enjoy the opportunity to tell a meaningful story and create positive community change through this career.

Communications/Public Relations Specialist

• Skills needed: creativity, communications, social media

A communications specialist helps drive a company’s image through various social channels. They may help create a positive narrative for their company through blogs, journalist outreach, social media, and other public-facing avenues. Much like copywriting, a PR specialist helps weave an effective story for a company.

• Average Starting Salary: $55,000
• Demand: Medium/High
• Skills needed: creativity, storytelling, organization, self-reliance

The dream job for many writers is to write and sell books. Being a novelist is an admirable career choice—and also requires the most work. Not only do you have to write your stories, but you also have to market yourself in the literary industry and maintain a social presence so that publishers and readers actually read your work. It’s a tough business, but also incredibly rewarding!

Reasons to Learn Creative Writing: Finding a Writing Community

Finally, creative writing communities make the writing struggle worth it. The relationships you foster with other creative writers can last a lifetime, as no other group of people has the same appreciation for the written word. Creative writing communities create transformative experiences and encourage growth in your writing; if there’s one reason to study creative writing craft, it’s the friendships you make in the process.

You don’t need a class to start writing, but it’s never a waste of time to learn the tools of the trade. Creative writing requires the skills that can help you in everyday life, and a creative writing course can help.

At Writers.com, we believe that creative writing can transform both individual lives and the world at large. See the importance of creative writing for yourself: check out what makes our creative writing courses different , then take a look at our upcoming course calendar today.

Sean Glatch

Would like to apply for a course to write a novel.

I’d be happy to help! Please email [email protected] with any questions, and we’ll find the right course for your writing.

[…] Sean. “Why Learn Creative Writing.” writers.com. June 7, 2020. https://writers.com/why-learn-creative-writing . Accessed November 7, […]

[…] And last of all it’s fun! I hope to live my life doing the things I love, with like-minded creative people who I love. I have many exciting things upcoming as I continue with the process of completing my first novel, Les Année Folles, such as publishing to my first magazine, journal, and working on the millions of short story ideas I have stored in my head. Stay tuned! References: Glatch, S. (2020, June 7). WHY LEARN CREATIVE WRITING? Retrieved from Writers.com: https://writers.com/why-learn-creative-writing […]

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How Has the MFA Changed the Contemporary Novel?

We wrote a program to analyze hundreds of works by authors with and without creative-writing degrees. The results were disappointing.

This year, about 20,000 people applied to study creative writing at MFA programs in the U.S. It’s a funny fact to consider, given that the idea creativity could be taught used to be widely mocked—the literary scholar John Aldridge once said the programs produced “clonal fabrications of writers.” For a time, MFA programs were oddities on college campuses: In 1975, only 52 existed. Much of this has changed in the last two decades. Today, there are more than 350 creative writing programs in the U.S. alone, and that number doubles if you include undergraduate degree programs.

The rise of the MFA has changed how both writers and people in general talk about creativity. The debate has shifted from whether creativity could be taught to how well it can be taught and whether it should be taught. The stakes are real: Creative writing has become a big business—it’s estimated that it currently contributes more than $200 million a year in revenue to universities in the U.S.

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Today’s debate falls along predictable fault-lines: One side eyes the teaching of writing suspiciously, and concludes that MFA programs may produce some good fiction, but they don’t produce enough “great literature.” The other side defends the institution by saying, if nothing else, that programs give aspiring writers the time to “dedicate oneself” to the craft of writing. But there’s an underlying assumption that the MFA does something . There’s a widespread belief that if you get an MFA, at the very least, it will change your writing in some discernible way.

But what if there’s no change to speak of? Is it really possible to tell the difference between novels that have been through the meat-grinder of the MFA and those that haven’t? What if this is just something that’s been imagined into existence, by both detractors and supporters alike, to satisfy a collective need to believe that institutions can improve anything, even creativity? Or conversely, that institutions ruin everything, especially creativity? Whether you valorize the Romantic ideal of the lonely, humble artist or the neo-liberal belief that education can solve any problem, the MFA has become a kind of Rorschach test for how writers and critics feel about creativity, where it comes from, and how best to nurture it.

Until now, no one has used much evidence beyond the anecdotal to test whether or not the MFA has actually influenced the contemporary novel. What if this debate, furious as it is, is just a distraction from more important questions surrounding creative writing, like problems of diversity within publishing or financial exploitation on the part of universities?

