imaginative essay for

Essay Papers Writing Online

Unlock your creativity with these inspiring college essay writing prompts.

As a college student, you may find yourself facing the daunting task of writing essays for your classes. While some essay prompts may seem dull and uninspiring, there are plenty of creative writing prompts that can spark your imagination and help you produce engaging and unique essays.

From personal experiences to imaginative scenarios, these creative college essay writing prompts will encourage you to think outside the box and showcase your storytelling skills. Whether you’re writing an admissions essay or a class assignment, these prompts will challenge you to explore new ideas and perspectives.

So, if you’re looking for a fresh approach to your college essays, take a look at these 15 creative writing prompts that will inspire you to craft compelling and memorable essays that stand out from the crowd.

Spark Your Imagination with College Essay Writing

Writing college essays can be a challenging but rewarding experience. As you start brainstorming ideas for your essay, it’s important to let your imagination run wild. Try to think outside the box and come up with unique angles and perspectives that will make your essay stand out.

One way to spark your imagination is to think about your personal experiences and how they have shaped you as a person. Consider writing about a moment that changed your life or a challenge you overcame. These personal stories can make your essay more compelling and give the admissions committee a glimpse into who you are as an individual.

Another way to get creative with your essay is to experiment with different writing styles and formats. You could try writing in the form of a letter, a diary entry, or even a poem. Mixing things up can help you find your voice and make your essay more interesting to read.

Ultimately, the key to sparking your imagination with college essay writing is to be open-minded and willing to take risks. Don’t be afraid to explore new ideas and push the boundaries of traditional essay writing. By letting your imagination run wild, you can create an essay that truly reflects who you are and what you have to offer.

Unleash Your Creativity with These Inspiring Prompts

Ready to take your college essay writing to the next level? These inspiring prompts will help you unleash your creativity and showcase your unique voice in your writing:

• Imagine you have the ability to travel to any place, real or fictional. Where would you go and why?
• If you could have a conversation with any historical figure, who would it be and what would you talk about?
• Write a story where you are the protagonist in a world where all your wildest dreams come true.
• Reflect on a personal experience that shaped your perspective or worldview.
• Describe a challenge you faced and how you overcame it, showcasing your resilience.

These prompts are designed to ignite your imagination and help you craft a compelling college essay that stands out. Get creative, be authentic, and let your voice shine through!

Explore Unique Topics to Stand Out in Your Admission Essay

When it comes to writing your college admission essay, choosing a unique and engaging topic can make all the difference. Admissions officers read through countless essays, so standing out with a fresh and creative topic is crucial.

Consider exploring topics that showcase your personality, experiences, and aspirations in a unique and compelling way. Instead of rehashing common themes like your volunteer work or a sports achievement, think outside the box and delve into topics that truly reflect who you are.

• Share a meaningful encounter you had with a stranger that changed your perspective.
• Discuss a book, movie, or piece of art that greatly influenced your worldview.
• Reflect on a personal failure or setback and how it ultimately shaped your character.
• Describe a unique hobby or passion that sets you apart from your peers.
• Explore a cultural tradition or heritage that has shaped your values and beliefs.

By choosing a unique and compelling topic for your admission essay, you can capture the attention of admissions officers and leave a lasting impression. Use this opportunity to showcase your creativity, thoughtfulness, and uniqueness to stand out in a sea of applicants.

Get Inspired by 15 Innovative College Essay Writing Ideas

College application essays are a great opportunity for students to showcase their creativity, personality, and unique perspectives. Here are 15 creative prompts to help you get started on your college essay:

• Write about a time when you faced a challenge and how you overcame it.
• Describe a person who has had a significant influence on your life and why.
• Imagine you could have dinner with any historical figure–who would it be and why?
• Discuss a book, movie, or artwork that has had a profound impact on you.
• Share a personal story that illustrates your passion for a particular hobby or interest.
• Reflect on a moment when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea.
• Discuss a problem in your community and propose a creative solution.
• Describe an experience that changed your perspective on life.
• Write about a time when you had to make a difficult decision and how it shaped you.
• Discuss a quote that resonates with you and explain its significance.
• Share a piece of advice that has stuck with you and influenced your actions.
• Imagine yourself ten years in the future–what do you hope to have accomplished?
• Reflect on a moment of failure or setback and how you grew from the experience.
• Describe a place that holds special meaning for you and why.
• Write about a topic that you are passionate about and why it matters to you.

These prompts are designed to inspire your imagination and help you craft a compelling and unique college essay that showcases your personality and accomplishments. Use them as a starting point to brainstorm ideas and stories that will captivate admissions officers and set you apart from other applicants.

Ignite Your Passion for Writing with Creative Essay Topics

Writing essays can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be boring! With the right topic, you can unleash your creativity and passion for writing. Creative essay topics not only challenge your critical thinking skills but also allow you to express your unique perspective in an engaging way.

Whether you’re exploring a personal experience, analyzing a thought-provoking question, or delving into a fictional world, creative essay topics offer endless possibilities for exploration. By choosing topics that resonate with you, you can truly ignite your passion for writing and produce compelling essays that captivate your audience.

So, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and embrace unconventional ideas. Let your creativity flourish and discover the joy of writing with these creative essay topics!

Related Post

How to master the art of writing expository essays and captivate your audience, convenient and reliable source to purchase college essays online, step-by-step guide to crafting a powerful literary analysis essay, unlock success with a comprehensive business research paper example guide, unlock your writing potential with writers college – transform your passion into profession, “unlocking the secrets of academic success – navigating the world of research papers in college”, master the art of sociological expression – elevate your writing skills in sociology.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to secondary menu
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

A Plus Topper

Improve your Grades

Imaginative Essay

August 19, 2020 by sastry

Imaginative Essay: An Imaginative Essay is an essay which tends to discuss anything from space travel to fantasy land. It is basically an essay based on fiction, where you are required to put your imaginary skills/thoughts in a logical order. Your imagination will decide the depth of your essay. It is completely dependent on your creative ability and knack of bringing it in writing.

Looking for an easy way to Learning of  English Grammar Exercises for Class 9 ICSE . You have to learn basic English Grammer topics like Tenses, Verbs, Nouns, etc… In this article, we will review the best English Grammer Topics and compare them against each other.

Guidelines to write Imaginative Essay

• Heightened sense of imagination.
• Add sensory details-like smell, touch, taste, etc.
• Logical flow of details.
• Crisp and clear characterization(s), if any.
• Proper punctuation’s.
• Use of formal language is not mandatory.

Sample Essays 1. If I Were A Millionaire

If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride. But sometimes dream do come true. I live in a country in which more than half of the population is below the poverty line and don’t know whether they will be able to afford the next meal.

But there is no check on one’s fancy. I wish I were a millionaire!

As a poor man, I have often experienced that rich men are generally selfish to the extent of being cruel. Their outlook on life is not human but materialistic. They forget that to be rich is not to be inhuman. When I am rich, I shall not forget God and God’s men.

I long to lead some days in comfort. Money will end the state of uncertainty in which I live today. Poverty makes you lose friends and makes one unacceptable in society.

If I were a millionaire, I would be in the company of rich friends and would be honorable. But being a millionaire is only a part of my desire.

I know I get education under very difficult circumstances. So I shall open schools and colleges for the greater good of all. My aim in life is to establish a university in the model of ancient Indian universities. I want to go back to our old culture which was once the pride of the world.

A wealthy man can do much good to this world. Money along with too many comforts and care brings evil also. I was born human and shall live a pious and noble life. This duty every man owes to God. I shall fulfill this duty and shall set a noble example before others and will be a brilliant light for misguided millionaires.

I would very much wish to encourage social service in the country. I shall make a trust which will look after the welfare of orphans. It is a pity that in our country wealthy persons do not possess charitable qualities. I shall lead a noble life and cut down my own expenses so that I may help others to live better.

I am a noble-hearted and simple person and wish to remain the same if I become a millionaire.

2. If I Were the Principal of My School

If I were the principal of my school I would bring about many changes in the system of running the school. Most of the ways, rules and regulations have become outdated and need changes. We have a load of work for the students and hardly do they find time to play.

The school starts with the morning assembly. I would change the regular pattern in which it is conducted. If I become the principal I would encourage the students to share their thoughts and experiences with their schoolmates and the teachers could guide the students with their opinions on the basis of what the students share with them. I would tell the students short stories with a moral so that they could learn some good values.

As the session begins, I would see to it that all the difficult subjects are not taught one after the other. Science should be followed by English and not by Math. Some principals have a poor knowledge of what students like and they try to thrust a lot of things down their throats without caring that they are not always receptive.

I would encourage a lot of sports and extra curricular activities like drama, music, painting, creative writing, clay modeling, photography, horse riding, swimming, dancing, etc. This would keep the students interested in coming to school and they would enjoy their long hours of stay in school. When there are so many interesting activities for the students, they remain happy and their mind is able to absorb the lessons from the most difficult subjects with greater ease.

Promoting a greater degree of personal interaction between the students and teachers, thus creating a friendly atmosphere in the classroom, is a must these days. Teachers would be friends with the students and this could help to eradicate any fear that the students may have in their mind with regard to their teachers. This again would improve the working and learning atmosphere in the school.

As a principal I would do my best to lead my school towards honors in academics, sports, social and cultural activities.

Suggested Outlines of Imaginative Essays

If you had to send a Message in a Bottle

• Imagine you were stranded on a deserted island
• You can send out one message in a bottle
• What would you write in that message?
• Why would you write those particular things?

If you could go on a Space Adventure

• If you could travel anywhere in space, where would you go and why ?
• What will you carry with you?
• What do you think it would be like there?

If you could go Back in Time

• If you could go back in time and re-experience an event in your life, what would it be?
• Would you go back to change an event that happened or to re-experience a happy time?
• Or something else

If I Were a Grown-Up

• Write about what you’d do if you were a grown-up for one day
• Why would you do it?
• Will you make any changes to your situation, if any, what would that change be?

If I Were a Teacher

• Write on what you would do if you were a teacher for a day
• What subjects would you teach?
• How would you teach them?
• If I had wings.
• I wish I were a man of immense talents.
• If I had a robot as a friend.
• If I were a master craftsman.
• I wish I had a lot of money to help the poor.
• If only I had four hands.
• How I wish for an ounce of creativity.
• Picture Dictionary
• English Speech
• English Slogans
• English Letter Writing
• English Essay Writing
• English Textbook Answers
• Types of Certificates
• ICSE Solutions
• Selina ICSE Solutions
• ML Aggarwal Solutions
• HSSLive Plus One
• HSSLive Plus Two
• Kerala SSLC
• Distance Education

Exploring Imaginative Essay Topics for Students: Igniting Creativity and Expression

200words essay

In the realm of academia, essays serve as a vital tool for students to express their thoughts, analyze ideas, and demonstrate their understanding of various subjects. While essays often follow a structured format and are grounded in facts and research, imaginative essay topics provide a refreshing departure from the norm. These topics encourage students to unleash their creativity, explore their imagination, and delve into realms limited only by the boundaries of their minds.

The Importance of Imaginative Essay Topics

Imaginative essay topics offer numerous benefits to students beyond the typical academic exercise. They foster creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, which are essential attributes in today’s rapidly evolving world. By engaging with imaginative topics, students learn to think outside the box, consider multiple perspectives, and develop their unique voice and style of expression.

Inspiring Imaginative Essay Topics for Students

• A Journey Through Time: Imagine traveling back in time to a significant historical event. Describe your experiences and interactions with key figures of that era.
• Life on Another Planet: Create a narrative exploring life on a distant planet. What beings inhabit this world, and how do they interact with their environment?
• The Magic Library: You stumble upon a library filled with enchanted books. Each book transports you to a different realm or time period. Write about your adventures in this magical library.
• The Power of Dreams: Explore the idea of a world where dreams are tangible entities that shape reality. How do people harness the power of their dreams, and what consequences does it entail?
• The Secret Garden: Imagine discovering a hidden garden that holds the key to restoring balance to the natural world. Describe the garden’s wonders and the challenges faced in protecting it.
• The Quest for Immortality: Embark on a quest to uncover the secret of eternal life. What sacrifices are made along the way, and is immortality truly worth pursuing?
• Lost in Translation: Explore the concept of language barriers by imagining a world where communication is impossible. How do people connect and understand each other in this world?
• The Art of Invention: Invent a futuristic gadget or technology that revolutionizes society. Describe its functions, impact, and the ethical dilemmas it poses.
• Underwater Civilization: Dive into the depths of the ocean to discover a hidden civilization beneath the waves. Describe its inhabitants, culture, and the challenges they face in their underwater world.
• The Parallel Universe: Explore the existence of parallel universes and the idea of alternate realities. What similarities and differences exist between our world and these alternate dimensions?

Benefits of Exploring Imaginative Essay Topics

• Creativity: Imaginative essay topics encourage students to think creatively and develop original ideas. By exploring fantastical scenarios and unconventional concepts, students exercise their imagination muscles and hone their creative thinking skills.
• Critical Thinking: Engaging with imaginative topics requires students to analyze complex situations, consider multiple perspectives, and evaluate the implications of their ideas. This process fosters critical thinking skills essential for academic success and real-world problem-solving.
• Expression: Imaginative essays provide students with a platform to express themselves freely and explore their unique voice and style of writing. Whether through vivid descriptions, compelling narratives, or thought-provoking insights, students learn to communicate their ideas effectively and engage their readers.
• Empathy: Imaginative topics often involve exploring diverse characters, cultures, and perspectives. By immersing themselves in the shoes of others, students develop empathy and gain a deeper understanding of the human experience.
• Inspiration: Engaging with imaginative essay topics can spark inspiration and fuel a lifelong love of learning and creativity. Students may discover new interests, hobbies, or career paths as they explore the limitless possibilities of their imagination.

Imaginative essay topics offer students a unique opportunity to unleash their creativity, explore new worlds, and expand their horizons. By engaging with these topics, students develop essential skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and expression, which are invaluable assets in both academic and personal endeavors. So, the next time you’re tasked with writing an essay, dare to explore the realms of imagination and embark on an unforgettable journey of discovery and self-expression.

Written by 200words essay

Text to speech

Ideas for an Imaginative Essay

How to Write a Speculative Essay

Essay writing is a skill that helps students become more aware and expressive. They learn to follow directions, use their imaginations, formulate narratives and better understand the power of words. Expressing imaginations through different types of essays helps students become more creative and confident. Writing factual essays helps build powers of analysis, observation and discussion. Imaginative essays build students' skills of storytelling and presentation while they learn to experiment with styles and become more efficient with words.

Imaginative Essay Topics

One imaginative essay topics idea is the "leading line" which presents an image that can excite the imagination of the writer into thinking of a complete experience or context. For example, "I woke up in the dark to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door... " This line leads to a situation that can develop a scene or a narrative where the writer then imagines and writes down the outcome. The essay can be narrative or descriptive, but the use of imagination in the creation of sounds, visual details and evoking sensations and feelings makes it imaginative writing.

What-If Essays

This type of an essay topic invites the writer to imagine a situation that may or may not be possible, rational or realistic. For example imagining and writing about topics like "What if aliens invade the Earth?" or "What if I win a lottery?" are some options for the "what-if" essay. The writer imagines himself in the situation or context that is presented by the title and writes an imaginative piece detailing the effects or consequences of that experience.

The Single Image

A single image essay involves the writer imagining or looking at a singular image. The writer has to first imaginatively interpret the image itself and then think of a situation or story for the essay. For example, a single image might include "colors" or "the door" or "the box." With these images, the writer first develops an idea or context which can be either descriptive or narrative essay ideas. She then use her imagination to provide details in the essay. It is up to the writer to create a wild, traditional or unexpected essay.

Creative Writing Prompts

Using creative writing prompts to encourage more imaginative writing can include a variety of topics or titles that invite an imaginative interpretation, analysis and description. For example, prompts like "Where would you time travel" or "What will the world look like in a hundred years" invite writing about future, theoretical or hypothetical life that can lead to an imaginative story or description. The purpose with prompts is to take facts and mix them with fiction created purely out of the imagination. The result is an imaginative essay with the open-ended prompt allowing each student to create their own story.

Related Articles

What Is a Bridge Statement in English Homework?

What Is a High School Level Narrative Paragraph?

How to Set Up a Rhetorical Analysis

How to Write a Thesis Statement for "Robinson Crusoe"

List of Voice Types in Literature

How to Write a Controlling Idea Essay

How to Write an Introduction to an Analytical Essay

How to Change a Plain Sentence Into a Metaphor

• Butte College: Writing a Descriptive Essay
• Essay Pro: How to Write a Creative Essay
• Owlcation: How to Write a Visual Analysis Paper
• Take Lessons: 10 Crazy Writing Ideas You Might Not Have Thought Of

Laura Pru began writing professionally in 2007. She has written for Andovar and Signature Magazine among many other online publications. Pru has a Bachelor of Arts in film studies from University College Falmouth.

How to Write a Creative Essay: Your Fresh Guide

What Is a Creative Essay

Creative essay is a form of writing that combines elements of fiction, personal experience, and imagination.

Do you ever want to let your imagination loose in your school essays? Creative writing lets you do just that. It allows you to invent characters, places, and stories that might not exist in real life. This type of writing encourages you to play with words, structure, and style to stir emotions, provoke thoughts, or simply entertain your readers.

Unlike more formal writing like journalism or academic essays, creative writing is all about expressing yourself artistically. It gives you the freedom to showcase your personality through characters, stories, and plots that you create.

In this guide, our college essay writer will walk you through everything you need to know, from picking a great topic to putting your ideas down on paper. You'll find examples of creative essays, a template to help you organize your thoughts, and tips on how to make your writing more vivid and impactful.

How to Write a Creative Essay in 6 Steps

Let's go through the key steps for writing a creative essay. By breaking down the process into manageable parts, you'll find it more straightforward to develop engaging ideas and structure your essay effectively.

Meanwhile, check out our special article on how to write in cursive .

Write Freely

When you start writing, whether it's for essays or stories, it's best to sit down and jot down your first thoughts. Freewriting is a common technique among writers. It helps you start thinking and brainstorming ideas.

Freewriting does two main things:

• It keeps your ideas flowing so you don't forget any good ones.
• It improves your ability to write continuously for longer periods.

For essays, you can begin by writing the topic in the center of a page and then creating a mind map with any relevant ideas that come to mind. This can include different aspects of the topic you want to cover and examples or quotes you've come across.

Remember, this brainstorming session shouldn't take too long. Set a timer for about ten minutes, play your favorite music, and let your ideas flow naturally. This initial step is all about getting your thoughts out there without overthinking it.

Tell the Story in Three Parts

In storytelling, we often use a three-part structure: Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution. This approach is widely used in writing, movies, and TV shows. Unlike the acts in a play, these parts flow into each other seamlessly.

• Setup - Introduces the characters, their relationships, and the world they live in. Early on, there's usually an event called an 'inciting incident' (often around 19 minutes into a film) that sets the story in motion. The main character faces challenges and makes decisions that shape the rest of the narrative.
• Confrontation - The central problem emerges from the inciting incident, and the main character strives to resolve it. They encounter obstacles that test their abilities and resolve. For instance, in a detective story, this phase involves the detective uncovering clues and facing setbacks before reaching a breakthrough.
• Resolution - The story reaches its peak as the main conflict is confronted and resolved. Loose ends are tied up, and the characters' journeys conclude, leaving a sense of closure.

This structure helps writers build engaging narratives that keep audiences invested in the characters' journeys from start to finish.

Start with a Hook

In creative writing, it's often recommended to start with an exciting beginning. One good way is to begin with a 'conversation,' jumping straight into a lively talk to grab the reader's interest right away. For example, in a spy thriller, instead of easing into the story, the writer might open with agents arguing about a secret mission, setting the stage for suspense and excitement. The story could then unfold with more dialogue revealing the characters' motives and actions.

This method also works in essays, especially for certain topics. For instance, if you were writing about the ethical issues of cloning, rather than starting with a slow introduction to different viewpoints, you could begin with a conversation between scientists debating the consequences of cloning animals. Showing different opinions and ethical dilemmas through dialogue could engage readers and lead them into the broader discussion of bioethics and scientific advancements. This approach may not follow the usual essay structure, but it can make your writing more engaging and thought-provoking.

Add Rich Details

To keep your reader engaged, add vivid details about settings and locations, much like creative writers do. Essays can become dull if they only focus on academic concepts, but you can make them more captivating by including descriptive details.

While it can be challenging in essays with strict word limits or those focused on scientific topics, you can certainly incorporate relevant details in subjects like humanities, literature, theater, or history. For example, when analyzing a novel by Jane Austen, you might explore how societal expectations of the time shaped her portrayal of female characters.

By including these extra details and snippets of information, you not only maintain reader interest but also demonstrate your depth of understanding and independent study. This approach can impress your reader and potentially enhance your academic performance.

End Clearly

In creative writing, ambiguity can spark debate, but in essays, clarity is key. Unlike creative writing, in which open endings can be intriguing, essays require a clear conclusion.

Always ensure your essay concludes definitively. This shows your examiner what you've learned and your final answer to the essay question. Unlike creative writing, your goal is to demonstrate understanding and reach a clear conclusion to earn marks.

Make sure your conclusion is straightforward and easy to locate. With many essays to assess, clarity helps your teacher quickly identify your final thoughts. Avoid ambiguity or vague language, which can frustrate readers, including your examiner.

Revise and Improve

Most writers don't nail it on the first try. Editing is crucial, especially when trimming down your word count. It can be tough to cut out sections you've crafted carefully.

After completing your first draft, read through it critically. Consider the order of your points and ensure everything makes sense. With modern technology, editing is easier—you can rearrange sections by copying and pasting and refining your wording for smooth transitions. Once you've made these edits, give your essay a final read-through to polish the wording. Don't overlook proofreading to catch any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Outline for Creative Writing Essay

Here is an outline that will help you structure your creative writing essay, whether it's a poem, a personal essay, a short story, or a speech.

Types of Creative Essays 

Creative writing comes in many forms, each a great way to tell stories and express yourself. Here are 5 main types:

• Poetry uses short, powerful words to describe feelings, thoughts, and experiences. It can rhyme and have a beat or be more free-flowing. Poets play with language to create strong emotions and ideas, capturing moments in special ways.
• Personal essays mix memories, reflections, and stories to explore a person's experiences and what they learned. Unlike school essays, they focus on the writer's unique voice, using stories and thoughts to tell a narrative. They can be about almost anything, giving readers a glimpse into the writer's mind and feelings with the goal of connecting through shared experiences.
• Short stories can be very short or complete stories, but they have a word limit. This challenges writers to create interesting characters, plots, and settings using concise storytelling. Short stories come in all sorts of genres, like realistic fiction or fantasy, and aim to build suspense and give a satisfying ending in a short space.
• Novels are longer fictional works with complex characters, plots, and settings. They can be literary fiction, science fiction, romance, mysteries, or anything else, offering in-depth stories that unfold over many chapters. Writing novels requires planning and a strong understanding of storytelling to keep readers engaged with vivid worlds and compelling narratives.
• Speeches are written to be spoken aloud, with the goal of informing, inspiring, persuading, or entertaining listeners. They can be formal addresses or informal talks and use special writing techniques along with storytelling elements. Speechwriting is about crafting messages that resonate with listeners' emotions and minds, using stories and anecdotes to capture their attention and hold their interest.

20 Creative Essay Topics 

Before putting yourself into creative essay writing, you should pick among the creative writing essay topics that you will be talking about. Here, our paper writer prepared some fresh ideas to make your choice easier:

• Write about a time you overcame a challenge. What did you learn from the experience?
• Imagine you can talk to animals. What would you ask your pet?
• Describe a place that brings back special memories. What makes it so special?
• Create a story about a forgotten object. Where did it come from? Who used it?
• Write a letter to your future self. What are your hopes and dreams?
• If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Why?
• Imagine a world without technology. How would your life be different?
• What is the most important lesson you've learned in life so far?
• Describe a dream you'll never forget. What do you think it means?
• Write a story about a character who is very different from you.
• What historical figure do you find most interesting? Why?
• Create a dialogue between two unlikely characters.
• Imagine you could travel anywhere in the universe. Where would you go? Why?
• Write a story about a robot who wants to be human.
• What does friendship mean to you?
• Describe a work of art that you find moving. Why does it affect you?
• What is your favorite thing about nature? Why?
• Imagine you are invisible for a day. What would you do?
• Write a story about a creature from myth or legend.
• What do you think the future holds for humanity?

Need Some Creative Writing Help?

Choose your personal paper writer on our service and check it out!

Example of a Creative Essay

If you liked these samples, you can buy essays online from us. Our authors will write them flawlessly and deliver them within the specified timeframe. Additionally, you can find helpful information on a book review format in our dedicated article.

Wrapping Up

We hope you now understand what a creative essay is and how to write one. Some people find writing creative essays easier than others. By applying the tips mentioned above, you should be well-equipped to create work that you're proud of.

If you need extra guidance, consider working with our expert coursework writers . They have developed numerous academic essays with professionalism. Place an order today and experience our dedication firsthand!

Are You Short on Creative Writing Topics?

Whether you need a compelling personal statement, a thought-provoking argumentative essay, or a captivating narrative, we've got you covered.

If you feel like some questions were left unanswered, don't you feel disappointed just yet! Our dissertation writers for hire compiled the most frequently asked question on creative essay writing, so take a look for additional information:

What Are the 7 Types of Creative Writing?

What are the 5 c's of creative writing, is creative writing a skill.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• Added new examples, topics and FAQs
• Added new writing steps and an outline
• 7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays. (2014, June 21). Oxford Royale Academy. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/techniques-creative-writing-improve-essays/  
• (2023). Oxfordsummercourses.com. https://oxfordsummercourses.com/articles/creative-writing-techniques-to-improve-your-essays/  

25 Creative Writing Prompts

by Melissa Donovan | Oct 23, 2018 | Creative Writing Prompts | 236 comments

Twenty-five creative writing prompts to inspire and motivate you.

Don’t you just hate writer’s block? Some say it’s a disease that only creative workers succumb to. Some say it’s a curse. Others argue that it doesn’t exist at all. But just about everyone has been there–sitting in front of a blank screen, fingers itching to create a masterpiece. And nothing happens.

For me, the most bizarre thing about writer’s block is that it strikes randomly. Most of the time, I’m overwhelmed with more ideas than I can possibly write about. But then I’ll sit down to write and my mind goes blank. Sure, I flip through my notebooks and review all the ideas I’ve stockpiled, but nothing feels right. I want something fresh. I need a new angle.

To help break through this block, I started turning to creative writing prompts. And then I started making up my own prompts. The result:  1200 Creative Writing Prompts ,  a book designed to spark ideas for writers.

Creative Writing Prompts

Today I’d like to share a mash-up of creative writing prompts, all of which come from  1200 Creative Writing Prompts . There are no rules. Write a poem. Write a short story. Write an essay. Aim for a hundred words or aim for a hundred thousand. Just start writing, and have fun.

• The protagonist is digging in the garden and finds a fist-sized nugget of gold. There’s more where that came from in this hilarious story of sudden wealth.
• Write a poem about something ugly—war, fear, hate, or cruelty—but try to find the beauty (silver lining) in it or something good that comes out of it.
• An asteroid and a meteoroid collide near Earth, and fragments rain down onto the planet’s surface, wreaking havoc. Some of those fragments contain surprising elements: fossils that prove life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, for example.
• The story starts when a kid comes out of the school bathroom with toilet paper dangling from his or her waistband. Does someone step forward and whisper a polite word, or do the other kids make fun? What happens in this pivotal moment will drive the story and have a deep impact on the main character.
• Revisit your earliest memories of learning about faith, religion, or spirituality.
• Use all of the following words in a poem: bit, draw, flex, perilous, bubble, corner, rancid, pound, high, open.
• Write a poem about a first romantic (dare I say sexual?) experience or encounter.
• Write a personal essay describing an exotic animal you’d like to have as a pet.
• Silvery flakes drifted downward, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon. The blackbird soared.
• Write a tongue-in-cheek, satirical tribute. Tell bad drivers, rude customers, and evil dictators how grateful you are for what they’ve done. Do it with a wink and a smile.
• Write a story about a detective solving a crime that was committed against his or her partner or a crime that his or her partner committed.
• Three children are sitting on a log near a stream. One of them looks up at the sky and says…
• There is a magic talisman that allows its keeper to read minds. It falls into the hands of a young politician.
• We’ve seen cute and cuddly dragons, mean and vicious dragons, and noble dragons. Write a story about a different kind of dragon.
• Use all of the following words in a poem: dash, hard, staple, billboard, part, circle, flattened.
• Write a story set in the distant future when humanity is at a fork in the evolutionary road. Some humans are evolving; others are not.
• The kids were raised on the mantra “Family is everything.” What happens when they find out their parents aren’t who they pretended to be? Will the family fall apart?
• Write a poem about one (or both) of your parents. It could be a tribute poem, but it doesn’t have to be.
• Turn ordinary animals into monsters that prey on humans: dog-sized rats, killer rabbits, or a pack of rabid mountain lions. Give the animals intelligence and set them loose.
• A twinkling eye can mean many things. Write a poem about a twinkle in someone’s eye.
• What determines an action or person as good or evil? Who gets to decide what or who is good or evil? Write a personal essay about it.
• Write a poem about your body.
• The protagonist is about to drift off to sleep only to be roused by the spontaneous memory of an embarrassing moment from his or her past.
• Write about the happiest day of your life.
• Use all of the following words in a poem: feast, fire, modify, squash, robbed, forgotten, understated.

Now It’s Your Turn

Did any of these prompts inspire you? Do you ever use creative writing prompts to ignite a writing session? Tell us what gets your pen moving by leaving a comment, and keep writing!

To get more prompts like these, pick up a copy of  1200 Creative Writing Prompts   today.

236 Comments

Melissa, Wow, there’s something about this list that feels like a lightbulb went off! There are times when I feel stuck, like ideas aren’t there. And this list really shines what can be…limitless possibilities!

26. If my life were a cartoon… 27. Pick two crayons at random. What thoughts/feelings do two color stir up in you?

Ah, I love the feeling of a light bulb illuminating my mind! Thanks for adding to the list!

what about… That spark which seemed like a star, when it approached closer, my lips went white and body shivering despite the fact I knew I was placed in a desert – by them- and the sun shone directly above my head. Then at a distance of 1m probably, I got the sight of…

Thanks for sharing these.

If you have children, visualize one of them running the house for a day.

That’s a good one. Kids running the house…how very Dr. Seuss! Cat in the Hat without the cat, hehee.

Ooh, great prompts! Thanks for sharing these!

Thanks! Glad you like them!

A day in the life of a doormat

The adventures of a shooting star

Making friends with my enemy

Ooh, interesting! Thanks, Fouzia.

Hi Melissa,

Bought 3 of your books. 1. 101 Creative Writing Excercises 2.10 Core Practices For Better Writing and 3. 1,200 Creative Writing Prompts.

I decided to start with 1,200 Creative Writing Prompts.

So far, I have written 4 stories from the prompts. I guess I want to enquire as to whether I need to go through each prompt. Thank you

Wow, Kevin, thanks for getting three of my books. I truly appreciate that. You can use the prompts in any way that is comfortable for you. No, you do not have to go through each and every prompt. I encourage you to skip around, flip through book, and find prompts that inspire. I hope you have fun with it! Thanks again.

When I took my creative writing class in college the instructor gave us a really good one to use if we couldn’t think of what to write. She said to write the word Remember 3 times and that would prompt something. The entire class tried it and it worked and I have used it several times since then!

I like the use of remember . There are a lot of words that help people when they can’t think of anything to write about. Maybe I should do a list of single-word prompts. Hmm…

Wow. I was COMPLETELY stuck and this brought back a great story for me to write about, though only faintly attached to any memory of mine. Thanks!

That’s great, Camille! Good luck with your story!

I like to use the question “what would happen if …. ”

What would happen if your husband retired and your kid left home and you’re getting older? -> ” Always Faithful”

What would happen if a person moved back home to care for a relative after decades of living far away? -> “The Way Home”

What would happen if a person who has been divorced and alone for a long time suddenly met the most perfect mate imaginable … but it turns out the person may not be what she appears to be? -> “Baiting and Fishing”

In a way, I think “What Would Happen If…” is my novelist version of my favorite childhood game, “Let’s pretend that…..”

“What if” is the best creative writing prompt ever! You can apply it to just about any situation. Just look at any movie, book, or even real life and start asking, “What if things happened a little differently?” or “What if this person made a different decision?” Asking these questions can take your writing in all kinds of new and interesting directions! It’s great fun.

I love these. Here’s one:

“She was drifting off to sleep when there was a sharp knock at the door . . . “

Ooh, I like that one.

Fabulous list. I’ve been brainstorming all morning with no luck, and so I came online and VOILA, here you are. Loved the list, especially 22.

I’ve created several interesting works using my personal favourite “things to do on a rainy day”. I usually write from the perspective of a child, but rarely myself as a child. This one just opens up so many possibilities for make beleive!

Thanks, Melanie! Glad this list helped you in a time of need. My favorite “things to do on a rainy day” story is The Cat in the Hat . Of course, it’s a “day when mom’s away” rather than a “rainy day,” but it’s pretty much the same idea. Keep writing!

these are very great… i got this one off of True Jackson VP.. spin around and the first thing you see will give you an idea..

i just did this and i saw flowers…

i’m writing about “you are walking through a field with your best friend.. you spot a flower and pick it up.. it gives you super powers…

Ah, a flower that gives one super powers. I love that idea! You should definitely run with it!

I love True Jackson VP! Cool that you got an idea from it! 🙂

You’re suggestion really helped! Im doing imaginative writing for homework and I was so stuck but I’ve found the right one now!!

That’s awesome, Grace! Keep writing.

ooh those are cool… how about: He cradled her, taking in all of her burdens as he swept her hair back from her face and stroked her cheek in a gentle calming motion.

I do creative writing as an A level so it would be cool to know if this starter is ok! ty xoxo

Catherine, I think that’s a great starter line, especially for a romantic story or poem! My only suggestion would be the part “gentle calming motion.” There might be one too many adjectives there. If you keep both adjectives, be sure to add a comma after the first one: “gentle, calming motion.” Nice job!

A young man attempts to pull a robbery of some kind on an older man. Things go drastically wrong for the young man. Either viewpoint!

Either viewpoint, or both, could work!

what if the old man was a retired super spy and the young robber is homeless and broke. he tells this to the old man and the man trains him to be a good spy and lets the young robber live with him. then the old man gets the young robber a job as a spy and then they both find out that the retired spy is the young robbers father and the mother ran away while she was pregnant to go be with some rich guy but the rich guy killed the mother and the young robber has been living on the streets since he was 10.

Heres a gorgeous one! Write a story in the POV of a flower being given from person 2 person.

Interesting!

Wow! These are great, thanks for putting these up. I’m 12 and I really want to be a novelist when I grow up. One of my favourites is: the empty glass. It’s a bit over-used but I think that it’s so versatile, it doesn’t matter if it’s popular because you can take it in so many different directions!

That’s great, Katie! You’re off to an early start. Just stay focused and passionate, and you’ll become a novelist if that’s what you truly want. Good luck to you!

Katie, It is never too young to start living your dreams. Don’t ever let anyone get you down. Keep on writing and believe in yourself that one day you will make it! Best of luck!

I couldn’t agree more, AJ!

I’m 11 and everyone thinks I am a good writer and I love to write so much!

That’s wonderful, Maria. Keep writing!

I’m 16 and i wrote a great alternate ending for an assignment in english, and i wrote a short christmas story on christmas eve, but now i just don’t know what to write about. i have ideas and i have been reading prompts that are good but i just don’t know.

Kristi, give the prompts a try. There are also lots of writing exercises that you can use to spark writing sessions when you’re feeling uninspired. The trick is to write something (anything) rather than sit around waiting for something to write about.

Hi! I am 14 and just wanted to do some creative writing, but could not think of anything to write about. Thank you so much for the ideas! I will definitely be using some.

You’re so welcome! Good luck with your writing!

I’m 14 and writing is my whole life. I recently started a blog with my friend, but she’s not a writer. She just inspires me with ideas and stuff. I love your site, Melissa. I check it almost every day. Your prompts and tips are so completely helpful! Thanks so much!

Thank you! I appreciate your kind words.

I’m fourteen, too, and writing is hard to juggle with school and everything else that’s going on. I know – such a teenager-y thing to say…but true nonetheless. I just wanted to say thank you for posting these prompts because they make for quick, satisfying writing that doesn’t end in frustration (at least, mostly). Thanks again!

Writing is hard to juggle at any age. It takes a lot of perseverance, but if you stick with it, you’ll succeed. Good luck to you, and keep on writing!

Im also fourteen and i love to write! i have won a national competition 2 years in a row and i never dreamed i would have won or anything but that just goes to show that youre never too young to write! Just keep believing in yourself and who knows where you might go!

I am thrilled when young people are so passionate about writing (or any craft, really). Congratulations on your success!

One good place to find good story prompts are the obituaries of a large newspaper. One true example: from the Arizona Republic years ago, an elderly gentleman got hit by a motorist one a late, rainy afternoon as he was crossing the street. He had been an immigrant from Norway, and had been a professor at ASU, and was retired and in his 80’s when he died. I have always imagined what his life had been, what he had experienced, etc.

Yes, newspapers are packed with story ideas!