We’re two professors of language and literature who regularly use computation to test common assumptions about culture . So we decided to examine to what extent writing from MFA graduates differs from writing by non-graduates. We collected a sample of 200 novels written by graduates of MFA programs from over 20 leading programs (including Columbia, University of Texas at Austin, Iowa, and others) that have been published in the last 15 years. (This sample includes authors like Rick Moody, Alix Ohlin, and Ben Lerner.)  For the sake of comparison, we also collected a similarly sized group of novels published over the same time period by authors who haven’t earned an MFA degree (including writers like Donna Tartt, Miranda July, and Akhil Sharma). To make these two groups as comparable as possible, we only gathered novels by non-MFA writers that were reviewed in The New York Times , which we took as a mark of literary excellence. Using a variety of tools from the field of computational text analysis, we studied how similar authors were across a range of literary aspects, including diction, style, theme, setting, and even how writers use characters.

Needless to say, novels consist of much more than just these features. What makes a single novel a great novel, what makes, say, Junot Diaz sound like Junot Diaz, is of course mostly immeasurable. But these features remain the fundamental building blocks of any novel, so if MFA writing were in aggregate to have some essential difference from books written by authors without MFAs, it should be perceptible at the very least at this genetic level of prose. There has to be something that makes them different, and those differences, according to the vigor and tenacity of critics’ claims, ought to be recognizable. As Mark McGurl, the author of the sweeping history of the MFA , The Program Era , writes, creative writing programs “obviously” teach writers how to become a specific “creative type.” Or as Chad Harbach has argued more recently in his popular essay “MFA vs. NYC,” “the university now rivals, if it hasn’t surpassed, New York as the economic center of the literary fiction world.” If there are indeed “two literary cultures” in Harbach’s words, we should be able to detect it.

We began by looking at writers’ diction: whether the words used by MFA writers are noticeably different than those of their non-MFA counterparts. Using a process known as machine learning, we first taught a computer to recognize the words that are unique to each of our groups and then asked it to guess whether a novel (that it hasn’t seen before) was written by someone with an MFA. When we did this, the computer was successful only about 67 percent of the time at guessing correctly. You don’t need a degree in statistics to know this isn’t very good—you can be right 50 percent of the time just by accident. To put this number in context, with the same procedure we can predict bestselling novels about 82 percent of the time or whether a novel is a mystery or romance 85 percent and 95 percent of the time, respectively.

Nevertheless, there are some words that are different, but given that we’re talking about over 200,000 unique words, this is hardly surprising. For example, MFA novels tend to focus more on lawns , lakes , counters , stomachs , and wrists . They prefer names like Ruth, Pete, Bobby, Charlotte, and Pearl (while non-MFA novels seem to like Anna, Tom, John, and Bill). But on the whole, these distinctions look pretty meaningless; the words that appear more often in MFA novels don’t seem to be related to each other in a significant way. To test whether this was the case, we used a method called topic modeling that examines themes instead of individual words. And while MFA novels do tend to slightly favor certain themes like “family” or “home,” overall there’s no predictable way these topics appear with any regularity in novels written by creative writing graduates more than other people who write novels. To sum up: So far, no real difference between MFA and non-MFA works.

How about style? Surely, we thought, there should be some stylistic differences between these novels. The way writers put their words in order, that special MFA voice, should be detectable at some level. As one brochure has it, the goal of the adjunct faculty of an MFA program is to “work closely with their students to help them develop their own voices, styles, and form.” Presumably upon graduation those voices should be discernibly different than what’s already out there on the market. However, taking syntax as a measure of style—if we see style as the way writers sequence their words, the way they put their sentences together—we saw little difference between the two groups. MFA novels tend to use pairs of adjectives or adverbs less often, or avoid the more straightforward structure of a noun followed by a verb in the present tense. But other than that, there’s nothing detectably unique about the so-called “MFA style.”

So far, nothing. No real distinctions at the level of language, themes, or even syntax. When we went further to test whether the way writers constructed their characters was any different, once again nothing significant showed up. It was extremely difficult to separate the MFA and non-MFA writing groups in any meaningful way. If these results seem unbelievable, we shared this feeling as we carried out our tests. Our starting point was that there must be some mark of distinction. Why else were critics like Elif Batuman saying things like “the creative writing program has exercised the single most determining influence on postwar American literary production”? Why else were people paying for these schools?

Contrary to the critics, many top MFA programs explicitly state that they’re “doctrine free” and allow students to develop their writing “on their own terms.” They do not, they claim, actively try to make their students sound any particular way. As the University of Texas program says , “The best thing we do for fiction writers at the Michener Center for Writers is leave them alone.” But then why go? If a program isn’t going to train you or change you in any significant way—and the data suggest that by and large most don’t—then the costs of that investment start to seem deeply questionable. According to the latest research, only 7 percent of MFA graduates are fully funded , which means 93 percent are investing some portion of their own money to sound like everyone else.

Some might say that’s precisely the point. The MFA isn’t about developing a unique style at all, but about learning how to sound like already published writers. It’s about gaining entrance to the club. Look closely at the promotional materials of creative-writing programs and you’ll almost invariably see a host of proper names—these are the people with whom you can expect to rub shoulders, if not directly, then by association through the former graduates that have passed through the program or the mentors of your mentors whose influence will surely rub off on you. It’s about having the opportunity to insert yourself, however virtually, into that literary social network.

But this absence of distinction also has its hidden costs. Things begin to cut more deeply, for example, when we look at issues of gender or race. A major claim of the MFA is that it not only helps an aspiring writer find his or her voice, but it particularly helps minority writers discover some authentic self through the process of writing. As McGurl has shown, “find your voice” was a mantra at Iowa in the 1960s, and starting in the 1970s, it took on particular significance for writers of color. Programs like Iowa trumpet their success in training writers like Margaret Walker and Sandra Cisneros.

But when we refined our tests to look at how race factors into the results, we found the opposite to be true. We took each separate body of work—books by MFA writers and books by non-MFA writers—and compared all of the writers in each individual corpus along the metrics of diction, style, and theme we describe above. For both corpora, we expected white and non-white writers to group together in clusters, and we anticipated that non-white writers would especially group together in the MFA corpus (authors like Tayari Jones, Chieh Chieng, and Daniel Alarcon). But we found no such thing. Again, based on diction, theme, and syntax, these two groups, in both MFA and non-MFA writing, are impossible to distinguish.

The MFA promises to make the distinction of race come alive, take on literary heft, through learning how to write and the work of writing. But we have no evidence that MFA authors are any better at this than their less educated non-MFA peers. If there’s a quality that distinguishes a writer as Asian American or black, we could not find it. Junot Diaz has argued that MFA programs are “too white” and reproduce the “dominant culture’s blind spots and assumptions about race and racism.” It’s a claim that fits in with our algorithm’s inability to tell apart works by non-white writers and white writers.

But this erasure of voice gets an even more negative spin when we look at gender. A second major claim of the MFA is that getting an education in writing is an enlightening experience, and a key part of this enlightenment we can assume is learning how to challenge society’s gender norms. Many MFA programs, like the universities they are a part of, say they actively promote a culture of challenging “patriarchy” and “heteronormativity.” Cornell’s MFA program, for instance, celebrates the gender diversity of its faculty, which is “evenly split” between men and women. We’d expect MFA writing to actively resist gender stereotypes, especially given that MFA graduates skew overwhelmingly female (about 66 percent of MFA grads are women, which is about 10 percentage points higher than for the master’s degree more generally ).

Once again, the data tell a different story. The percentage of male protagonists in novels written by MFA grads is well over half, at 61 percent, while that figure is 65 percent for non-MFA novels. Further, if a novel has a female lead, the chances that it has two strong female characters is only 32 percent for both MFA and non-MFA novels. Last, the percentage of novels that have a majority of male characters in the non-MFA group is 99 percent, whereas it is 96 percent for MFA novels. These are terrible numbers by any standard. They suggest that the contemporary American novel is disproportionately preoccupied with the experiences of men. And they suggest that the MFA novel is only barely better than its non-MFA counterparts. It’s possible that MFA writers have found more subtle ways to create strong female characters that go beyond simple numerical representation. But the raw numbers are damning: MFA writers are no better at representing women, and both groups are downright bad at it.

These results are hard to square with the increasingly amplified discourse that surrounds the MFA, whether for and against. While something may happen in MFA programs, perhaps that thing is more behavioral than artistic. When we look at the data, the MFA seems to be helping people sound like everyone else. To put a positive spin on it, we could say the degrees help writers fit into the literary landscape. Like the universities to which these programs belong, the MFA may offer a way of gaining entrance to an elite club. You learn the rules of the road, at least as defined by the publishing industry and literary reviews. At its worst, it doesn’t do anything at all.