Write a story from the perspective of a sock being separated from its twin in the laundry.

That would make a great children’s story.

a person went to the football stadium and was wearing manu shirt and came out with a barcalona shirt.why???

Well, I have no idea, but this certainly makes a good writing prompt!

I love these!! 😀 Here are a few I made: *Make up your own recipes for your favorite foods *Create your own list of idioms *Write stories of idioms literally happening *Write about something blue *What’s your idea of a perfect vacation? *List what you fear. pick a few and write how they came, why, and when you got the fear first *What would you say to an univited guest at your party *Draw a picture of the setting around you. Now look into your inner being. What do you truly feel? *Write from the point of view of a stack of paper waiting a few inches from the shredder *Her laugh broke the silence…

These are great! Thank you for adding them to the list.

By the way, I’m 11, love writing, and hope to publish fiction teen/children books one day

I wish you the best of luck! You have a head start, being such a young writer. Stick with it!

Lovarsnari,that’s kinda funny because l think the same thing! 🙂 My prob is that l start writing with great ideas,get stuck, and then start a new story/play….

same except that I’m 13 and mix my writing with my guitar playing and music

Well when i get stuck I like to think: What would I do if I were to die in a week? Once I picked everything and it turned quite an interesting story…

That’s a good one!

Hey I’m 14 years old and I love writing but I get writers block often and this really helped me. I love reading the ideas and other people’s ideas they are just very interesting. Number 19 seemed the most interesting to me and I’m almost done with my story. 🙂 thanks so much

Thanks, Violet. I often find that prompts and exercises can be used in different ways. You don’t always have to do the actual exercise. Sometimes, just reading through a book of exercises will generate ideas for a project I’m working on or help me understand a writing concept in a new way. Good luck with your story!

Hi Melissa 🙂 Last year i won junior writer of the year ( I’m 13) and I am entering this year as well and in the process of creating my first draft. I love your site and its wonderful, all-inclusive feel. So, here are my ideas for your list.

26. Post-War oppression & depression ( this was my winning topic last year – i wrote it from the perspective of a scarred war veterans’ emotionally abused child) I also commend you in your point concerning finding hope and light in darkness ( war, death, etc.) and i am going to write about that! Possibly with an Amish girl as the protagonist? thank you again for inspiring me. I also hope to be a great writer some day. Bee

Congratulations, Bee, and thanks for adding to these prompts. I wish you the best of luck in becoming a great writer. You are certainly well on your way!

POV of a toy sitting on a shelf in a toy store, hoping to be purchased.

your pet starts talking to you in perfect english and tells you what he/she really thinks of you…. what does he/she say?

Ha! That could be enlightening indeed!

I actually saw an animated short based on that premise (or something similar to it) and found it quite compelling. A great idea!

My contribution:

“When I look in the mirror, I don’t see what everyone else sees. What I see is…”

Nice! Thanks for adding this prompt, Nick.

My college English teacher gave my class this prompt. First Line: John closed his eyes. Last Line: It was a good day for the yellow crocuses. Anything in between. I easily made five pages with that prompt. Have fun guys.

Thanks for sharing that prompt, Jessy. It’s a good one.

Im a 17 year old living in the most secluded area of Kentucky, unfortunately. lol My dream is to pursue a career in filmmaking, my goal is to help people who are confused or unsure about life and what they want to do with their oppourtunity of life. I want people to think and find happiness in their lives by doing something they love. My idea of doing this came from being in a depressed state from the past few years as a teen and felt strong enough to overcome it without professional help which is progressing for the good. I found setting goals is a great strategy to stay focused and optimistic about life. I appreciate your time for reading this and if there is any advice you could influence me with id appreciate that as well. Thanks

It’s wonderful that you have set your sights on a clear career path at such a young age. Filmmaking is awesome! I sometimes wish I had taken up an interest in film or photography. The best advice I can offer is to never give up, stay focused, and pursue your goals with heart and soul. I would also advise studying film at college, if you can. The film industry is notoriously networked and you’ll benefit greatly by making friends and acquaintances who share your interest. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for taking the time to reply, it’s very much appreciated and yes im going to film school out in LA next year.

Hi! I am 13 and have been writing since I was 7 or younger, and I am in love with writing. I am a very dedicated author and I have finished books in the past (about 11 or 12) but now I can’t seem to get into any longer stories! I write more short stories now, but it’s not satisfying anymore…and then, when I come up with a new idea, it’s useless, and my brain gets all cluttered! Help!

It sounds like you’re having trouble staying focused. The first (and most important) thing that can help with that is to stay healthy: eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. You may also need to break up your writing with other activities. Make sure you read regularly! For the time being, maybe you need to write short stories. I’m not sure you need to fight it.

thank you for the advice! 🙂

You are most welcome!

Hello 🙂 I am 17 and doing my HSC this year. I am attempting (unsuccessfully) to write a creative writing piece as practice for my exams, and thank you so much for these, they’re really helpful 🙂 I am not a writer (and never will be), but these have given me some great ideas that I can hopefully use to increase my writing skills for my exams. So thank you very much 🙂

You are very welcome, Emily, and best of luck on your exams.

I’ve found that this list, and peoples comments/ideas have been quite inspiring. I’m 21 and haven’t been in school for a few years and I have that desire to write, but never knew how to get started. I thank you all for these wonderful ideas and I’m hoping that writing will be a good outlet for me and my struggle with depression.

So really I’m just thanking you all 🙂

You’re welcome, Nicole, and thank you for joining in the discussion. Writing is a great way to work through emotions; I wish you the best of luck!

These are great!!!! My favourite starter would definetly have to be: “Sometimes a girl just has to run. Sometimes our feet take over. This was one of those times”

I think it holds a lot of suspense but it could also be happy and bright, like a sports day or carnival. Thanks for adding these, I am going to try to write a story for each one.

I’m not sure where that starter comes from, but it sounds good to me.

Hi! Thanks so much for these prompts. I especially like number two, because I feel like a little bit of positive thinking can go a long way. 🙂

I have a question, too, if you don’t mind.

What is your opinion on fanfictions? I know some creative writers don’t like them and feel they corrupt a series, while others think it’s a great creative exercise.

Thanks so much!

I think fan fiction is a great way for young and new writers to explore the craft. Some copyright holders are extremely strict about allowing fan fiction to be published. Others will actually develop and publish collections of fan fiction. There are also franchises in which fan fiction is encouraged. One of my all-time favorite writers, TV and film writer Damon Lindelof, said in a recent interview that he started out writing fan fiction. Now he’s writing for Ridley Scott and working on the Star Trek films as a fan-fic professional! It’s definitely an avenue worth pursuing if it interests you.

I’m fifteen and I want to write a book before the end of highschool. The problem is I can’t finish what I’ve started. I always find a “better” idea and write about that and the cycle begins again. Please help me!!!

The only way to finish what you’ve started is to simply finish it. When “better” ideas present themselves, make a note and file those ideas away for a future project. Part of being a writer involves developing self-discipline. I recommend setting up a reward system. For example, you have to work on the novel for 20 minutes before you can call or text your friends after school. Or you have to finish a scene before you go out to see a movie. These are self-imposed rewards, so you have to discipline yourself. Nobody else can do it for you.

You might also look into participating in NaNoWriMo. The timing is great because it starts in just a few weeks. That means you’ll have some time to prepare and check it out. Then you can write your novel in November, leaving plenty of time afterwards for you to clean it up (edit, proof, polish).

Finally, if you’re truly committed to writing, start looking at schools with good creative writing programs and plan to study at college. University instructors are quite helpful in teaching students self-discipline and good writing habits and practices.

Best of luck to you, Art!

Hi! Your prompts and the comments have really helped me! I can’t wait to start some stories from them:) Here are a couple that I’ve come up with: The Bell sounded. Workers froze in their places… Kay frowned as she opened her school locker after school. Down the hall, Alexis and Christine exchanged grins…

That’s great, Alyssa. Keep up the good work!

These are fantastic! I’m also 21 and have been out of school for awhile. I used to write all the time when I was in school but not so much these days. These ideas are really going to help once I get started writing again. I’m attempting to set a goal for myself. An hour a day, just writing whatever I want. Just to get me back in the habit.

Thank you so much!!!

One prompt my creative writing teacher in high school gave the class was “It was a smile that darkness could kill…”

That’s wonderful! An hour a day is enough to produce quite a bit of writing. I wish you the best of luck, Ashlee!

Obviously it is now 2011 haha, but these are great!! I have wanted to write a novel for quite some time but I can’t seem to get the creative juices flowing. So I set out on a quest across the World Wide Web and I am finding some amazing ideas!! Thank you so much for this website I look forward to writing now instead of despairing of that dreaded cursor blinking me to oblivion!!

I hope your quest for inspiration is fruitful! And keep writing!

I’ve just been inspired to start a personal blog full of my own creative writing, with the assistance of some of these wonderful writing prompts (both yours, and the ones left in the comment section). Thank you, thank you, thank you.

That’s wonderful! Blogs have been a boon for writers, and I think more writers should take advantage of the technology. I wish you the best of luck with your blog, Emily.

Hi, I’m 17. I started creative writing when I was about 10 or 11. I found myself writing more and more when I was troubled a few years back, so it was good stress relief for me. But now that I’m busy with college, I realize that I haven’t been writing as much as I used to. I reread some of my old work and I thought “Hey, why not? I’ll give it a try for old times’ sake.”

I was a bit confused with where to start off, but these prompts really got my creative juices flowing. After I post this comment, I think I’ll try one or two of them and see how far it takes me. Thanks for the inspiration. 🙂

I’m so glad that these prompts inspired you, Christi. I think many writers go through phases when they drift away from the craft, but when you’re called back to it, that might be a sign. Follow it and keep writing!

In my junior year of high school, we were given a creative writing assignment to expand on this sentence:

“A person walked into the room, looked around, sat down, and ate.”

That’s a great prompt. It would certainly be interesting to see what a whole classroom of people come up with. I imagine each piece of writing would be quite different from the others, even though they are all based on the same premise. Thanks for sharing it, Alli.

Here’s a prompt! Prop open the door. I can actually see my breathe tonight. But that doesnt mean im breathing.

Ooh, sounds like a zombie, robot, or vampire story.

These writing ideas helped a lot thank you. I really want to go to a creative writing school when I get older. One idea which I just came up with is Write from the perspective of your fish.( does each fish have there own personality, how does each fish react to the different members of the house, what is it like to be a fish) 😛 I hope you like I write often mostly stories with a more poetic base, but once in a while i will feel in the mood to write some thing different. Oh also try continuing after this sentence. Its eyes gleamed pitch black death, creeping into imaginary, azure skies. now continue it :3

Thanks for sharing your prompt, Samantha, and good luck to you!

For school, I have to enter a creative writing competition. I have two days and i was really panicking but then i found this website! It really helped! Thankyou Writing Forward!!

Hannah, I’m so glad you found help and inspiration here. Thank you!

Lately I’ve been trying to write a lot like Sarah Dessen! Were doing stories in class and I’m doin one about a girl who runs away, it starts out “I’m on the run! I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ll end up, but I’m not turning back!” 🙂 Do you like it?

I do like your opening line. It certainly grabs the reader’s attention and rouses curiosity. Nice job.

Thank you so much!!!! This got me over my terrible case of writer’s block. But now my muse is back!

Wow, thanks, Maria. That’s awesome!

I just want to say that this list of prompts has inspired me to take on a challenge of using one every day up until xmas on my blog… or at least until the end of the month!

Thanks for the great list 🙂

That’s awesome, Julz. Good luck with your December writing!

I haven’t tried it yet, but I think a fun way to mix these up even more would be to choose one of these, then draw the name of an author out of a hat, then write that prompt in the style of that author. That would really stretch your creativity.

That’s an excellent exercise and would definitely be challenging. You’d have to be deeply familiar with the author’s voice.

I have found these prompts really helpful for the English lessons that I teach.

Many thanks.

That’s great, Cass. I love the idea of these prompts helping students with reading and writing.

i have learnt English as a second language…writing is my passion…this page is REALLY inspiring!thanks for evoking our creative faculties… i want to suggest some topics and the list goes as: 1The beast in me 2Daily journal of a pair of shoes which is in the process of its making 3What the world be if gender roles get changed 4What if i were in the shoes of my English teacher 5How things at the high school are going to be if the concept of beauty gets altered altogether 6It is said that writing is all about pouring your mind on a piece of paper but what it your pen literally starts articulating your thoughts and you end up writing EVERRRRYTHING(What consequences are you going to face)

Thanks for adding your ideas to these prompts!

I haven’t tried the prompts yet but I have always wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old. However ever since graduating and entering the real world I find my muse being choked to death by the responsibility at home. I’ve had to give up my dream of writing for the past two years. I tried taking it up again and was drawing a huge blank, but just by reading a few of these prompts I’ve felt my muse start to breathe. Thank you!

Hi Rochelle. I remember graduating and entering the real world, and I had a similar experience. All of a sudden I just didn’t have the time or inspiration. It took a while, but I adjusted and my creativity returned. I’m so glad you found these prompts helpful!

I found like 5 great writing prompts thank u so much

You are so welcome!

you thought dragoons unicorns and monsters didnt exist? think again! write story of your pet unicorn

That’s a cute idea!

Thank you for these, I am a writer waiting to hear if a publisher is going to publish my novel. Waiting is so hard and my mind has gone blank. These help to stir the jucies again. I’m hand writing them in a note book and taking them with me when I’m out, to write on the go. When I have to wait for a kid to get to the car I can write and not have to figure out how to start a story. So thank you. so much.

That’s awesome. What is it about being in a car or shower that makes us more creative? I always get ideas in those two locations!

thanks sooo much! those were super helfull! you have the most helpfull website ive found! and i’m a picky writer! THANKYOU!!!

Thanks, Anna.

here are some more ideas: you inherit 1 million dollars your backpack grows wings on the way to school a zombie invasion stikes your small/big town a kidnapper captures you … hope these help 🙂

Thanks, Ebony!

Hey! These prompts really helped and I can’t wait to use some 🙂 I have started with the one about twinklling eyes and turned it into a story about creatures similar to werewolves XD

Sounds interesting, Molly! Good luck with your story, and keep writing!

My English teacher says she doesn’t believe in writer’s block. I on the other hand am not so sure. Sometimes I sit in the afternoon and stare out the window, unable to come up with anything good but I find that ideas flow like crazy at two in the morning with a cup of coffee in my left hand. That’s always my best remedy, though writing prompts like these always help me get going. Thanks for sharing 🙂

Some prompts:

10 things I hate about… What’s the recipe for those wonderful _______ muffins you baked last night? (Try filling that blank with ‘unicorn’.)

I believe in writer’s block, but I think that it’s presented as being unable to write whereas usually it’s just a case of needing to work a little harder at writing. Sometimes, we need to stop procrastinating, stop trying to force our ideas, or we just need to allow ourselves to write badly for a while. I believe there are ideas everywhere; the trick is to keep ourselves open to them and be willing to explore them. Having said all that, writer’s block still sucks. I’m like you, Maluly, the ideas flow like crazy at two in the morning (no coffee required!).

i dont believe in writiers block.. i think its more like an exuse to hide what we really want to write or say. Like sometimes peoploe wonder if it will be good enough so they put it off or they dont want people who read it to know something.. its all about the way you look at it i guess. Write what you feel. Write whatever you want. I love writing but i find myself wondering will this be good enough? What would someone think if they read it? Maybe thats just me. no self esteem… but, low selfesteem is what keeps creativity hidden…. my advice.. to everyone is to just go for it. if its not good try again you’ll get better(:

I agree: just go for it.

Thanks for these! I definitely believe in writer’s block!! In fact, I am just emerging from what I like to call writer’s ‘droubt’, since it lasted at least a year. But I don’t think you need to be blocked to use prompts. They are great exercises and get you to try new ways of writing. And sometimes, when I get burned out with the story I’m currently writing, it helps to focus on something completely different for a while, and you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Here are some prompts that I came up with and they helped me out: 1) ‘It all started with the cat…’ 2) ‘Have you ever seen something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turned to look, found nothing there? You dismiss it as an illusion, a trick of the light. You’re wrong…’ 3) Write something from the perspective of a ghost. 4) Write something using the five senses EXCEPT sight (hearing, smell, touch, taste) 5) Instead of using first or third person, write with second person point-of-view (in other words, use ‘you’ instead of ‘he/she’ or ‘I’. Or try writing in present or even future tense, instead of past tense.

Oh yeah, and one more: 6) Write something from the perspective of the BAD guy, instead of the hero

I love when stories do this! Thanks for adding it, CJM.

These are excellent prompts, especially well suited for speculative fiction writers. My favorite is the prompt about seeing something out of the corner of your eye (that happens to me sometimes!). Thanks for adding these.

Here’s one for those of you who have pets What do your pets do when you and other inhabitants of your house are not at home?

Ooh, that’s a good one, Lily. That could be great for a children’s story!

Thank you SO much for these exciting writing prompts! They really inspire me. I have one idea for a prompt: Write about a conversation that you would have if were stuck in an elevator with a celebrity or famous book character.

You’re welcome, Arieda. I love your elevator prompt! You could also do it with characters from your novel as a test to see how each would behave in an elevator with a celebrity. That could tell you a lot about your characters. Good one!

Lovely ideas, both of these! Arieda, that prompt gave me a short story idea, one that I’m pretty excited about, and I’m definitely going to have to do that with all my characters now, Melissa. 🙂 I thought up another twist on this prompt that intrigues me: Your characters get stuck in an elevator with you, their author. How do they react when they discover who you are and that you control their destinies? What sort of conversations would you have? Would you like interacting with your character? Would your character like you?

Hannah, I love your prompt idea. What a fun writing exercise: The Character Meets the Author. That’s quite brilliant!

Thank you so much for these, I’m trying to write a book…and I’ve been at a stand still lately, so this will help me more than ever.

You’re welcome, Alexis. I’m glad you found these prompts helpful.

Hi Ms. Donovan! thank you so much for the writing prompts! i’ve been using them for all my english creative writing assignments. it’s been my dream to be a writer since i was little. although i find it hard to write mysteries. ironically it’s my favorite genre to read though. any advice on how to get started on a good mystery?

I myself haven’t written mysteries, although I have read a few. My suggestion would be to read as many mysteries as you can, and watch mystery films and television shows, so you thoroughly know your genre (you should still read other stuff too!). Study the greats and ideas will come to you!

Wow i have writers block i have my charecter but i dont know what the problem is…… help any good title ideas?

When I’m stuck and can’t come up with a character or a title, I just skip it. The important thing is to keep writing. You can always come back later and add names and titles. Here’s how I do it:

GIRL said that there was no way out but OLD LADY knew otherwise…

I use all caps for characters who don’t have names yet. Many writers use a “working title” as they are developing their project. A working title can be anything. It’s just temporary.