The intensity with which readers and critics feel and think about the MFA, we might assume, has become disconnected from its moderate-to-minimal effects on the literary landscape in America. So it seems to us that the MFA doesn’t merit many of the hyperbolic claims about its impact on literature. $200 million per year, after all, is a high price to pay for very little measurable impact.

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10 Effective Ways to Improve Your Creative Writing

Writing a story is a craft that requires constant tweaks, edits and trial and error by the writer. Here are ten tips to improve your creative writing and save you hours of painful re-writing in the future.

(1) Don’t underestimate your reader

You have a fantastic plot, your characters are realistic, the setting is ideal and you want to make sure that the reader gets every little detail that you have in mind. Great!

The only problem is that you may be tempted to bombard your reader with many intimate details so that they see it exactly as you do. In-depth descriptions can be useful and effective, but don’t overdo it. Keep your writing neat and tight; don’t waste space on long, rambling descriptions about things that aren’t necessary to your story.

Wouldn’t it be ideal if editors received submissions and decided to look past the typos and incorrect formatting because they think it might be a little gem of a story? The fact is that if your manuscript is full of errors or doesn’t follow the required guidelines then it’s going in the trash.

Don’t rely on your computer’s spell checker. If you make a typo, the computer will not warn you if you’ve still spelt a valid word. Your gorgeous heroine meets the bog (boy) of her dreams? The wealthy doctor places his golf ball on his tea (tee)?

(3) Give Your Characters Life

Characters are vital to your story so treat them with care and give them that breath of life that you, the writer, have the power to give. Give them unique characteristics; make them believable by making them have a purpose, motivation and conflicts to resolve.

(4) Use Strong Words

You want your writing to sound decisive, so use words that get the point across. Did Bob’s really big headache cause him a lot of pain or did Bob’s migraine cause excruciating pain? But remember not to overdo it: don’t use words that the reader won’t understand, you want to use strong words, not confusing or extravagant ones.

(5) Show Don’t Tell.

Who hasn’t heard that one before? But it’s a valid point and a useful rule for all writers. Fiction is for entertainment, so entertain your reader! Give them an excuse to escape into the reality that you have created. Let them see, hear, feel, smell, laugh, cry, love and hate. Show your reader the world that you’ve created, don’t just tell them about it.

(6) Check your Commas

While commas can be effective many inexperienced writers tend to sprinkle their sentences with them. When placed incorrectly, commas can chop up your sentences and sometimes even alter the meaning. Brush up on your high-school grammar; your work will improve with that alone.

(7) Grab their Attention from the Start

Opening lines are often referred to as ‘the hook’ because that’s exactly what you want them to be. You get the reader’s attention and reel them in for the rest of the story. Try something powerful to kick-start your story. For example: ‘Mark’s back broke with an audible crack’ or ‘Eliza didn’t realize that she was going blind’ or ‘The bullet that pierced Henry’s back and left him paralyzed was meant for a homeless man’. Each of these lines makes the reader ask ‘why?’ and once they ask that question, the reader will keep on reading until they find the answer.

(8) Give Your Reader a Satisfactory Ending

You can leave the reader speculating or wondering why at the end of your story, but try to resolve as much as you can. If your reader finishes the last sentence and is still asking questions about what happened to who and why, then you still need to tie up the loose ends.

(9) Sober up

Think of writing as going out to a bar: you go out, the lighting is dim, it’s noisy, maybe you drink too much but you meet a person who’s attractive, witty, shares the same interests as you and you’re smitten by them. A few days later you meet for coffee: are they as good looking or charming as you remember?

This can happen with writing. You become intoxicated with the feeling of success and think that you have written an award-winning piece. The question is, once you’ve sobered up, is it as good as you thought it was? Put your manuscript away and try not to think about it for a couple days. Then take it out and read it with a clear, open mind. Read it through once from beginning to end, then break it up into sections, then read it sentence by sentence. Is it as good as you remembered? If so, then well done! But the odds are that if you were too excited about finally wrapping it up, then you’ll find some points to revise.

(10) Challenge Yourself

Are you trying too hard to write in a specific genre or style? Do you only write short stories or novels or poems or movie scripts? Give that creative muscle a workout and try something different. It will be a refreshing exercise for your mind and you might be surprised by the result. If you don’t succeed then you have still learnt a valuable lesson.

About the Author:

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• Content Marketing

6 Ways I’ve Improved My Writing In the Past 6 Months You Can Try Today

In the past six months that I’ve been a Content Crafter at Buffer , I’ve been writing a lot . I’ve also been trying to write regularly on my own blog and for my startup, Exist . That’s a lot of writing.

During this time, I’ve also been experimenting with small changes in my workflow, my writing process and the types of content I produce. The result has been an improvement in my writing and a better understanding of how I work best. Hopefully you’ll find some of these things helpful in improving your own writing.

1. Exposing it to different people for feedback

Feedback is hugely important for my writing. If I don’t spend long on a piece, I often overlook small typos or grammatical issues. I don’t craft my words quite as carefully as I could, and I tend to repeat myself a bit. Having someone read over my writing can highlight these issues and help me to clean up my work .

On the other hand, if I spend a long time on a piece, it can be just as bad. It’s easy to become lost in a piece after a while, and have trouble stepping back and seeing it objectively. It’s also hard to forget all of the extra context I have in my head by that point, and read it as a reader , who has little or no context about the topic.

Again, having someone else read my work really helps at this point. If nothing else, it gives me a break to refresh my mind before I come back for more editing. Usually, though, I find my work improves from other people’s suggestions .

While Leo is usually the person who reads through my blog posts for Buffer , occasionally we’ll have a discussion in our Content Crafters room in HipChat and more of the team will jump in.

It’s surprisingly helpful to get ideas and feedback from multiple points of view.

2. Experimenting with new formats and structures

We have a pretty good idea of what works best for us on the Buffer blog, but it’s always interesting to experiment with new content types as well.

Here’s a list of the different types of formats I’ve experimented with over the past few months:

• listicles ,
• personal stories ,
• opinion pieces ,
• how-to guides ,
• feature announcements ,
• link roundups ,
• posts about products and apps I like ,
• posts about books I’ve read
• interview-based posts .

The more kinds of content I try creating, the more I find that certain aspects apply to multiple formats (for instance, images usually make a post more interesting, regardless of the format). I also have to work harder when I write a new kind of post, since it doesn’t come to me as easily .

Something I’m keen to try this year is experimenting with long-form content and perhaps even an eBook or downloadable PDF. New formats are exciting and scary, and definitely worth doing if you want to stretch your writing muscle .

3. Changing my workflow with new methods

As well as new formats or types of content, I’ve experimented a lot with my writing process in the past six months. I wanted to optimize for efficiency, but I didn’t want my work to drop in quality. Experimenting is really helpful in determining what works and what doesn’t . In my case, I’ve tried different methods, environments and schedules in my quest for a workflow that suits me.

I’m now at a point where I can write 3-4 posts for Buffer each week, 1-2 for Exist, and an extra one for my personal blog each week if I’m lucky.

One thing I experimented with a lot is the process of brainstorming, outlining and drafting a post. The editing process is usually more straight-forward, and I’m sure many of you would agree that getting those first few words on paper (or screen) is one of the hardest parts of writing.

Depending on the type of post I’m writing and how research-heavy it is, I may go straight to screen with my notes and outline the post. If I’m using lots of quotes—like in this post —I’ll copy-and-paste a lot of material right into my text editor and work from that.

For posts that rely on my own words more, I like to make notes on paper first, to get my head around the topic . I find this useful for getting an overview of the post as a whole and working out the structure I’m going to start with, too.

I love what Austin Kleon says about using paper to sketch out ideas first in his book, Steal Like An Artist :

The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us—we start editing ideas before we have them.

Another thing I’ve been doing more is using books for researching topics, rather than blog posts (or as well as blog posts). I like that I can take a book and a pen and do my research in an armchair . It gives me a physical and mental break from sitting at my computer, being connected to the world.

I also find this is a more efficient way for me to take in lots of information about a topic and process it, so the resulting post is higher quality than if I’d tried to take research straight from a blog post and use it before I fully understood it.

4. More practice, less theory

I think everyone working in a creative field struggles against the inclination not to exercise their creative muscles. It’s so much easier to keep researching or reading or tweeting and not get around to putting words down.

For me, I find reading and researching a post are the most nefarious distractions . Because they are important to my work, it’s really difficult to protect myself against my own tendency to do these far longer than is necessary. I read a short essay recently by Fiery Cushman that explained the way people cheat without realizing it, and I’m sure procrastination often works the same way for me:

research shows that people tend to cheat only as much as they can without realizing theyre cheating [Mazar, Amir & Ariely, 2008, Jour. Marketing Res.]. This is a remarkable phenomenon: Part of you is deciding how much to cheat, calibrated at just the level that keeps another part of you from realizing it.