You’ll find that as you work on your project (and if you work around these little setbacks), ideas will come to you. Good luck!

Awesome post:) Thanks so much, really helped! have a great day! Peace-Jeff

Thanks, Jeff!

A prompt could be : She started to fall over and _________( fill in the blank) picked her up.

or : The alien gaze stared from above the fence , and I blushed in embarrassment.

100 words about your favorite animal

a short story about a difficult topic like : war , famine , bullying .etc

a poem about the weather

Hi Melody! Thanks for adding your prompts to this ever-growing list!

Your prompts are definitely creative and helpful, but what I’m most impressed with is how you respond so positively and encouragingly to everyone who replied to this. Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of encouragement or approval from even a complete stranger to shift a young writers thought from maybe being able to do something to just doing it. I haven’t written in months, and are still my having any real luck, but I know I will write again someday, and I just thought it should be mentioned that you are a good person for encouraging others to do what they love. Best of luck to you…

Thank you so much, Shannon. Your words mean a lot to me. I try to be an advocate for writers and encourage young and new writers to explore their ideas and find their voices. I believe the world would be a better place if we all followed our passions, and more importantly, encouraged others to do so as well.

“Conundrum”

The little girl cries with a lie on her lips The girl can’t remember her name The little boy’s laugh rings with hollow self-doubt The little girl feels just the same A little dog lost in the thick of the woods A little man sick with dismay A little boy born in the arms of the girl A little life born from a day A little death born from an ignorant choice A little boy crying away And a little God laughs at the sight of it all For this little herd has not a say

Thanks for sharing your poem with us, Conner. Keep writing!

It’s the first time that i’m gonna be doing an inter-school creative writing competition, and i found these prompts really helpful! Thanks a billion!

You’re welcome!

Really like the prompts! It was really helpful! My brother and I are always gonna use this website! I <3 it!

Thanks! I’m glad you like it here 🙂

Thanks Melissa for the writing prompts. I asked my students to develop their writing skill through these useful prompts. By the way, I have published my first fiction ‘Faith No More’. I’d be extremely glad if you could manage to read any of it and provide me with feedback.

Hi Afshin. Thanks for sharing these prompts with your students. Requests for feedback should be sent via email (you can use the “Contact” link at the top of this site).

i have been major struggling with writing my second book and when i found these i just opened up my mind more and i decided not to write a second book it was just fine without one and now i can be on a whole other spectrum thanks so much these has inspired me a lot i put a few of em together to get ideas 🙂 well done 🙂 highly appreciated

That’s awesome. Thanks for letting me know that these prompts helped you. Good luck with your writing projects!

I just got a typewriter at a great market the other day so I came looking for something to help me have fun and get inspired while I was using it. Thanks for the help! I ended up writing a thing about an embarrassing moment that helped me learn how to not sweat it when embarrassing moments happen. This particular one had to do with toilet paper… haha. Cheers!

Embarrassing moments always make for good storytelling. Enjoy your new typewriter!

I’ve been really into playwriting lately, but I’ve been stuck with writers block for the longest time. A couple of these prompts really caught my attention and I’ve already got so many new ideas, I don’t know where to begin! 🙂

That’s awesome. I’m glad you found this piece so helpful.

I have had writers block for months now. This site has helped me so much!

I’m thrilled to hear that! Keep writing!

My favorite way to start up a story is to listen to a song and think about the story of it. Sometimes I use the first part of the song as the first sentence of my story. I hope this helps.

That’s an awesome idea! I love music-literature crossovers.

Hi thank you so much for these ideas i have chosen an idea and i have a perfect picture of my idea . Thank you again and as you will see on all of your comments you have helped a lot of children or adults from this website . Thank you !

You’re welcome! Thanks for commenting.

Great prompts.

I shared #9 with my page for a fun writing exercise about an hour ago. Great response! 🙂

Thanks for sharing one of these prompts with your readers. I hope they have fun with it.

Thanks for the prompts! Reading other people’s ideas always makes me feel more hopeful about initiating my own. I have struggled to put my thoughts down on paper for as long as I can remember- there just seems to be a disconnect between the disorganized chaos of possibilities in my head and that little spot where the ink meets the paper. BUT- I wanted to offer an idea that has often provided many interesting and fun possibilities to me- Think of a time of day ( 7 pm, the sun setting, the day cooling off, night creatures beginning to stir), or a month ( August, the air laden with heat and damp, everything deep and green and vibrant), and then try to think of all the qualities that accompany that period of time ( do most people seem happy then? is it a relaxing time? a tense time? does the weather make life easier or harder?). Once you’ve collected as many descriptions and feelings about this time as you can, then begin to build a world where it is ALWAYS that time- how do people’s lives change? 🙂

Ooh, that’s a great exercise. I wasn’t expecting the twist at all! Love it.

This is awesme. i like these. i like writing prompts, and this is a very helpful website

Thanks! I’m glad you liked these prompts.

omg wow, this helped me so much, thankyou so much!! i love my writing and this just helped me ten fold. xxx

You’re welcome. I’m glad you found it helpful.

I’ve been writing since i was eight, [approximately (obviously – i haven’t been counting!)] but I started to loose it… flame was REIGNITED by my best friend. but despite the burning, I have never actually completed a story. It knaws at me all the time! I’m currently writing a revolutionary/Sci-fi, which is odd for me, I’m more into writing realist novels… but your prompts gave me such a PERFECT plot twist that I had to comment on it! this will give me motivation for at least a few weeks… (meanwhile dancing up and down with sheer joy and attracting VERY weird looks.) Though it IS kind of weird, because non of the prompts have anything to do with it… My, how strangely the mind works…

Yes, the mind works in mysterious ways. I’m glad one of these prompts inspired you. Best of luck with your story (I love sci-fi).

This website is a life saver. My brain just froze and I was trying to do a creative writing story, and my life and my school / collage life depended on it. Thanks to one of your prompts, it won my school a pride. Thanks a lot. 🙂 bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoops I meant prize

That’s awesome, Tierrney! Congrats on winning a prize. Keep writing!

wow great writing promts, ive already decided on the start of my story but I cant think of anything that can happen. I want something to happen. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Try throwing some conflict at your main character. Good luck to you!

Wow!! I tried prompt number one just for fun one day, I have not exercised my creative mind in a long time, and I want to thank you for offering these prompts. I really surprised myself at the poem I wrote. It probably wouldnt go over to well with the grammar police because I used old english and standard english.. but the content just really surprised me. I was like, “where did that come from”? Thank you so much!!!! Blessings and Thanks to you for your website!

Thanks for your kind words, Kathleen. I’m so glad you found inspiration here!

thank you so much i found 3 ideas for a school project i am working on this is going to be one of my most big acomplishments!

You’re welcome! Good luck with your project.

i love this website because it helped me get an A on my project!!! i am soo thankfull to WRITING FORWARD!!! thank you sooo much and i am sooo confident that i will be sure to use this website again….thanX a million luv WRIGHTING FORWARD~~kbb

You’re welcome. Congratulations on getting such a good grade!

Writing comes from the mind and obviously the ideas comes from our real life….The story of mystery novels always comes from the fear we have in our minds and it can come from everything… I can remember the things…when I wrote my first poem ‘Rain’…it was raining in cats and dogs outside…..

I think writing comes from many places. I try not to over-analyze it, but it is interesting to examine our ideas and try to figure out where they came from.

I really like your ideas but I had some of my own that I think you could add to your list. You could add things like:

You’re outside cutting your grass when you come across a large hole in the ground. You’ve never noticed the hole before, but it looks to be some sort of tunnel to another world. You decide to peek through and see where it leads, only it leads you to a pivotal moment in your past—and it’s giving you an opportunity to change it. Write this scene.

A toy, stuffed animal, or game that once meant a lot to me

Why I deserve a larger allowance

The book that got me hooked on reading

This really bugs me.

One thing I want to do by the time I finish 8th grade

I would like to have lived during this time in history.

Thanks for adding these writing prompts, Shreya.

Start your story with: Jessica had no choice. She closed her eyes and jumped.

You might be surprised.

Ah, that’s an interesting prompt.

Here one possibly

What if you woke up one day with no memories in a strange world where nobody was who they said they were?

Wow! I really like this list of prompts! I’ve been looking for inspiration to write a short story and I especially liked the one about dragons! “We’ve all seen cute and cuddly dragons, mean and vicious dragons, and noble dragons write about a different dragon”

Thanks, Meredith! I’m glad you liked these writing prompts.

Anyone considered using visual (photos/paintings) prompts?

A scenic view, a city view, a beach, a hill, a house, a village, a car, a train, a plane, a boat, a castle, a body?

Yes, I’ve used visual prompts, and I’ve included them in my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts . The image prompts are described (rather than using images), but they’re a lot of fun.

Hi I’m Hallie I’m 13 years old and I love writing. Just for some reason I can never think of things to write about. I really like fantasy. I look online for writing prompt ideas and I find a lot of good ones but none of them really click. I really want to write something but I don’t know what. What should I do?

Hi Hallie. Thanks for visiting Writing Forward. What you’re experiencing is fairly common among writers. I have experienced it many times — when I want to write but I don’t know what to write and nothing clicks, I will look through prompts and my old notes, and I just don’t get fired up about anything.

I’ve found that in moments like these, the best thing to do is just write anyway. We can’t feel inspired and fired up all the time. And often, when I force myself to just follow some prompt or writing exercise, even when I don’t really feel like it, I start to get into it and eventually, something clicks.

There will be many times when writing is fun or even thrilling. But I’ve found that the people who stick with writing are those who write even when they’re not especially inspired. Sometimes it’s work. Stick with it, and you’ll experience all these highs and lows. Every single one of them is worth it.

Wow! I really like the diversity of your prompts, Mellisa. I’ve been writing a collection of short stories of my childhood experience of the Biafran War in Nigeria and struggled with some troubling memories but you’ve reminded me that I could just write everything as it comes to me and revise later. Also, I love your children stories prompts.

Thank you, Edit. That makes my day. I’m always glad when people find the articles here at Writing Forward useful. Good luck with your stories. That sounds like an important project.

is it weird that when i saw the one on dragons the first thought to my mind is ‘ i counld do one on a gay dragon, right?’ and then when i saw number 4 ( for all the twilight fans, just a heads up), i thought of jasper hale- i’m not calling him ugly- but i saw the fear part and thought to myself how he fears hurting someone/ losing control.

Is it weird? I don’t think it’s weird. The point of the prompts is to engage your imagination, so it seems like they are working, which is great.

I absolutely love these! I have been writing since I was able to talk. I told my dad exactly what to write down on little pieces of paper. Now that I’m fourteen, I was sure I wrote every idea imaginable. But these really gave me a fresh perspective, and for that, I am so grateful! It also inspired me to come up with a prompt of my own: She sprinted through the trees, quickly twisting around thick trunks as she dodged the sheriff’s arrows. Her stomach ached from the laughs that shook her entire body. Foolish sheriff. He thought he could catch a pirate?

I’m glad you enjoyed these writing prompts. Your prompt is awesome. Keep writing! It will take you places that only you can imagine.

I loved these prompts. I had my friends pick a number between 1 and 25 to chose which on to do. I think they improved my writing skills. Thank you!

I’m glad you enjoyed these prompts, Nora. Thanks for your comment.

I am a 13 year old and I love to write. I have a best friend and she always wants to see my writing, but I didn’t want her to see it because I didn’t think it was very good. She insisted on seeing it, and when I showed her the first chapter in a story I was writing just for myself, she thought it was brilliant. She then disguised it as an excerpt from an e-book app and showed it to our English teacher. My friend pretended that it was a real, published book by an actual author and asked for the teacher’s opinion. The teacher loved it and asked for the name of the book. When she discovered it was written by her own pupil, she was shocked and said i should send it to a publisher. Now I am confused. I didn’t think my writing was very good. What should I do now?

Hi Sam. I was your age when I started writing.

There are a few things you might want to do. First, continue working on your book until it’s finished. This will be hard. You will probably lose interest at some point. You’ll get stuck and feel unsure where to take the story. You’ll have other ideas that seem better, and you’ll be tempted to set this story aside. Don’t be deterred. Stick with it.

Do your parents know about your interest in writing? At 13, you would need their involvement in any publishing or submissions that you might want to do. You can also try talking to your teacher. Don’t be shy about this. It’s the job of teachers to guide their students. But keep in mind, not all English teachers are knowledgeable about the publishing industry. See if she can offer some guidance. You might be able to find literary magazine for kids your age and submit your writing so you can start getting some practice in the publishing world.

Beyond that, make sure you read a lot and write as much you can. If you love writing, it’s something that will always be with you. As you get older, you’ll be able to carve out the path you want, whether that’s to make writing a career or continue enjoying it as a hobby.

Best of luck to you!

I am 10 and I have written a few short stories of my own, and I really enjoy creative writing. I was very pleased when I found this website, now I won’t be struggling to think about what to write.

That’s wonderful, Kaiya. We love having young writers around here. Thanks so much!

I’m 12 and I also really like writing. I have always been trying to write short stories since I was six (I started with mostly seven page picture books). Finding how to start a story has always been pretty hard, but these prompts have really helped! I definitely have to explore some more of these prompts. There are so many! Thank you!!

Wow, Naomi, that’s wonderful. I was just a little older than you (13) when I started writing (poetry for me). You have a long and wonderful journey ahead of you, and I hope you enjoy all of it! You’re welcome for these prompts. I’m so glad you found them helpful.

Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful post with us.

the one that has the tailsman remids me of “Wings of Fire” because one of the dragons named darkstalker put is animus magic on a scroll and called it his tailsman and he can read minds so it really reminded me of that book

I haven’t read Wings of Fire but it sounds interesting!

oh and it fell into the wrong hands or really talons but ya i just wanted to share that information thank you for this i really got some good ideas like the detective one

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• Writers Block « Sol Searching - [...] Donovan wrote a great article at Writing Forward (http://www.writingforward.com/creative-writing/25-creative-writing-prompts) to help motivate your writing mind. She list 25 creative…
• fun for writers | Starla Kaye - [...] Writing Forward: creative writing prompts. [...]
• October 14, 2011: Write about nature. CWE 11 | icanseealotoflifeinyou - [...] http://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts-3/creative-writing-prompts/25-creative-writing-prompts [...]
• The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood - [...] A few weeks ago, I had fun with a great little prompt I found on a blog called Writing…
• this may call for a proper introduction « arcane den of written words - [...] huge. Just a few ideas I’ve had recently. I found a really great collection of prompts here, you should…
• Writing Prompt Resources (Links galore!) – The Talers - […] https://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts/creative-writing-prompts/25-creative-writing-prompts […]
• 116/129 Friday | Pongo Wu's First Draft - […] Writing prompt from Writing Forward: […]
• 10 Best Creative Writing Prompts - […] 25 Creative Writing Prompts from Writing Forward […]

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Subscribe and get The Writer’s Creed graphic e-booklet, plus a weekly digest with the latest articles on writing, as well as special offers and exclusive content.

Recent Posts

• Writing Tips For Staying on Your Game
• Writing Resources: Bird by Bird
• Punctuation Marks: The Serial Comma
• Getting Creative with Essay Writing
• Tips for Crafting Language

Write on, shine on!

Pin It on Pinterest

How to Write an Imaginative Essay

Isaiah david.

An imaginative essay is fiction, actually a type of short story. Students are asked to imagine a particular historical or fantastic situation and write the rest of the story. Depending on the prompt, the imaginative essay can discuss anything from space travel to civil rights. Because of this wide variation, some imaginative essays require a very serious response, while others invite a much more light-hearted, fantastic one.

Explore this article

• Think about the prompt
• Pick the idea
• Add sensory details
• Add realistic conversation
• Add historical details
• Add some personal change
• Proofread your imaginative essay

1 Think about the prompt

Think about the prompt and brainstorm some ideas. Usually, imaginative essays start with a hypothetical situation and ask you how you would respond to it. Come up with a few different ways you might respond, and how you think the situation would turn out depending on your response.

2 Pick the idea

Pick the idea you like best and write it. Write what you would do, how other characters would react and how the situation would end up.

3 Add sensory details

Add sensory details. How do you feel? What do people and things around you look like?

4 Add realistic conversation

Add realistic conversation. Imagine actually interacting with the characters around you. Do you see eye to eye, or do you have different perspectives? Show it through your conversation.

5 Add historical details

Add historical details. If you are writing about the Civil War, for example, you might mention fighting in a particular battle or serving under a particular leader. If you are writing about a future event, you could make up some details from a "future history" to make your story seem more realistic. For example, if you are imagining the world in 100 years, you could look back on the end of the oil age, or the accomplishments of a future president.

6 Add some personal change

Add some personal change. The best characters are dynamic characters. Your character should see things differently or act differently by the end of the story. You can also show how other characters change. For example, your character could start out headstrong and impulsive, get into some problems as a result of this trait, and learn to be more patient by the end of the story. In literature, this is called a "character arc."

7 Proofread your imaginative essay

Proofread your imaginative essay. Make sure that you use proper spelling and good grammar and punctuation. For an imaginative essay, you will not have to use formal language, but you will need to show your mastery of the mechanics of writing.

• 1 Imaginative Essay Basics

About the Author

Isaiah David is a freelance writer and musician living in Portland, Ore. He has over five years experience as a professional writer and has been published on various online outlets. He holds a degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan.

Related Articles

How to Write a Historical Narrative

How to Teach Perspective to Children

How to Write an Essay Synopsis

Steps to Creative Writing in the Language Arts

How to Write a Character Analysis for Middle School

How to Teach Characterization in Literature to High...

How to Write the Intoduction of a Reaction Paper

The Elements of a Narrative for the Fourth Grade

How to Teach Children Satire

How to Enhance a Narrative Essay

How to Write an Introductory Paragraph for a Narrative

How to Write a College Narrative Essay

How to Write a Descriptive Essay on an Epic Hero

How to Write a Book Report in the 4th Grade

How to Write an Autobiographical Synopsis

How to Write a Good Personal Narrative

How to Write a Parable

How do I Write a Story in the 4th Grade?

The Great Pumpkin Quiz

What Is a Clincher at the End of Your Essay?

Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning. Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Whether you’re studying times tables or applying to college, Classroom has the answers.

• Accessibility
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Copyright Policy
• Manage Preferences

© 2020 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media, All Rights Reserved. Based on the Word Net lexical database for the English Language. See disclaimer .

Get in touch with us

Are you sure you want to logout?

Please select your grade.

• Earth and space

Steps for Imaginative Writing in Paragraph Essay Form

Imaginative writing:.

Imaginative writing, also known as creative writing: This form of writing expresses the writer’s thoughts and feelings in an imaginative, often unique, and poetic way. Imaginative writing can exist in many different forms, but what unites them all is that the writer is free to use their own ideas and imagination. Imaginative writing is also known as Creative writing .