When I do notice that I’m dragging my feet and should have started drafting a post already, I like to remember this quote from David McCullough:

There’s an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

The other way I’m actively trying to curb my own tendency to waste time is to limit what I read . I’ve stopped subscribing to any RSS feeds and I’m much more careful about choosing articles and blog posts to read online. These are the places I get lost most often in content that doesn’t offer me anything new or useful for my work so posts about writing better, productivity and ticking off to do lists are all but banned from my reading list now.

5. Reading (and doing) more widely

While I am actively trying to stop myself from wasting time on content that’s not useful to me, this often comes down to articles that say the same things I’ve read a million times before. On the other hand, I’m trying to be open to reading more widely —more fiction, more varying nonfiction topics, more research papers—to help me add more knowledge to my reportoire.

The more widely read I am, the more chances I have to generate new, creative ideas or come up with interesting angles for each topic I write about.

Widely-ranging experiences are just as important as being widely read, I think. From my experience, the more things I do, the more ideas I have and the better my work is . Though I haven’t been great at this lately, I try to remember that doing new things will give me more to draw on in my work later.

6. Paying attention and taking notes

This point doesn’t really fit in this post, since I’ve actually done a lot less of this in the past six months. I’ve resolved to put more effort into this practice going forward, though, so I’m going to include it anyway, in case it’s useful to you.

Taking copious notes has been remarkably useful to me in the past. I mentioned in the last point that adding to my knowledge gives me more to draw on in my work. Unfortunately, I’m not great at remembering everything I read. Not well enough to find it again, at least. This is where notes come in handy.

Whether I have a notebook handy or I use an app to capture something digitally, keeping track of quotes, books I’ve read, phrases and words I like, interesting concepts and ideas I have is worth the effort.

What have you done to improve your writing recently? Let us know in the comments.

If you liked this post, you might like 5 ways to get through writer’s block or content marketing fatigue and 6 Of The Best Pieces of Advice From Successful Writers

P.S. Recently we launched brand new Buffer for Business , with Google Analytics support, fan and follower growth options and more. Check it out and see if it can help your social media efforts .

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This Is How Writing Changed My Life For The Better

By Mitzi J Hernandez

I have been writing for as long as I can remember, as a child I knew something I could do extremely well; I had the ability to tell a story, I had a way with words, I always carried a notebook and would write everything down. I could be having the worst day, and once I started writing I could forget about everything. It was just me and my words. It was my escape from reality.

I just knew that one day I would want to go public and express my thoughts and emotions with the world and here I am doing that.

Eventually, writing became this different thing for me all together.

I discovered blogging. I discovered writing online. And I discovered how to live a better life and to have an impact on others. I have also learned so many things about myself and writing has become something unique and more powerful than I’d have expected.

Writing expands your mind

When you write, you will realize how little you know. The more you write, the more you learn about yourself and the world around you. If you are serious about developing your work and if you want to create something worth reading, you will seek out knowledge and the best teachers are BOOKS . I don’t know of a good writer who did not read voraciously. And above all, as you know more, you become wiser and have the ability to see what most people can’t.

All good writers read a whole lot.

Writing shows your bare your soul to the world

Writing reflects your soul. If you are timid and insecure, your words will reflect that. If you are honest and brave, your words will reflect that too. But if you take the hard route and write down truth, even when doing so makes you bleed, you’ll grow in boldness. I have never been so open about my personal issues. I choose to share them because I want my stories to be seen in the public eye in hopes that the people reading them can relate on some level. I want to help others realize they aren’t alone in the different life conflicts that we all face each day.

Writing is my therapy

Writing offers me this release, release from pain, depression, and confusion.

Most of my writing tends to focus on my life, what surrounds me and many observations that I make through each day. I write every single day, especially when I am feeling emotionally distraught. I tend to piece certain things together. Writing picks, me up when I am down. If I am writing something I am passionate about, it’s a feeling like no other and sometimes I just get lost in the words and my fingers are just typing on their own.

Writing makes you immortal

One of my favorite books is “De Vita Solitaria” by Francesco Petrarca , this book was written hundreds of years ago and until this day even from his grave, he continues to teach me. He has shaped people in history and he will shape people in the future. This is how powerful writing is, when your work is published online, it’s for the world to read and you’d be surprised how much your words can impact others.

The bottom line is that if you can educate, entertain, and inspire through your words of your work, if you do great things, you will be remembered forever. This is especially true for great writing.

Immortality is within your grasp … one word at a time.

Writing opens a whole new world

I am thankful that I have connected with many beautiful souls that it wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for my work.

When writing moves people, they respond. I’ve had so many people that reached out to me to tell me my articles inspired them, moved them and they don’t feel alone, and then I realized I am not as alone as I feel sometimes. We are all connected. Perhaps because I wrote about my own vulnerable stories, people felt safe to write me personally and chime in with their own. People all over the world told me their hopeful dreams and devastating heartaches.

Writing gave my life a meaning

Writing, more than any other pursuit, made me feel the most “me.” I understand that sharing my unique thoughts and ideas openly allows me to set myself apart from the world.

Writing has shown me that I can influence the minds of many, and that I may do things a little different than most, but that I can still leave a lasting impression, and do it all with love and integrity. I’ve seen the impact it can have, and I can see myself using it for years to come.

Writing has allowed me to start my own blog and connect with amazing people.

And most importantly writing has taught me that I can be human, that I hurt like others too, I struggle but still do things that no one ever thought I was capable of doing, and to show others that if I can do it, so can they.

Sometimes your greatest passion will lead you to your greatest impact. All it takes is work, lots of work.

How Writing can Change the World

by Justin Harmon

Change the world!

It’s not like writing something can change the world.

Uh, it absolutely can!

If you are a fan of writing, then you already know the power it has.

Writing something powerful has the ability to inspire, motivate, change lives, change minds, even change history ( the bible, the alchemist ).

Even if writing isn’t your “thing”, you probably understand the importance of it. Writing isn’t fun for everyone, but everyone does it.

Those who write as a creative tool, do so to express their creativity, thoughts, ideas, feelings, and help others learn something, do something, or just to plain old write.

Reading to Write

I was never much of a fan of reading. I always thought it was rather boring and would rather flip on the video game console. It wasn’t until a few years ago that it occurred to me why I thought reading was boring. It really wasn’t that reading was boring, it was “what” I would read.

I can’t imagine anyone having fun reading an article online because someone else (like a friend, colleague or professor) thought it would be engaging or useful, if they didn’t care about the topic.

Ever since I could remember, I was only reading because I “had to”, for an assignment or other learning.

Once I discovered the stories and articles that fell in line with my passions, I started to actually enjoy reading. I could look up a topic that inspired me and get lost, reading for hours.

It wasn’t long after that I started to gain new perspectives, ideas and opinions of my own that I wanted to share. So I did what anyone with a head full of creative ideas would do: I started to write.

I wrote about what I thought and felt about the world. I wrote poems, songs and essays that allowed my thoughts to spill out of an ink pen and a keyboard.

The only audience I had was myself and I was OK with that.

Writing led to more reading, which led to more learning about my growing list of concerns. I found myself passionate about inspiring change in the world.

People, books and ideas that gave people a sense of renewal for themselves, others and the world we live in. I wanted to write about my experiences and what I had learned about the world, and share it.

I hoped others would care as much as I did about how the world was, the way society worked, and what humanity was doing to it. I found that others cared, and I wanted to join them.

I decided I would use my passion for writing ( no matter how good or bad ) to spread my thoughts, ideas, beliefs and learning to those who needed a bit of inspiration. I wanted to help change the world with my writing.

For me, writing has completely changed my world. It has changed the way I view myself and how I interact with others. Writing has allowed me to find what it is I am most passionate about.

Because of writing, I know I will be able to share with the world my passion for changing the world. I will be able to show others that they are capable of doing anything they want. They do not have to follow the path of what is considered “normal”.

I believe that in itself is a recipe for how writing can change the world, but let’s dig deeper.

I thought about what I could do to show you how writing can change the world. I came up with a list.

A list that is more like a timeline, that represents the path from placing your hands on the keyboard, or picking up a pen, to making a significant change in the world. Remember, there is more than one way to make a change.

I will show you how I went from wanting to make a difference to using writing as a tool for world change.

Here is that list…

• Find out what you are passionate about
• Understand that your passion should be spread
• Find a platform to share your passion
• Write about what you are passionate about
• Connect with others who share your passion
• Learn how to get your writing noticed
• Build a community
• Help your community with what you have learned
• Show your community how to spread their own passions
• Write and Repeat…

Long Story Short

The list above is an accumulation of events and processes that took me about 2 years to get through, once I discovered my passion, which took 10 years to discover in the first place.

Don’t let that scare you off. No two paths are the same, and mine was never a continuous process. Today, there are many more opportunities to help you find your passion.