Here are Some Instances of Imaginative Writing:

The topic like the feelings and experiences of the sailor wrecked on the vast sea is imaginative writing . In these types of writing, the writer places himself in imagination in a position in which he doesn’t have any actual experience of that type.

Topics like “If I Were the prime minister” or “The Autobiography of a Horse” also fall under the category of imaginative writings/essays.

Writings are usually divided into two basic types:

• Imaginative/ Creative

Creative writing revolves around imagination, artistic skills, and the ability to figure out situations that are far from reality.

On the other hand, logical writings are very well structured and mostly deal with important topics by employing precise methodology.

The main goal of imaginative essays/writings is to make the reader enjoy them in an aesthetic sense. The aim of logical writing/essays is to discuss an issue or solve a definite problem.

Extent Of An Imaginary Writing:

Imaginative writing tends to take topics from space travel to fantasy landscapes. This type of Writing is mainly based on fiction, where imaginary skills/thoughts in a logical order are expressed.

Normally, the extent of imagination will decide the depth of the essay.

Steps To Write A Good Imaginative Story/Essay:

Step 1: choose the most extravagant imaginative essay topic.

If there are various options to choose from, opt for writing on the “most extravagant” topic.

The advantages of choosing such a topic are:

• Firstly, this type of topic of imaginative writing is unique – there is no such piece of writing.
• Secondly, working on non-standard topics and also non-traditional approaches are always preferred.

STEP 2: Start Writing an Imaginative Piece Only When You Are Highly Inspired.

Without waiting for too long, start writing when you are highly inspired. This will enable you to be more creative in your approach. However, this will only be the first draft.

STEP 3: Be Original

Originality is the essence of imaginative writing. The circumstances or the situation can be fantastic and not a real one.

STEP 4: Avoid Indirect Speech in Your Imaginative Writing

It’s a good idea to describe the interaction between the characters of your imaginative writing through a narrative. This will help you maintain the word limit. Otherwise, it will lead to writing a long story that no one will read.

STEP 5. Incorporate a Message

Incorporate a message in imaginative writing. It is not necessary to have a clear message in imaginative writing but some sort of indication of the theme would be preferable.

Step 6. Use of Figures of Speech in Imaginative Writing

The use of metaphors , allegories, similes , and other figures of speech will make the writing more creative. Using simplistic language is not advisable in your imaginative writing. On the other hand, the exquisite style always attracts more readers.

STEP 7. Read Aloud and Revise

Read aloud your imaginative writing to identify the vagueness in your writing. Revise your writing in order to have a better style and grammar. It is not recommended. However, at this stage, changing the contents of the writing may affect its quality. In order to write this type, you need lots of imagination and creativity.

Salient Features of Imaginative Writing:

• Heightened sense of imagination.
• Add sensory details like smell, touch, taste, etc.
• The logical flow of details.
• Crisp and clear characterization(s), if any.
• Proper punctuation.
• The use of formal language is not mandatory.

The Elements of Imaginative Writing and Its Importance

• Unique storyline or plot:

What differentiates imaginative writing and other forms of writing is the uniqueness of ideas or thoughts. Most imaginative writers create their own plots formed on their own unique ideas. Without having a plot, there’s no story. And without a story, it’s like just writing facts on paper and not imaginative writing.

• Character development

Characters are necessary for Imaginative pieces of writing.  Character development brings change throughout the duration of the writing or story.

• Underlying Theme

Imaginative writing needs some theme or message to make it complete. It is the form by Writing an imaginative story lesson can be taught.

• Visual Descriptions

When reading a newspaper, paragraphs of descriptions are read that depict all the surrounding places where the incident took place more precisely using visuals. Visual descriptions largely serve creative writing.

Visuals are needed in order to help the reader understand what the situation in the writing looks like.

Through visuals or images, the reader is more involved and makes them imagine themselves in the characters’ shoes – which makes the reader more curious to read.

• Point of View

We generally use the first person and third person in imaginative writing.

First Person: The narrator is mainly the main or important character-which means that when we read the passages it includes “I”

Third Person– In imaginative writing the third person is multiple, and the third person is omniscient.  However, the first person is what is typically found.

• Imaginative Language

Part of what makes imaginative writing creative is the way you choose to craft the vision in your mind. It can be achieved by the use of more anecdotes, metaphors, similes, and figures of speech. Use of the other figurative language brings a vivid image to the reader’s mind.

• Emotional Appeal

All writings possess emotional appeal. Nevertheless, it’s the main goal of creative writing. It makes the reader more involved and enthusiastic in the situation of the story or paragraphs.

Part of what makes imaginative writing creative is the way you choose to craft the vision in your mind. The use of anecdotes, metaphors, similes, figures of speech, and other figurative language in order to bring an effect of a vivid image in the reader’s mind.

• Proofreading and revision

This is the most important aspect of creative writing. Proofreading and revision are different aspects. Revision of pieces of writing is done to improve the content of writing whereas proofreading is done to identify and correct errors of punctuation/grammar etc.

Related topics

Exploring the World of Adjectives: Types, Usage, and Examples

What are Parts of Speech? Parts of speech determine words’ grammatical and semantic position in a sentence. Activity time The parts of speech are nouns, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns, interjections, adjectives, articles, prepositions, and verbs. Identify the parts of speech of the underlined words in the following sentences. White- Adjective Big- Adjective    Exciting- Adjectives New- […]

Memoir Writing: Basic Elements, Structures, and Types

Memoir: A memoir is a narrative written from an author’s perspective about a particular facet of his/her own life. ‘Memoir’ word comes from the French word ‘memoire’, which means ‘memory’ or ‘reminiscence’. Example Night: Elie Wiesel gives an account of how he survived his teenage years at Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps during World War […]

Identification of Main Idea in Fiction and Non-fiction

Every story or paragraph or non-fictional text has at least one main idea. The MAIN IDEA is what the text is mostly about. (It is backed up or supported by SUPPORTING DETAILS) Before discussing how to find the main idea, we shall first look at TOPIC. Can you define a topic? A topic can be […]

Writing an Article: Structure and Essential Tips

What is an article? Structure of Article Writing : Title : Draw the attention of readers with an attractive title and indicate the main topic of the article Introduction : Attract the reader’s attention with a sentence that gives a general presentation of the topic. Main Body : Between these sentences, the body should do […]

Other topics

How to Find the Area of Rectangle?

How to Solve Right Triangles?

Ways to Simplify Algebraic Expressions

Creative Writing 101: Everything You Need to Get Started

Creative writing: You can take classes in it, you can earn a degree in it, but the only things you really need to do it are your creative thinking and writing tools. Creative writing is the act of putting your imagination on a page. It’s artistic expression in words; it’s writing without the constraints that come with other kinds of writing like persuasive or expository. 

Write with originality Grammarly helps you refine your word choice Write with Grammarly

What is creative writing?

Creative writing is writing meant to evoke emotion in a reader by communicating a theme. In storytelling (including literature, movies, graphic novels, creative nonfiction, and many video games), the theme is the central meaning the work communicates. 

Take the movie (and the novel upon which it’s based) Jaws , for instance. The story is about a shark that terrorizes a beach community and the men tasked with killing the shark. But the film’s themes include humanity’s desire to control nature, tradition vs. innovation, and how potential profit can drive people in power to make dangerous, even fatal, decisions. 

A theme isn’t the only factor that defines creative writing. Here are other components usually found in creative writing:

• Connecting, or at least attempting to connect, with the reader’s emotions
• Writing from a specific point of view
• A narrative structure can be complex or simple and serves to shape how the reader interacts with the content.
• Using imaginative and/or descriptive language

Creative writing typically uses literary devices like metaphors and foreshadowing to build a narrative and express the theme, but this isn’t a requirement. Neither is dialogue, though you’ll find it used in most works of fiction. Creative writing doesn’t have to be fictional, either. Dramatized presentations of true stories, memoirs, and observational humor pieces are all types of creative writing. 

What isn’t creative writing?

In contrast, research papers aren’t creative writing. Neither are analytical essays, persuasive essays , or other kinds of academic writing . Similarly, personal and professional communications aren’t considered creative writing—so your emails, social media posts, and official company statements are all firmly in the realm of non-creative writing. These kinds of writing convey messages, but they don’t express themes. Their goals are to inform and educate, and in some cases collect information from, readers. But even though they can evoke emotion in readers, that isn’t their primary goal. 

But what about things like blog posts? Or personal essays? These are broad categories, and specific pieces in these categories can be considered creative writing if they meet the criteria listed above. This blog post, for example, is not a piece of creative writing as it aims to inform, but a blog post that walks its reader through a first-person narrative of an event could be deemed creative writing. 

Types of creative writing

Creative writing comes in many forms. These are the most common:

Novels originated in the eighteenth century . Today, when people think of books, most think of novels. 

A novel is a fictional story that’s generally told in 60,000 to 100,000 words, though they can be as short as 40,000 words or go beyond 100,000. 

Stories that are too short to be novels, but can’t accurately be called short stories, are often referred to as novellas. Generally, a story between 10,000 and 40,000 words is considered a novella. You might also run into the term “ novelette ,” which is used to refer to stories that clock in between 7,500 and 19,000 words. 

Short stories

Short stories are fictional stories that fall generally between 5,000 and 10,000 words. Like novels, they tell complete stories and have at least one character, some sort of conflict, and at least one theme. 

When a story is less than 1,000 words, it’s categorized as a work of flash fiction.

Poetry can be hard to define because as a genre, it’s so open-ended. A poem doesn’t have to be any specific length. It doesn’t have to rhyme. There are many different kinds of poems from cultures all over the world, like sonnets, haikus, sestinas, blank verse, limericks, and free verse. 

The rules of poetry are generally flexible . . . unless you’re writing a specific type of poem, like a haiku , that has specific rules around the number of lines or structure. But while a poem isn’t required to conform to a specific length or formatting, or use perfect grammar , it does need to evoke its reader’s emotions, come from a specific point of view, and express a theme. 

And when you set a poem to music, you’ve got a song. 

Plays, TV scripts, and screenplays

Plays are meant to be performed on stage. Screenplays are meant to be made into films, and TV scripts are meant to be made into television programs. Scripts for videos produced for other platforms fit into this category as well. 

Plays, TV scripts, and screenplays have a lot in common with novels and short stories. They tell stories that evoke emotion and express themes. The difference is that they’re meant to be performed rather than read and as such, they tend to rely much more on dialogue because they don’t have the luxury of lengthy descriptive passages. But scriptwriters have more than just dialogue to work with; writing a play or script also involves writing stage or scene directions.

Each type of script has its own specific formatting requirements. 

Creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction covers all the kinds of creative writing that aren’t fiction. Here are some examples:

• Personal essays: A personal essay is a true story told through a narrative framework. Often, recollections of events are interspersed with insights about those events and your personal interpretations and feelings about them in this kind of essay. 
• Literary journalism: Think of literary journalism as journalism enhanced by creative writing techniques. These are the kinds of stories often published in outlets like The New Yorker and Salon. Literary journalism pieces report on factual events but do so in a way that makes them feel like personal essays and short stories. 
• Memoirs: Memoirs are to personal essays what novels are to short stories. In other words, a memoir is a book-length collection of personal memories, often centering around a specific story, that often works opinions, epiphanies, and emotional insights into the narrative. 
• Autobiographies: An autobiography is a book you write about yourself and your life. Often, autobiographies highlight key events and may focus on one particular aspect of the author’s life, like her role as a tech innovator or his career as a professional athlete. Autobiographies are often similar in style to memoirs, but instead of being a collection of memories anchored to specific events, they tend to tell the author’s entire life story in a linear narrative. 
• Humor writing: Humor writing comes in many forms, like standup comedy routines, political cartoons, and humorous essays. 
• Lyric essays: In a lyric essay, the writer breaks conventional grammar and stylistic rules when writing about a concept, event, place, or feeling. In this way, lyric essays are like essay-length poems. The reason they’re considered essays, and not long poems, is that they generally provide more direct analysis of the subject matter than a poem would. 

Tips for writing creatively

Give yourself time and space for creative writing.

It’s hard to write a poem during your lunch break or work on your memoir between calls. Don’t make writing more difficult for yourself by trying to squeeze it into your day. Instead, block off time to focus solely on creative writing, ideally in a distraction-free environment like your bedroom or a coffee shop. 

>>Read More: How to Create Your Very Own Writing Retreat

Get to know yourself as a writer

The more you write, the more in tune you’ll become with your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. You’ll identify the kinds of characters, scenes, language, and pieces you like writing best and determine where you struggle the most. Understanding what kind of writer you are can help you decide which kinds of projects to pursue. 

Challenge yourself 

Once you know which kinds of writing you struggle with, do those kinds of writing. If you only focus on what you’re good at, you’ll never grow as a writer. Challenge yourself to write in a different genre or try a completely new type of writing. For example, if you’re a short story writer, give poetry or personal essays a try. 

Need help getting started? Give one (or all!) of these 20 fun writing prompts a try .

Learn from other writers

There are lots of resources out there about creative writing. Read and watch them. If there’s a particular writer whose work you enjoy, seek out interviews with them and personal essays they’ve written about their creative processes. 

>>Read More: How to Be a Master Storyteller—Tips from 5 Experts 

Don’t limit yourself to big-name writers, either. Get involved in online forums, social media groups, and if possible, in-person groups for creative writers. By doing this, you’re positioning yourself to learn from writers from all different walks of life . . . and help other writers, too. 

I wrote something. Where do I go from here?

Give yourself a pat on the back: You did it! You finished a piece of creative writing—something many attempt, but not quite as many achieve. 

What comes next is up to you. You can share it with your friends and family, but you don’t have to. You can post it online or bring it to an in-person writing group for constructive critique. You can even submit it to a literary journal or an agent to potentially have it published, but if you decide to take this route, we recommend working with an editor first to make it as polished as possible. 

Some writers are initially hesitant to share their work with others because they’re afraid their work will be stolen. Although this is a possibility, keep in mind that you automatically hold the copyright for any piece you write. If you’d like, you can apply for copyright protection to give yourself additional legal protection against plagiarizers, but this is by no means a requirement. 

Write with originality

Grammarly can’t help you be more creative, but we can help you hone your writing so your creativity shines as brightly as possible. Once you’ve written your piece, Grammarly can catch any mistakes you made and suggest strong word choices that accurately express your message. 

• Free essay samples
• Why using examples is beneficial
• About custom writing
• Advice for freshmen
• How to be safe buying an essay
• Reflective paper samples
• Political Science paper sample
• Who can help you for free
• Analytical essay examples
• Writing on Romeo and Juliet
• Poor Study Habits - sample
• How to find a good writer
• Sample literary analysis essay
• Medical Technologies - sample
• Road rage essay template
• Asthma paper example
• A Healthy Lifestyle essay sample
• Selecting a decent essay writing company
• Environmental activism essay
• Training your skills to craft essays
• Finding a top-notch writing company
• Comparative essays: Greece and Rome
• Sample article reviews: search tips
• Grammar checkers for argument papers
• Three elements of a good essay
• How to write faster
• How to utilize examples
• Creating a process essay
• Writing on Lord of the Flies
• Acquiring diagnostic paper samples
• How to spend less time on your essays
• Writing a paper on September 11th
• Using literary criticism in a paper
• Organizing a compare/contrast paper
• Drafting an exploratory essay
• Descriptive essay topic sentence
• Getting reflective papers on religion
• Random acts of kindness: a good paper
• Crafting excellent essay titles
• Synthesis essay conclusion
• Opinion essay tips: nuclear energy
• Crafting school essays: vital hints
• A guidance on college essay writing
• Concluding a synthesis response essay
• Proper essay referencing samples
• APA essay guidelines
• Health exercise essay writing hints
• Paper samples on mental health
• Choosing argumentative topics
• Persuasive essay ideas
• Cause & effect essay prompts
• Medical paper topics
• Classification & division
• Crafting an expository essay
• Intriguing writing ideas
• Ideas for informative papers
• Imaginative topics to consider
• Writing on Jane Eyre
• US history questions
• Ideas for evaluation essays
• 9th grade narrative paper topics
• Informative paper subjects
• Paper topics in Psychology
• Narrative paper topics about values
• Paper topic ideas for Beowulf
• Writing prompts for a synthesis essay
• Opinion paper questions
• College English essay topic ideas
• Powerful topics: Heart of Darkness
• Picking a high school argument essay idea

A List Of Fresh Imaginative Essay Topics For College Students

By the time a student has entered college, he or she has most likely written hundreds of essays for various classes. This can make the prospect of attempting even more of them a bit daunting.

Luckily for college age students, there is more freedom to select an essay topic that reflects their character or imagination. This can be accomplished through the following:

• Reading science fiction and fantasy novels

These are full of ideas that you can incorporate into an essay. You need not follow the author’s explanations; feel free to come up with your own. You may also find that you start writing your own short stories in your spare time.

• Read science journals

If you are not familiar with the jargon these can be a bit harder to digest but they are well worth it. Scientists have discovered many things over the past few decades that a good writer could spin into a fascinating essay topic.

• Discuss your ideas with other students

You may have an amazing idea but only be able to develop it through conversation with other people. Let their experiences and knowledge blend with your own to create a more interesting concept than you might have been able to get to in isolation.

Bearing all of the above tips in mind, you could end up compiling a list of topics similar to this:

• Can suffering be reduced worldwide by simultaneous meditation on positive energy?
• Housing: A basic need or a much more malleable concept than usually admitted?
• Modernization versus Health: How the capitalist system encourages the sedentary lifestyles that prop up a dangerous pharmaceutical industry
• Social Media and Self Esteem: How the constant need for self promotion creates a heightened desire for public approval
• Voluntary sterilization: The growing trend of choosing to be childless
• Artificial Intelligence: A solution to our problems or a new problem all on its own?
• Bearing in mind the results of terrestrial encounters with more advanced civilizations, should we try to contact extraterrestrial entities?
• Why five: A scientific inquiry into the number or fingers and toes humans evolved
• To what extent have artists begun to blur the line from the revolutionary into the fraudulent?
• What levels of body modification have become acceptable in the business attire of the average workplace?

These would all be a joy to both research and write. If you do well enough, you might even inspire others.

Essay Writing Ideas

• Outline samples available
• Ideas for creative writing
• Getting help online
• Narrative essay prompts
• Compare & contrast topics
• What makes a good argument topic
• Crafting an excellent essay
• Writing an ad analysis essay
• Sociology essay example
• World history assignment sample
• Writing an essay about yourself
• How to find a professional
• Choosing argument topics
• Picking persuasive essay topics
• Risky topics to be careful with
• US Music in Wartime - sample paper

Essay Related

• Jobs for students

© CampusGrumbleConnect.com. All rights reserved. Building up a great essay.

Save £500 when you enrol by 30th September!