What the list, or timeline represents, is a process of how writing can be used to change the world.

The End Process is the World Changer

So we come to the end. The truth is there is no end. To make a change is to keep making changes. To change the world will forever be a never-ending process.

By doing what we love and following our passions we are opening a door.

The door we open is a door to unlimited possibilities and showing others that those possibilities exist. If I write about what I am passionate about because of someone else who has been writing about what they are passionate about, that person has changed my world.

By doing what you love and showing others how to do the same, you are starting a chain reaction of people everywhere, changing the way they view the world (for the better), and changing their worlds entirely. Reminds me of Rocky IV after he wins the big fight against Drago:  “ If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change. “ ( Rocky IV ).

See, if I can change my world and you can change your world, then everyone can change their worlds, which will help the entire world to change.

This is how writing can change the world. One word, one message, one voice at a time, we can help each other. Together, anything is possible.

What are you doing to change the world with your writing?

Justin Harmon writes for Unplugged Recreated . He believes everyone deserves fulfillment in life. We can do it by changing our world. Justin also helps people make changes in their own lives which echo into the outside world. Be a part of the journey to Recreate , Restructure, & Redesign Our World.

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How Your Writing Can Change The World

You don’t have to be a bestselling author in order for your writing to have an impact. By writing and sharing our writing with others, we are doing something positive, something good. However many books you sell, however prolific a writer you are, remember that you are doing something amazing.

Here’s how your writing can change the world:

Writing encourages reading, and this brings great pleasure.

Reading is one of life's simplest and greatest pleasures. It’s cheap, educational, cathartic, environmentally friendly, healthy and fun! By writing you are encouraging more people to read, you are contributing and promoting the pleasure of reading as a hobby, and no doubt reading a great deal yourself.

Writing speaks to people and helps them know they are not alone.

No matter what you write, you end up exploring emotions, human behaviour and big topics such as love, friendship, fear and death. People take great comfort in reading something that they can identify with. Reading helps people to feel as though they are understood and this can make such a difference in their lives.

Writing allows people to explore worlds that are not their own.

Sometimes it can be so cathartic to escape reality for a while, and there is nothing quite like a good book to take us into a whole different world and help us get some respite from the one we reside in, albeit temporarily! Great stories transport the reader to places that they have never been before, they feel immersed and carried away by the story, the adventures, and the universes created by writers - and that is something truly wonderful indeed.

Writing can teach us lessons, and make us think differently.

Writers can choose to use their writing to teach valuable lessons, to give new perspectives and make us see the world and the behaviour of people in a different light. Writing can inspire, motivate, and bring about change. As writers, we have the power to reach out to our readers and try to make the world a better place.

Writing demonstrates how following your dreams and believing in your goals is a wonderful thing.

In short, you are setting a good example. By continuing to write, and do what you are passionate about and what you love, you encourage others to do the same. Imagine a world where everyone followed their dreams, and never gave up on their goals? What a happy place it would be! If by writing, you can encourage just a handful of people to keep pushing to achieve what they want out of life, you are making the world a richer and happier place to be.

Writing truly is a wonderful gift, and we can all use our writing to change the world, to inspire people, and to bring about kindness. No matter how vast or tiny our readership is, even the smallest changes can add up to make a huge and amazing difference!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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Writer's Life.org is the go to place for writers and authors across the planet and of all genres. Our mission is to give you the resources, tools and information needed to take your writing to the next level.

How do we plan on accomplishing this? Easy, instead of focusing 110% of our efforts on meaningless things such as correct spelling, proper grammar and fancy words...

...We'll give you solid information, that you'll get solid results with when tested in the real world ;-)

So with that said...

Consider the mis-spellings, grammatical mistakes and lack of $1000.00 words that you may or may not find on this site a reminder to you to focus on the things that will "really" prompt publishers to become interested in your book or potential fans of your writing to want more and more and more..

...And that is, learning how to write not good, but Great content, that pulls people in and will have them coming back begging for more. (Geesh... Could we get any worse with this run on sentence and lack of structure? I guess not, but I'm sure you get the point...)

A publishing house could care less if you won the spelling bee 10 years in a row.. They have editors that they pay to correct mistakes...

The only thing they are interested in is knowing if your writing is something that will SELL..

Nothing more, nothing less!

Consider this lesson #1 ;-) (Use the social buttons above to follow us on your favorite social site.. You'd hate to mis the next lesson wouldn't you?)

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