• 7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays

You wouldn’t have thought that essays have much in common with creative writing.

Creative writing, by definition, involves being ‘creative’: making things up, letting your imagination run wild. Essays are about being factual and objective, communicating ideas and arguments in the clearest way possible and attempting to enhance the reader’s knowledge, rather than their imagination. But while the literary devices and colourful tales we associate with creative writing are indeed out of place in an essay, these two very different kinds of writing actually have a few similarities. Above all, they’re both meant to be read by other people, and that means that they need to sustain the reader’s interest. So, are there any writing techniques you can borrow from creative writing to help make your essays more interesting and original? Yes there are, and in this article, we’re going to show you how. Before we start, if you’re interested in attending a summer school to help develop these skills, click the link.

1. Think about your reader

With creative writing, as with any kind of writing, your reader is your most important consideration. You need to know and understand whom you’re writing for if you’re to do a good job of keeping them interested. Let’s think for a moment about the kind of person you’re writing for when you’re writing an essay and what you need to do to write specifically for them:

• Teachers or university lecturers – they’re going to be marking your essay, so it needs to answer the question effectively.
• They’ve set the question and they probably have a pretty good idea of how you’re going to answer it – so be original and unpredictable; catch them by surprise with an unusual approach or structure.
• They’re going to be reading many other responses to the same question – so they may well be bored by the time they get to yours. Keep them interested!
• They’re probably going to be pressed for time – so they won’t have time to reread badly written passages to try to understand what you’re getting at. Keep your writing easy to read, succinct and to the point.

What all these points boil down to is the importance of keeping your reader interested in what you have to say. Since creative writing is all about holding the reader’s interest, there must be some lessons to be learned from it and techniques that can be applied within the more limited style constraints of the academic essay. We’ll now turn to what these are.

2. Three-act structure

The three-act structure is a writing device used extensively in modern writing, including for film and television dramas. These ‘acts’ aren’t as distinct as acts in a play, as one follows seamlessly on from another and the audience wouldn’t consciously realise that one act had ended and another began. The structure refers to a plotline that looks something like this:

• Set-up – establishes the characters, how they relate to each other, and the world they inhabit. Within this first ‘act’, a dramatic occurrence called an ‘inciting incident’ takes place (typically around 19 minutes into a film) involving the principal character. They try to deal with it, but this results in another dramatic occurrence called a ‘turning point’. This sets the scene for the rest of the story.
• Confrontation – the turning point in the previous ‘act’ becomes the central problem, which the main character attempts to resolve – usually with plenty of adversity thrown their way that hampers their efforts. In a murder mystery, for example, this act would involve the detective trying to solve the murder. The central character – with the help of supporting characters – undergoes a journey and develops their knowledge, skills or character to a sufficient degree to be able to overcome the problem.
• Resolution – the climax of the story, in which the drama reaches a peak, the problem is overcome, and loose ends are tied up.

This structure sounds all very well for made-up stories, but what has it got to do with essay-writing? The key similarities here are:

• The central argument of your essay is the equivalent of the main character.
• The essay equivalent of the set-up and resolution are the introduction and conclusion.
• The inciting incident in an essay encourages you to get to the point early on in the essay.
• The equivalent of character development in the second act is developing your argument.
• The equivalent of the supporting characters is the evidence you refer to in your essay.

So, applying the three-act structure to an essay gives you something like this:

• Set-up – the introduction. This establishes what you’re talking about, setting the scene. The ‘inciting incident’ could be the introduction of evidence that contradicts a common theory, or the highlighting of a central disagreement in how something is interpreted.
• Confrontation – you discuss the different problems surrounding the topic you’re writing about. You develop the argument using various bits of evidence, moving towards an overall conclusion.
• Resolution – the conclusion. You summarise and resolve the argument with your own opinion, by coming down on one side or the other, having weighed up the evidence you’ve discussed. You could perhaps tie up loose ends by offering an alternative explanation for evidence that doesn’t sit with your conclusion.

Using this structure keeps you focused on the central point, and stops you from waffling, because everything you write is working towards resolving your argument. The use of the inciting incident in the first ‘act’ encourages you to get to the point early on in your essay, thereby keeping the reader interested. The principles of good plot-writing are centred around the connection between different events that show cause and effect, and this central tenet of the three-act structure has obvious parallels with the way in which essays work through presenting evidence in support of arguments.

3. An attention-grabbing opening

An oft-spouted piece of advice in creative writing is to use an attention-grabbing opening. One way of doing this is to start with a ‘flashback’, which could disrupt the chronology of events by transporting the reader directly back to the midst of the action, so that the story begins with maximum excitement. In a murder mystery, for instance, the writer might skip a slow build-up and instead use the murder itself to form the opening of the novel, with the rest of the story charting the efforts of the detective to uncover the perpetrator and perhaps telling the events prior to the murder in a series of flashbacks. The same principle can be applied to essays, though it’s easier to use in some subjects than others. To take an example, let’s say you were writing about how the First World War started. Rather than building up slowly with the various factors, an attention-grabbing opening could (briefly) describe the drama of the Battle of the Somme, perhaps citing some statistics about the number of men involved and killed, and quoting some war poetry about the horrors faced by the soldiers on the Front Line. Then, to introduce the purpose of the essay and launch into your argument about what started the war, a phrase such as, “It seems hard to imagine that all this began with…”. Alternatively, a rhetorical question: “But how did these tens of thousands of soldiers end up in the mud and horror of trench warfare? The story begins several years earlier, with…” It may not be the standard way of writing an essay, but you’ll certainly score points for originality and perhaps ruffle a few feathers.

4. Extended metaphors

Creative writing often makes use of extended metaphors. For example, when Shakespeare wrote the passage in Romeo and Juliet referring to “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” he was using an extended metaphor. With this in mind, it’s time to revisit a point we made in a previous article about writing more original essays , in which we argued that, rather than battling on with trying to explain a complex concept in a straightforward way, it might be easier to use an analogy to convey the meaning by drawing comparisons, which people find easier to understand. A metaphor is a kind of analogy, so the similarities with creative writing are strong here. In our previous article we used the example of radioactive decay. An analogy for this is the pressure with which water escapes from a hole in a bucket. It does so exponentially, just as radioactive substances decay exponentially. In both instances, the rate of a consumptive process depends on how much there is left of whatever is being depleted, which results in an exponential rate of decay. This concept is so much easier to explain using the analogy of water flowing from a hole in a bucket, as you give your reader something familiar to visualise in order to explain a concept with which they are unfamiliar.

5. Interesting details about setting and location

Another way of keeping your reader interested is to bring your essay to life with details about setting and location, just as creative writers do. Essays can become quite dry if you focus solely on the academic problems, but you can make them more interesting by peppering them with details. This may not work quite so well for a scientific essay, but it’s certainly relevant for some humanities subjects, in particular English literature, history and archaeology. For example, an essay about the Roman emperor Augustus could mention that he lived a famously modest lifestyle, quoting details from Roman writers and archaeological evidence that support this: Suetonius mentions his “low bed” (interesting because of what it says about accepted standards of Roman beds!) and coarse bread and cheese diet, and the relatively small and non-lavish remains of his house on the Palatine Hill in Rome back up the idea of his having lived a modest life. Incidental details like these can actually prove to be more significant than you initially realise, and you can use them to build your argument; in the case of Augustus, for example, his modest lifestyle is particularly important when seen in the context of Rome’s troubled history with kings. As he gradually acquired more power and became Rome’s first emperor, he had to avoid coming across as being too ‘regal’, and the little details we know about his way of life are significant in light of this. So, not only have you brought your essay to life, but you’ve raised an interesting point, too.

Few writers get it right first time. Once you’ve written a first draft, read through it and think about whether the order of your points is optimal and whether what you’ve written actually makes sense. It’s easy in the age of computers to chop and change – you can simply copy and paste part of your essay into another part where it might fit better, and then make minor changes to your wording so that it flows. After you’ve finished editing, have a final read through and check that you’re happy with the wording. Don’t forget to proofread to ensure that your spelling and grammar is impeccable!

7. And finally… record your ideas

Creative writers swear by having a notebook with them at all times, ready to jot down any ideas that suddenly spring to mind. You can adopt the same principle for your essay-writing, because you never know when the inspiration might strike. Have a think about your essay topic when you’re out and about; you’d be surprised what occurs to you when you’re away from your normal place of study. As you can see, there are more similarities between two apparently unrelated kinds of writing than you might have realised. It is, of course, possible to go too far with the creative writing idea when you’re essay-writing: literary devices aren’t always appropriate, and your essay still needs to retain objectivity and conform to the more formal conventions of academic writing. But there are certainly techniques to be borrowed from creative writing that will help your essays stand out from the crowd and give your teacher or lecturer a welcome break from the monotony of essay-marking.

Comments are closed.

Academic Editing and Proofreading

• Tips to Self-Edit Your Dissertation
• Guide to Essay Editing: Methods, Tips, & Examples
• Journal Article Proofreading: Process, Cost, & Checklist
• The A–Z of Dissertation Editing: Standard Rates & Involved Steps
• Research Paper Editing | Guide to a Perfect Research Paper
• Dissertation Proofreading | Definition & Standard Rates
• Thesis Proofreading | Definition, Importance & Standard Pricing
• Research Paper Proofreading | Definition, Significance & Standard Rates
• Essay Proofreading | Options, Cost & Checklist
• Top 10 Paper Editing Services of 2024 (Costs & Features)
• Top 10 Essay Checkers in 2024 (Free & Paid)
• Top 10 AI Proofreaders to Perfect Your Writing in 2024
• Top 10 English Correctors to Perfect Your Text in 2024
• Top 10 Essay Editing Services of 2024
• 10 Advanced AI Text Editors to Transform Writing in 2024

Academic Research

• Research Paper Outline: Templates & Examples
• How to Write a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Write a Lab Report: Examples from Academic Editors
• Research Methodology Guide: Writing Tips, Types, & Examples
• The 10 Best Essential Resources for Academic Research
• 100+ Useful ChatGPT Prompts for Thesis Writing in 2024
• Best ChatGPT Prompts for Academic Writing (100+ Prompts!)
• Sampling Methods Guide: Types, Strategies, and Examples
• Independent vs. Dependent Variables | Meaning & Examples

Academic Writing & Publishing

• Difference Between Paper Editing and Peer Review
• What are the different types of peer review?
• How to deal with rejection from a journal?
• Editing and Proofreading Academic Papers: A Short Guide
• How to Carry Out Secondary Research
• The Results Section of a Dissertation
• Checklist: Is my Article Ready for Submitting to Journals?
• Types of Research Articles to Boost Your Research Profile
• 8 Types of Peer Review Processes You Should Know
• The Ethics of Academic Research
• How does LaTeX based proofreading work?
• How to Improve Your Scientific Writing: A Short Guide
• Chicago Title, Cover Page & Body | Paper Format Guidelines
• How to Write a Thesis Statement: Examples & Tips
• Chicago Style Citation: Quick Guide & Examples
• The A-Z Of Publishing Your Article in A Journal
• What is Journal Article Editing? 3 Reasons You Need It
• 5 Powerful Personal Statement Examples (Template Included)
• Complete Guide to MLA Format (9th Edition)
• How to Cite a Book in APA Style | Format & Examples
• How to Start a Research Paper | Step-by-step Guide
• APA Citations Made Easy with Our Concise Guide for 2024
• A Step-by-Step Guide to APA Formatting Style (7th Edition)
• Top 10 Online Dissertation Editing Services of 2024
• Academic Writing in 2024: 5 Key Dos & Don’ts + Examples
• What Are the Standard Book Sizes for Publishing Your Book?
• MLA Works Cited Page: Quick Tips & Examples
• 2024’s Top 10 Thesis Statement Generators (Free Included!)
• Top 10 Title Page Generators for Students in 2024
• What Is an Open Access Journal? 10 Myths Busted!
• Primary vs. Secondary Sources: Definition, Types & Examples
• How To Write a College Admissions Essay That Stands Out
• How to Write a Dissertation & Thesis Conclusion (+ Examples)
• APA Journal Citation: 7 Types, In-Text Rules, & Examples
• What Is Predatory Publishing and How to Avoid It!
• What Is Plagiarism? Meaning, Types & Examples
• How to Write a Strong Dissertation & Thesis Introduction
• How to Cite a Book in MLA Format (9th Edition)
• How to Cite a Website in MLA Format | 9th Edition Rules
• 10 Best AI Conclusion Generators (Features & Pricing)
• Top 10 Academic Editing Services of 2024 [with Pricing]

100+ Writing Prompts for College Students (10+ Categories!)

• Additional Resources
• Plagiarism: How to avoid it in your thesis?
• Final Submission Checklist | Dissertation & Thesis
• 7 Useful MS Word Formatting Tips for Dissertation Writing
• How to Write a MEAL Paragraph: Writing Plan Explained in Detail
• Em Dash vs. En Dash vs. Hyphen: When to Use Which
• The 10 Best Citation Generators in 2024 | Free & Paid Plans!
• 2024’s Top 10 Self-Help Books for Better Living
• The 10 Best Free Character and Word Counters of 2024
• Know Everything About How to Make an Audiobook
• Citation and Referencing
• Citing References: APA, MLA, and Chicago
• How to Cite Sources in the MLA Format
• MLA Citation Examples: Cite Essays, Websites, Movies & More
• Citations and References: What Are They and Why They Matter
• APA Headings & Subheadings | Formatting Guidelines & Examples
• Formatting an APA Reference Page | Template & Examples
• Research Paper Format: APA, MLA, & Chicago Style
• How to Create an MLA Title Page | Format, Steps, & Examples
• How to Create an MLA Header | Format Guidelines & Examples
• MLA Annotated Bibliography | Guidelines and Examples
• APA Website Citation (7th Edition) Guide | Format & Examples
• APA Citation Examples: The Bible, TED Talk, PPT & More
• APA Header Format: 5 Steps & Running Head Examples
• APA Title Page Format Simplified | Examples + Free Template
• How to Write an Abstract in MLA Format: Tips & Examples
• 10 Best Free Plagiarism Checkers of 2024 [100% Free Tools]
• 5 Reasons to Cite Your Sources Properly | Avoid Plagiarism!
• Dissertation Writing Guide
• Writing a Dissertation Proposal
• The Acknowledgments Section of a Dissertation
• The Table of Contents Page of a Dissertation
• The Introduction Chapter of a Dissertation
• The Literature Review of a Dissertation
• The Only Dissertation Toolkit You’ll Ever Need!
• 5 Thesis Writing Tips for Master Procrastinators
• How to Write a Dissertation | 5 Tips from Academic Editors
• The 5 Things to Look for in a Dissertation Editing Service
• Top 10 Dissertation Editing & Proofreading Services
• Why is it important to add references to your thesis?
• Thesis Editing | Definition, Scope & Standard Rates
• Expert Formatting Tips on MS Word for Dissertations
• A 7-Step Guide on How to Choose a Dissertation Topic
• 350 Best Dissertation Topic Ideas for All Streams in 2024
• A Guide on How to Write an Abstract for a Research Paper
• Dissertation Defense: What to Expect and How to Prepare
• Creating a Dissertation Title Page (Examples & Templates)
• Essay Writing Guide
• Essential Research Tips for Essay Writing
• What Is a Mind Map? Free Mind Map Templates & Examples
• How to Write an Essay Outline: 5 Examples & Free Template
• How to Write an Essay Header: MLA and APA Essay Headers
• What Is an Essay? Structure, Parts, and Types
• How to Write an Essay in 8 Simple Steps (Examples Included)
• 8 Types of Essays | Quick Summary with Examples
• Expository Essays | Step-by-Step Manual with Examples
• Narrative Essay | Step-by-Step Guide with Examples
• How to Write an Argumentative Essay (Examples Included)
• Guide to a Perfect Descriptive Essay [Examples & Outline Included]
• How to Start an Essay: 4 Introduction Paragraph Examples
• How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay (Examples Included!)
• How to Write an Impactful Personal Statement (Examples Included)
• Literary Analysis Essay: 5 Steps to a Perfect Assignment
• Compare and Contrast Essay | Quick Guide with Examples
• Top AI Essay Writers in 2024: 10 Must-Haves
• 100 Best College Essay Topics & How to Pick the Perfect One!
• College Essay Format: Tips, Examples, and Free Template
• Structure of an Essay: 5 Tips to Write an Outstanding Essay
• 10 Best AI Essay Outline Generators of 2024
• The Best Essay Graders of 2024 That You Can Use for Free!
• Top 10 Free Essay Writing Tools for Students in 2024

Still have questions? Leave a comment

Add Comment

Checklist: Dissertation Proposal

Enter your email id to get the downloadable right in your inbox!

Examples: Edited Papers

Need editing and proofreading services.

• Tags: Academic Writing , English as a Second Language / ESL , Language

Are you a college student looking to improve your writing skills? Look no further! This article includes 100+ writing prompts on technology, art, science, sports, personal growth, history, leadership, and more! 

With this, we’ve also included a special section of fun writing prompts for students. So let’s explore these amazing writing prompts!  

Elevate your writing with professional editing services! Learn more

1. Social issues and challenges 

1) Write an essay about the importance of gender equality and the steps to achieve gender equality. 

2) Craft an article about the rise of AI tools and how they are changing society. 

3) Write about democracy’s challenges due to disinformation and suggest solutions. 

4) Analyze the root causes of homelessness in urban areas and suggest innovative approaches to address this issue.

5) Describe how the rising prices of commodities (inflation) have led to an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. Suggest what actions the government must implement. 

6) Elaborate on the impact of using mobile and computer technologies on mental health. 

7) Explain the importance of education in bringing social change. 

8) Describe the impact of climate change in your city and suggest solutions. 

9) Explore the role of art and culture in transforming society for the better. 

10) Discuss the economic, social, and cultural impact of immigration in the USA. 

2. Personal growth and self-reflection

11) Describe a difficult decision that you made and its positive impact. 

12) Reflect on how you worked towards achieving success and how you planned for it. 

13) Elaborate on how the experience of hearing a speech from a well-known celebrity changed your life. 

14) Describe an experience when you stepped outside of your comfort zone and took a risk.

15) Write about a skill or talent that you have developed and how it helped you in your personal life. 

16) Reflect on a time when you had to work as a part of a team and what you learned. 

17) Describe a time when you had to face your fear and the strategies you took to conquer your fear. 

18) Write about a time when you forgave someone for making a mistake and how it made you feel better. 

19) Elaborate on an incident that made you change a bad habit for the better. 

20) Reflect on an incident where there was a misunderstanding due to the lack of proper communication. What steps did you take to ensure proper communication? 

3. Technology and innovation

21) Discuss the role of technology in helping the world face the challenge of climate change. 

22) Explain the impact of robotics on fields such as healthcare, education, and customer service.

23) Analyze the impact of facial recognition technology on the world. 

24) Explore the potential of virtual and augmented reality technologies in education and entertainment. 

25) Explore the potential of wearable technology (like smart watches) to improve health. 

26) Examine the impact of 3D printing on manufacturing, supply chains, and enhancing production.

27) Describe the potential of blockchain technology in supply chain management, voting systems, or healthcare.

28) Explore the role of technology in improving communication.

29) Examine the potential of voice assistants like Alexa and Siri and AI writing assistants. 

30) Analyze the potential of mobile health apps in enhancing health and promoting easy access to medicines. 

Now let’s see some of the best creative writing prompts for students! 

4. Arts, culture, and creativity

31) Write a short story about a mad artist who brings change through his paintings. 

32) Compose a series of haiku poems inspired by seasons like summer, winter, autumn, and spring. 

33) Create a dialogue between two street artists discussing the importance of public art in society.

34) Write a flash fiction story about a meteor that falls in a village and its impact on the villagers. 

35) Pen a descriptive essay about a cultural food festival and the stories and traditions behind each dish.

36) Develop a short story about a time traveler who visits the 18th century and interacts with famous musicians and artists.

37) Craft a short story about a photographer who finds a photograph of a mysterious treasure, resulting in an exciting adventure.

38) Describe the art form of street theater and suggest strategies to promote it. 

39) Write about a detective team of English , Chinese, Australian, and Japanese officers that solve a case despite their cultural differences. 

40) Create a dialogue between two art critics discussing the merits and controversies of a controversial painting. 

Check out the environment-related writing prompts for students given below!

5. Environment 

41) Examine the consequences of deforestation and propose strategies for protecting forests worldwide.

42) Discuss the impact of plastic pollution and suggest innovative solutions for reducing plastic waste.

43) Analyze the role of eco-tourism in preserving the environment. 

44) Discuss the impact of meat consumption on the environment and explore the benefits of plant-based diets.

45) Explore the potential of electric vehicles in reducing carbon emissions.

46) Elaborate on strategies to conserve water and what steps should be taken at a global level to save water. 

47) Discuss the impact of electronic waste on the environment and propose strategies for waste management.

48) Explain the importance of recycling and propose ways to encourage more people to recycle. 

49) Discuss how renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy can help to conserve the environment. 

50) Describe various strategies to reduce soil erosion and suggest sustainable farming practices. 

Browse to explore science-related creative writing prompts for students! 

6. Science 

51) Explain the importance of genetic and DNA research in treating and preventing diseases. 

52) Discuss how scientific research has helped to enhance space research. 

53) Explore the benefits of collaboration between scientists belonging to different fields for developing innovative solutions. 

54) Describe how scientific technologies have revolutionized the transport industry. 

55) Explain various strategies related to how scientific innovation can be encouraged in schools and colleges. 

56) Pen a blog about how scientific discoveries have helped in waste management. 

57) Write an article about how chemistry research has led to better safety guidelines in industries. 

58) Discuss the potential of nanotechnology in electronics.

59) Analyze the importance of simulation and mention various simulation technologies to encourage experimentation. 

60) Explain the importance of various advanced technologies, including encryption technologies in ensuring cybersecurity. 

For sports lovers, the next section explores sports-themed good writing prompts for college students! 

61) Describe the efforts of the Olympics 2024 to promote sports like skateboarding and climbing. 

62) Give your opinion about how sports like judo and taekwondo help to encourage fitness. 

63) Explore the development of kite flying as a sport and its huge potential. 

64) Write about Simone Biles’ amazing return to gymnastics and why it is inspiring. 

65) Discuss how sports help to develop teamwork and leadership skills in students. 

66) Write about your favorite sport and suggest strategies to promote it. 

67) Pen an article about an unforgettable story about sportsmanship and fair play that you’ll always remember. 

68) Analyze the importance and role of sports journalism in shaping people’s opinions. Suggest ways to promote sports journalism. 

69) Explore the challenges, pros, and cons of hosting sports events on a global scale. Suggest strategies to face the challenges better. 

70) Describe the impact of technology on college sports, including wearable devices, social media, and video analysis. 

Want to write about travel and adventure? Get ready to explore creative writing prompts for college students inspired by these themes! 

8. Travel and adventure

71) Write about the growing popularity of solo travel and workations and how they can be encouraged. 

72) Describe a life-changing travel experience in detail. 

73) Explore the development of adventure tourism and list the top 5 spots famous for adventure tourism. 

74) Craft an article about your favorite World Heritage site that you’ve visited/would like to visit in the future. 

75) Give 20 tips about how to travel with a tight financial budget with limited resources to explore new destinations. 

76) Analyze the negative impact of over-tourism in famous tourist destinations. Suggest strategies to reduce negative consequences. 

77) Describe the importance of local customs and traditions while traveling to a new country. 

78) Write an essay on the importance of historical tourism and suggest how it can be encouraged. 

79) Explore how travel and tourism foster understanding between people belonging to different cultures. 

80) Write about how you faced serious obstacles and challenges while traveling. 

9. History 

81) Analyze the role of Nelson Mandela in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and his lasting impact. 

82) Discuss the role of Mao Zedong in the Chinese Communist Revolution and the transformation of modern China.

83) Explore the life and achievements of Leonardo da Vinci and his contributions to art, science, and engineering.

84) Write about a historical figure that inspires you the most and why. 

85) Examine the impact of World War 1 and World War 2 on society. 

86) Explain the achievements of Albert Einstein and his contributions to physics.

87) Examine the causes and consequences of the Cold War between Russia and the USA in detail. 

88) Discuss the impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Explore the role of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

89) Explore the significance of the Silk Route in facilitating cultural exchange and trade between East and West.

90) Explore the life and legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, his philosophy of non-violence, and its impact. 

Now let’s see some writing prompts for college students about education and learning. 

10. Education and learning

91) Describe the importance of online courses and apps in learning. 

92) Write about your experience in learning a new language and how it helped you. 

93) Reflect on your most difficult exam and what you learned from the experience.  

94) Write a short article about a teacher who positively impacted your education. 

95) Analyze all the pros and cons of using technology for learning. 

96) Describe the benefits of studying multiple subjects in college.

97) Elaborate on the importance of time management and describe any 5 time management strategies that helped you learn. 

98) Discuss the role of extra-curricular activities like arts, crafts, and sports in personality development. 

99) Reflect on an experience where failure while learning encouraged you to perform better. 

100) Elaborate on strategies and learning methods through which colleges can encourage creativity through education. 

101) Explain how learning in groups and through practical projects can help gain knowledge. 

11. Leadership and collaboration

102) Describe various strategies for developing leadership skills through education. 

103) Write about a leader who inspired you the most. 

104) Explain the types and impact of leadership style on team performance. 

105) Analyze the impact of stress and burnout on leadership and collaboration. Suggest strategies for enhancing health and resilience within teams.

106) Examine the role of creativity and innovation in leadership and collaboration. Discuss strategies through which leaders can encourage creativity among team members. 

107) Describe strategies using which leaders can bridge generation gaps and encourage diverse perspectives in teams. 

108) Explain the importance of storytelling in leadership. Describe how stories can be used to inspire team members. 

109) Analyze the impact of cross-cultural differences on leadership. Mention strategies using which leaders can ensure clear communication in culturally diverse teams. 

110) Examine the role of networking and relationship-building in leadership and collaboration. Suggest strategies for building professional networks. 

111) Discuss the importance of accountability and ownership in leadership and collaboration. Recommend 10 strategies for fostering a sense of responsibility and commitment within teams.

Browse through the next section for fun writing prompts for students! 

12. Fun writing prompts 

112) Describe a day when a magical genie agrees to grant 5 wishes. What would you ask for? 

113) Imagine you could visit any fictional world in a book/movie of your choice. Which fictional world would you choose and what would you do?  

114) Pen a story, imagining yourself as a superhero. What superpowers would you choose and what would you do? 

115) Imagine and describe your day as a famous inventor. What would you invent and why? 

116) If you could have dinner with five famous personalities, who would they be and why? 

117) Write a story about a magical dream that surprisingly came true. 

118) Pen a story about a road trip that takes an unexpected turn, leading to a shocking decision. 

119) Write a letter to your best friend, expressing gratitude and remembering all the wonderful memories spent together. 

120) If you could trade places with someone and live someone else’s life for a day, who would it be and why? 

121) Pen a story where whatever you say starts happening in reality. What happens next? 

Now let’s see some interesting writing prompts for ESL students! 

13. Good writing prompts for ESL students 

122) Write about your favorite food and why you enjoy it so much. 

123) Describe a memorable celebration you were part of and what made it special. 

124) Pen an article about a circus you visited and what you experienced. 

125) Explain about your dream house in detail. 

126) Write about your favorite book/TV Show/movie and explain why you liked it. 

127) Describe your experience playing a memorable video game and why it is special for you. 

128) Pen some words about the festival you love the most and why. 

129) Write in detail about your trip to an amusement park and its unique features. 

130) Describe a music festival you went to and why it was unforgettable for you. 

131) Pen your experience about a time you helped someone and how it made you feel. 

Now that you know the best creative writing prompts for students, you can use them. Once you complete writing, the next step will be to edit the text. As experts in editing and proofreading services , we’d love to help you perfect your text! 

Here are some other useful resources for you: 

• Academic Writing in 2024: 5 Key Dos & Don’ts + Examples
• 50 Amazing ESL Resources for Students (Free & Paid)

Frequently Asked Questions

How to find writing prompts, what is a good writing prompt, what are easy topics to write about.

Found this article helpful?

Leave a Comment: Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Your vs. You’re: When to Use Your and You’re

Your organization needs a technical editor: here’s why, your guide to the best ebook readers in 2024, writing for the web: 7 expert tips for web content writing.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get carefully curated resources about writing, editing, and publishing in the comfort of your inbox.

How to Copyright Your Book?

If you’ve thought about copyrighting your book, you’re on the right path.

© 2024 All rights reserved

• Terms of service
• Privacy policy
• Self Publishing Guide
• Pre-Publishing Steps
• Fiction Writing Tips
• Traditional Publishing
• Academic Writing and Publishing
• Partner with us
• Annual report
• Website content
• Marketing material
• Job Applicant
• Cover letter
• Resource Center
• Case studies

• Website Inauguration Function.
• Vocational Placement Cell Inauguration
• Media Coverage.
• Certificate & Recommendations
• Privacy Policy
• Science Project Metric
• Social Studies 8 Class
• Computer Fundamentals
• Introduction to C++
• Programming Methodology
• Programming in C++
• Data structures
• Boolean Algebra
• Object Oriented Concepts
• Database Management Systems
• Open Source Software
• Operating System
• PHP Tutorials
• Earth Science
• Physical Science
• Sets & Functions
• Coordinate Geometry
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Statics and Probability
• Accountancy
• Business Studies
• Political Science
• English (Sr. Secondary)

Hindi (Sr. Secondary)

• Punjab (Sr. Secondary)
• Accountancy and Auditing
• Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology
• Automobile Technology
• Electrical Technology
• Electronics Technology
• Hotel Management and Catering Technology
• IT Application
• Marketing and Salesmanship
• Office Secretaryship
• Stenography
• Hindi Essays
• English Essays

Letter Writing

• Shorthand Dictation

List of Most Important Imaginative Essays for Class 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12, Competitive Examinations, CBSE ASL

List of Most Important Imaginative Essays

1) A Visit to the Moon.List of Most Important Imaginative Essays for Class 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12, Competitive Examinations, CBSE ASL

2) An Imaginative Boating Excursion.

3) A Fairy Story of your own Invention.

4) An Imaginary Conversation of Toys.

5) Building Castles in the Air.

6) If a Pet Dog Could Speak.

7) If Toys of a Toy – maker’s Shop come to Life at Midnight.

8) If Barbers Went on Strike.

9) If There were no Doctors.

10) If I could make myself Invisible for a Day.

11) What would I Like to be.

12) The House I would build for Myself.

13) If the Sun took a Day off.

14) If f were the Editor of a Newspaper.

15) The Country I would most like to Visit.

16) If I were a Bird.

17) A Day on the Moon.

18) A Trip to Mars.

19) A Page from a Prince’s Diary.

20) A World without Newspapers.

21) The Woman of Tomorrow.

 22) What I would do with Ten Lakhs.

23) An Imaginary Visit to Kashmir.

24) Tourists in India in 2073.

25) What will Science invent in the Future.

26) The Third World War

27) The Moon Fancies.

28) Schools in the 21st Century.

29) Republic Day Celebrations fifty years hence.

30) An Interview with a 19th Century Indian.

About evirtualguru_ajaygour

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Quick Links

Popular Tags

Visitors question & answer.

• Jayprakash on Hindi Essay on “Aitihasik Sthal ki Yatra” , ”ऐतिहासिक स्थल की यात्रा” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
• Diksha on Official Letter Example “Write a letter to Superintendent of Police for theft of your bicycle. ” Complete Official Letter for all classes.
• Anchal Sharma on Write a letter to the Postmaster complaining against the Postman of your locality.
• rrrr on Hindi Essay on “Pratahkal ki Sair” , ”प्रातःकाल की सैर ” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
• Mihir on CBSE ASL “Listening Test Worksheet” (ASL) 2017 for Class 11, Listening Test Audio Script 1

Download Our Educational Android Apps

Latest Desk

• Contemporary Indian Women-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.
• Privatisation: Strengths and Weaknesses-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.
• Greater political power alone will not improve women’s plight-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.
• Casteism and Electoral Politics in India-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.
• Wither Indian Democracy?-English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11 and 12 Students.
• Do Not Put Off till Tomorrow What You Can Do Today, Complete English Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 9, 10, 11, 12, Graduation and Competitive Examination.
• Shabd Shakti Ki Paribhasha aur Udahran | शब्द शक्ति की परिभाषा और उदाहरण
• Shabd Gun Ki Paribhasha aur Udahran | शब्द गुण की परिभाषा और उदाहरण
• Example Letter regarding election victory.
• Example Letter regarding the award of a Ph.D.
• Example Letter regarding the birth of a child.
• Example Letter regarding going abroad.
• Letter regarding the publishing of a Novel.

Vocational Edu.

• English Shorthand Dictation “East and Dwellings” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Haryana General Sales Tax Act” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Deal with Export of Goods” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
• English Shorthand Dictation “Interpreting a State Law” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.

6th Grade Writing Prompts: Unlocking Imagination

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: March 27, 2023  - Last updated: July 31, 2023

Categories Writing

6th Grade Writing Prompts are a valuable tool for educators and parents alike, allowing young students to explore their thoughts, feelings, and ideas through creative writing exercises. These prompts can cover various topics, from personal experiences and emotions to thought-provoking scenarios and ethical dilemmas. The aim is to encourage students to think critically and express themselves effectively while developing their writing skills.

At this crucial stage of development, providing a supportive and engaging environment for students to practice and improve their writing abilities is vital. Numerous resources offer a wealth of compelling writing prompts specifically designed for 6th graders. The prompts you’ll find below in this article can inspire students to ponder real-world issues, reflect on their personal experiences, and imagine creative solutions to hypothetical situations.

The Importance of Writing Prompts

Writing prompts play a crucial role in developing the writing skills of 6th-grade students. They provide a starting point for students to begin expressing their thoughts and ideas, helping them overcome the common challenge of “writer’s block.” As students engage with various writing prompts, they learn to think critically, express their opinions, and dive into imaginative storytelling.

By offering a diverse range of topics, such as prompts that focus on procedural writing, students are exposed to different genres and styles of writing. This variety expands their writing horizons and helps them become well-rounded, versatile writers.

Introducing writing prompts at the 6th-grade level also enhances students’ analytical and problem-solving abilities. They learn to use evidence, logic, and reasoning to support their viewpoints and persuade readers. Additionally, writing prompts allow students to explore their creativity and foster a sense of self-discovery.

Lastly, engaging with writing prompts helps 6th graders develop crucial communication skills that serve as a foundation for future academic success and life experiences. Writing prompts encourage active participation in the learning process, promote self-expression, and cultivate a lifelong love for writing.

25 6th Grade Writing Prompts

• Imagine you’ve discovered a hidden door in your home that leads to a secret room. Describe the room and what you find inside.
• Write a story about a day when everyone’s dreams come true. How does this change the world?
• If you could switch lives with any historical figure for a day, who would you choose and why? Describe your day in their shoes.
• Imagine you have a time machine that can only be used once. Where and when would you go, and what would you do?
• Write a letter to your future self ten years from now. What advice would you give, and what questions would you ask?
• Create a new holiday and explain its celebration, including unique traditions or activities.
• Write an opinion essay on whether or not students should be required to wear uniforms in school. Provide reasons to support your argument.
• Imagine you can communicate with animals. What would you talk about, and which animal would you be most excited to speak with?
• Write a short story where the main character finds a mysterious map that leads to a hidden treasure.
• You’ve been chosen to represent Earth in an intergalactic council. What would you share about our planet and its inhabitants?
• Write a persuasive essay arguing for or against using technology in the classroom.
• Create a new superhero and describe their powers, backstory, and how they use their abilities for good.
• Imagine you are the president for a day. What would be your top priorities, and how would you address them?
• Write a story that starts with the sentence: “It was a dark and stormy night…”
• Create a fictional island and describe its geography, culture, and inhabitants. What makes this island unique?
• If you could invent a new gadget or tool to make life easier, what would it be, and how would it work?
• Write a personal narrative about a time when you faced a challenge and how you overcame it.
• Imagine you could create a new class or elective for your school. What would the class be about, and why would students benefit from it?
• Write a descriptive essay about your favorite place to visit. Use vivid sensory details to make the reader feel like they are with you.
• You wake up one day to find you’ve gained the ability to read minds. How do you use this power, and what challenges or moral dilemmas do you face?
• Create a fictional holiday and write a short story about a family celebrating it for the first time.
• Write a persuasive essay about the importance of conserving natural resources and the steps that should be taken to protect our environment.
• Imagine you are a detective solving a mysterious crime. Write a story that details your investigation and how you uncover the truth.
• If you could converse with any famous author, who would it be, and what would you ask them?
• Write a personal narrative about a memorable experience with a friend and what it taught you about friendship.

Understanding the 6th Grade Writing Curriculum

The transition from elementary to middle school.

As students enter 6th grade, they transition from elementary to middle school. This brings new challenges and expectations in their writing skills. They will be expected to write more complex content and use more sophisticated vocabulary. This includes writing for extended periods, such as long-term research or expressive pieces that may take a week, and writing for shorter durations in one sitting.

Emphasis on narrative writing

In 6th grade writing curriculum, there is a strong emphasis placed on narrative writing. This requires students to develop their storytelling abilities and write in a manner that engages the reader. They will focus on creating a clear narrative structure, developing characters, setting, and plot, and using vivid descriptive language to engage their audience.

Introduction to essay writing and personal narratives

Another vital part of the 6th grade writing curriculum is the introduction to essay writing and personal narratives. Students will learn how to effectively organize their thoughts and ideas coherently and logically. They will gain experience writing various essay types, such as persuasive, informative, and argumentative. Personal narratives will also play a key role, encouraging students to write about personal experiences and emotions and helping them build their voice and style as writers.

Role of reading comprehension and vocabulary development

Reading comprehension and vocabulary development are crucial in the 6th grade writing curriculum. Students must be able to understand complex texts, as this will inform their writing. Students will be exposed to new words and phrases to improve their vocabulary through reading assignments and class discussions. Building a strong vocabulary allows students to express their ideas more accurately and clearly, ultimately leading to more effective writing.

Types of 6th Grade Writing Prompts

Narrative prompts.

Narrative prompts encourage students to tell a story, real or imagined. These prompts can range from personal experiences to creating stories based on given scenarios. For example, a narrative prompt could be “Describe the hardest thing you have ever learned to do.”

Short Story Ideas

Short story ideas are prompts that invite students to create a fictional story with characters, settings, and a plot. These writing activities push students to develop their writing skills, storytelling abilities, and creativity. An example of a short story idea might be to “Write a story about a magical forest.”

Personal Narratives

Personal narrative prompts ask students to write about their own experiences or thoughts. These types of prompts encourage reflection, introspection, and the exploration of personal feelings. A personal narrative prompt might be “Write about a time you overcame a fear.”

Story Starters

Story starters are prompts that provide the beginning of a story, challenging students to continue and develop the narrative. They help spark students’ imaginations and encourage them to think creatively. For example, “In a world where animals could talk, a young girl made a surprising discovery…”

Descriptive Prompts

Descriptive writing prompts ask students to describe a specific object, place, or situation in detail, using vivid language and sensory details. This type of prompt helps students practice their creative writing and observation skills. An example of a descriptive prompt could be “Describe your dream vacation destination.”

Persuasive Prompts

Persuasive writing prompts require students to convince the reader of a particular opinion or point of view. Students practice building strong arguments, using evidence and facts, and addressing opposing viewpoints. An example of a persuasive prompt might be “Convince your readers why cell phones should or should not be allowed in school.”

Expository Prompts

Expository writing prompts ask students to explain, evaluate or analyze a topic, providing information and facts to support their position. This style of writing promotes critical thinking and research skills. A sample expository prompt might be “Explain the benefits and drawbacks of renewable energy sources.”

Creative Writing Prompts

Encourage your students to express their emotions and creativity through poetry. Here are some poetry prompts to inspire them:

• Write a poem about the changing seasons.
• Describe your favorite place using vivid imagery and sensory details.
• Compose a haiku about an everyday object.
• Create a poem from the perspective of an animal.

Imaginative Stories

Imagination is a powerful tool for developing writers. Provide these creative story prompts to spark their ideas:

• Write a story about a school where magic is real.
• Imagine you are a time-traveling scientist. Describe your adventures.
• Develop a story that revolves around a mysterious key.
• Create a tale where the main character’s best friend is a talking animal.

Scriptwriting

Scriptwriting can build dialogue and narrative skills. Suggest these engaging scriptwriting prompts for your students:

• Write a short script about two friends with a deep secret.
• Develop a scene featuring an unexpected encounter.
• Create a script that mixes elements of reality and fantasy.
• Compose a dialogue-rich scene set in a public place.

Using these creative writing prompt categories, 6th grade students can develop their writing abilities while letting their imagination soar.

Essay Writing Prompts

In this section, we explore a variety of essay writing prompts for 6th-grade students. These prompts are categorized under opinion essays, informative essays, and persuasive essays.

Opinion Essays

Opinion essays allow students to express their thoughts on a specific subject. Here are some prompts for 6th graders:

• What is your favorite hobby, and why?
• Which is better, traditional books or e-books? Explain your choice.
• What’s the best (or worst) birthday you’ve ever had?
• What is your greatest aspiration? Or, your darkest fear?

Informative Essays

Informative essays help students develop research and presentation skills. They should provide factual information about a topic. Here are some informative essay prompts:

• Describe your favorite short story in your own words.
• Write about the life cycle of a butterfly.
• Explain the process of photosynthesis in plants.
• Describe the history and importance of a famous landmark.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays help students to develop their argumentative skills. They should present clear reasons and evidence to support their opinion. Here are some persuasive essay prompts:

• Should school uniforms be mandatory? Why or why not?
• Is it essential to learn a foreign language? Explain your view.
• Do video games have a positive or negative impact on children?
• Should students be allowed to use mobile phones in school? Provide reasons for your opinion.

Subject-Specific Prompts

Integrating subject-specific writing prompts can help students connect their writing skills to various subjects. This section will explore writing prompts for Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Math, and Life Skills.

Language Arts

Language Arts writing prompts encourage students to analyze literature, express their thoughts, and improve their vocabulary. Examples include:

• Write a character analysis of the protagonist in your favorite book.
• Create a poem describing a historical event.
• Compose a short story inspired by a well-known myth.

Science writing prompts assist students in describing experiments, explaining scientific concepts, and making real-world connections. Examples include:

• Describe the steps of the water cycle and its importance to Earth.
• Explain the theory of evolution and provide examples of natural selection.
• Write about the role of technology in reducing the environmental impact of humans.

Social Studies

Social Studies writing prompts help students to explore historical events, cultural perspectives, and global issues. Examples include:

• Write an essay comparing the government systems of two countries.
• Discuss the significance of a famous historical figure’s actions.
• Analyze the impact of a specific geographical feature on human settlement.

Math writing prompts challenge students to apply mathematical concepts in various contexts and describe the logic behind problem-solving. Examples include:

• Explain how to solve a given math problem using the order of operations.
• Describe a real-world scenario where fractions are used and explain how to solve it.
• Discuss the role of geometry in architecture and provide examples.

Life Skills

Life Skills writing prompts encourage students to reflect on their personal experiences, goals, and values. Examples include:

• Write a letter to your future self, discussing the lessons you’ve learned and the goals you hope to accomplish.
• Discuss the importance of effective communication in relationships and provide examples.
• Explain the steps to achieving a specific personal goal and the challenges you may encounter.

Framework for Developing Prompts

When developing 6th grade writing prompts, balancing challenging and engaging topics is crucial. This allows students to explore new concepts while encouraging creativity and critical thinking. The framework presented in this section offers a few guiding principles for crafting effective prompts for this age group.

First, consider the interests and experiences of 6th grade students. Choosing topics related to their lives and what they care about will increase their motivation to write. For example, you might create prompts about the school, friendships, hobbies, or current events.

Next, design prompts that encourage a variety of writing genres, such as narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. This helps students develop skills in different writing styles and formats. For example, a narrative prompt might ask students to tell a story about a memorable experience, while an expository prompt might ask them to explain how a particular invention works.

Ensure to include prompts requiring students to practice critical thinking and problem-solving. These prompts often involve solving a given situation, analyzing a topic, or comparing and contrasting ideas. This helps 6th graders develop analytical and evaluative skills essential for academic and personal success.

Lastly, incorporate opportunities for reflection and self-expression. Reflective prompts allow students to examine their feelings, beliefs, and ideas. For example, ask students to consider how they would handle a specific dilemma or what they appreciate most about their family or friends.

Following these guiding principles, you can create a diverse collection of 6th-grade writing prompts that encourage creativity, critical thinking, and self-expression.

Techniques to Engage Students

Creating meaningful and engaging writing prompts for sixth-grade students involves considering their interests, skills, and development stage. Several techniques can help achieve this.

First, one can use creative prompts to encourage students to think outside the box and express their unique perspectives. Some examples of creative writing prompts for sixth graders include writing a poem about feeling outraged or imagining a day from a cell phone’s perspective.

Next, incorporating argumentative and persuasive prompts can help students learn to articulate their opinions and support them with strong evidence. This is particularly useful in developing research and critical-thinking skills. Examples include writing a persuasive essay on a current issue or debating the merits of a controversial book or movie.

Another effective technique involves using real-world connections in prompts to make them more relevant and applicable to students’ lives. For instance, ask students to write about their first hospital experience or discuss how technology has impacted their daily routines.

Lastly, integrating different writing styles like narrative, expository, and descriptive prompts will allow students to experiment with various writing techniques and improve their writing skills. Examples include composing a personal narrative about overcoming a challenge, writing an expository essay on a historical event, or crafting a descriptive piece about a favorite place or object.

Assessing and Providing Feedback

One of the key aspects of 6th Grade Writing Prompts is the assessment and provision of constructive feedback to students. Assessing their writing skills helps teachers identify strengths and weaknesses and guide future instruction tailored to student needs.

When evaluating student writing, it’s essential to consider various aspects, such as content, organization, word choice, sentence structure, and grammar. Providing specific and actionable feedback allows students to improve their skills and better understand writing concepts.

A helpful approach for grading and feedback is to use rubrics. Rubrics offer a structured way to outline the expectations for a writing assignment and help students understand the evaluation criteria. There are different types of rubrics, such as analytic, holistic, grid, numeric, and hybrid, which can be customized to suit a variety of writing prompts.

Another strategy for providing effective feedback is ensuring students know the learning objectives and quality expectations for their writing assignments. Explicitly discussing the writing goals and criteria helps students focus their efforts and self-assess their progress.

Lastly, integrating student-teacher conferences or peer review sessions can benefit the feedback process. These sessions allow for dialogue, clarification, and additional insights from different perspectives.

What Is Imagination & Why Is It Important For Fiction Writing?

In this post, we ask ‘What is imagination?’, look at the difference between imagination and creativity , and discuss why it’s important for fiction writing. There are also exercises for writers to try that are bound to spark your imagination.

Often dismissed as a bit of fancy, imagination is in fact a pervasive function of human experience and helps us make sense of the world.

Child’s Play

This weekend, I visited my cousin. His three-year-old son came bounding into the room. Noah insisted his father didn’t call him by his name. He was now Rocky, the family Rottweiler.

The little boy was transformed. He wanted to lick instead of kiss and eat his biscuits from a bowl on the ground. We all went along with the ruse.

His imaginative play reminded me of my niece, Leila, at a similar age. One day, while handing out imaginary sweets, she burst into tears. When her mother asked what was wrong she cried out, ‘You’ve eaten them all!’

This got me thinking about imagination and how much fun it can be to make things up, to leave reality behind in a conscious way, and enjoy this kind of mental play. It is this ‘fun’ aspect we often forget as writers as we ‘grow up’.

What Is Imagination?

But what exactly is imagination?

Imagination is the part of our minds that makes things up. It is how we form new ideas, images, or concepts of external objects that are not immediately present to the senses.

For example, it’s when you can see and almost feel the beautiful, butterscotch-coloured silk shirt you saw in a boutique’s window a few weeks ago, or taste your favourite dark-chocolate-and-cream mousse when you’re on a strict diet.

Sometimes, our imagination, as my grandmother would say, can also play tricks on us. The scratching sound on the window at midnight is suddenly the compass-style glass-cutter of a well-organised serial killer breaking into your bedroom. When you jerk back the curtains, it’s just an innocuous twig in the wind.

Pervasive Theories

Immanuel Kant , the famous 18th century philosopher, developed a broader theory of imagination, one that beyond the narrow physical sense of the word.

Kant conceived that imagination contributes significantly to the cognitive, aesthetic, and moral aspects of our lives. It synthesises with how we think, reason, and make sense of the world around us.

Much like Kant, Dustin Stokes , a young philosopher at the University of Utah, is interested in philosophical and psychological accounts of our imaginative capacities.

In an essay for a 2104 collection called Philosophy of Creativity, he says that few philosophers have considered the distinction between imagination and creativity. Similarly, few psychologists have directly tested the difference between the two concepts.

Imagination plays an important role in our experiences of art, in the construction of theories, and in everyday life, Stokes writes on his website.

The Ups And Downs Of Imagination

It seems that our brains behave differently when we are in ‘imagine mode’ as humans.

LiveScience , a science news website, reported that reality and imagination flow in different directions in the brain.

Visual information from real events flows up from the brain’s occipital lobe to the parietal lobe; imagined images flow down from the parietal lobe to the occipital lobe.

In fact, the same article reported that employing our imagination involves 11 areas of our brains.

Why Is It Important For Fiction Writing?

Imagination is a writer’s best friend. No artist will argue its rich and unfathomable resources.

Some of us think of it as a deep, nourishing well, others as a giant, magical tree we see at the edges of our dreams before we drift off to sleep – and when we often have our best ideas.

However, imagination is not the exclusive purview of the artist. As humans, it’s our basic capability to be creative. It is a part of human instinct and behaviour and, like creativity, is often dismissed as fanciful – divorced from reason or judgement –from those that don’t understand its importance.

Imagination is powerful and even vital when it is used to help us re-create something of deeper meaning. In other words, when we use it to write a story and craft it to have a specific effect on a reader or audience. Or when we use it to challenge, subvert, or change the things we find our imagination.

A Shared Imaginative Experience

In his ground-breaking book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (2009), Dennis Dutton, an American philosopher of art, outlines the 11 characteristics of art – in other words the indicators (or what he calls ‘signals’) for art that are recognised across cultures and the world.

In the book, he says objects of art provide an imaginative experience for both the artist and the audience. He also states that the imaginative characteristic is perhaps the most important one in art’s overall make-up.

All art happens in a make-believe world, he writes. The artistic experience takes place in the theatre of the imagination.

Dutton is correct. The very same serial-killer-turned-out-to-be-a-twig incident is powerful enough to get you to write a horror novel about a fictitious serial killer that kidnaps a young protagonist – a novel that sends vicarious thrills through the spines of thousands of readers across the globe.

Creativity is, of course, another unique cognitive function and one that suffuses all human life, but perhaps one slightly less involuntary as the imagination or our imaginative responses to our environment.

Imagination & Creativity

While imagination allows us to fill in the gaps of our human existence, creativity similarly allows us to connect often ‘opposite’ ideas to create new ideas, concepts, or a tension between the two opposing ideas.

It’s what is often called the magic synthesis, a term coined by Italian author and psychoanalyst Silvano Arieti (author of Creativity: The Magic Synthesis ) in the 1970s.

This synthesis is examined by the Sante Fe Institute in a 2015 paper called ‘How Creativity Works In the Brain’ . It is what happens in the brain when ideas are brought together in a way necessary for creativity to happen.

In other words, the paper explains, the brain must be both divergent and convergent at the same time. It’s a process well understood by artists, who often meld together radically different ideas to create a new connection.

MUST-READ: 5 Steps To Creativity In Writing

Imagination To Creation

Perhaps the crucial difference between the constructs of imagination and creativity , for writers at least, is that our imagination can produce sensations or images that stimulate the creative parts of our brain. Once we have that ‘image’ we can start turning it into a story, while consciously manipulating or re-arranging it to fit the context of our narrative.

Put another way, 0ne can imagine what it would be like to date George Clooney, but it will take our creative skills to write a whole novel about an ordinary person who dates a famous Hollywood actor.

Imagination Exercises

Here are three exercises to help stimulate your imagination and creativity .

For each, find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably, close your eyes, let your imagination run free for at least 30 minutes.

After each exercise, you may want to jot down any unique or inspiring insights.

1. Imaginary Families

Ty to picture one of the following as your alternative family:

• A Parisian family during La Belle Epoque in France.
• A Martian family on an exchange programme with Earth.
• A family of magicians .
• An animal family living in a forest.
• The Manson Family of psychopaths in the 60s.
• A family of fish in a new aquarium.

What was the experience like? Were you surprised by what your imagination offered you?

2. Still-life

Imagine a table in front of you, empty except for a pure white tablecloth. At this moment, you are an artist arranging objects for a still life oil painting.

• What will you place on the table? (Fruit, flowers, etc.) How will you arrange these objects? See it all in your mind.
• Now add in more of the senses besides the visual. What do you smell ? What do the objects feel like ? What can you hear in the background?
• Finally, start imagining who you are as this artist. What does your studio look like? What inspires you? Who is the painting for?

3. Characters Come Alive

In this exercise, think of a character in your favourite book or short story. If you wish, you can re-read some of the story or novel.

• What do they look like in your imagination?
• What are they wearing as you imagining them?
• What are they doing?
• Can you ‘hear’ their voices or laughter?
• What else comes to mind?

The Last Word

I hope I’ve answered the question ‘What is imagination?’, explained the difference between imagination and creativity, and shown you why it’s important for fiction writing.

Ralph Fletcher, in his book What a Writer Needs  (1992), says that as a writer ‘there are two whole universes for you to explore – the one on the inside and the physical one on the outside. Take your choice, inner or outer. Or best – both.’

Top Tip : Find out more about our workbooks and online courses in our shop .

More Posts From Anthony:

• The Power Of Dialogue In Love Stories
• 7 Reasons Why ‘What If?’ Is The Most Important Question You Can Ask As A Writer
• Writers Talk 8 | My Year Of Writing
• The 5 Pillars Of Family Sagas
• 101 Romance Tropes For Writers
• 10 Powerful Visual Storytelling Techniques for Writers
• Novels & Screenplays: What’s The Difference?
• Anthony Ehlers , Featured Post , Writing Inspiration

1 thought on “What Is Imagination & Why Is It Important For Fiction Writing?”

Great post, Anthony! I remember my little cousin cooking make-believe food, and my aunt ate it before it was done. My cousin then ordered her to ‘spit it out! That’s yucky!’. My aunt obeyed, and all was well once more. Imagination is an amazing thing. Life would be unbelievably dull without it. 😁

Comments are closed.

© Writers Write 2022

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

David Brooks

The Awesome Importance of Imagination

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

Plato and Aristotle disagreed about the imagination. As the philosopher Stephen Asma and the actor Paul Giamatti pointed out in an essay in March, Plato gave the impression that imagination is a somewhat airy-fairy luxury good. It deals with illusions and make-believe and distracts us from reality and our capacity to coolly reason about it. Aristotle countered that imagination is one of the foundations of all knowledge .

One tragedy of our day is that our culture hasn’t fully realized how much Aristotle was correct. Our society isn’t good at cultivating the faculty that we may need the most.

What is imagination? Well, one way of looking at it is that every waking second your brain is bombarded with a buzzing, blooming confusion of colors, shapes and movements. Imagination is the capacity to make associations among all these bits of information and to synthesize them into patterns and concepts. When you walk, say, into a coffee shop you don’t see an array of surfaces, lights and angles. Your imagination instantly coalesces all that into an image: “coffee shop.”

Neuroscientists have come to appreciate how fantastically complicated and subjective this process of creating mental images really is. You may think perception is a simple “objective” process of taking in the world and cognition is a complicated process of thinking about it. But that’s wrong .

Perception — the fast process of selecting, putting together, interpreting and experiencing facts, thoughts and emotions — is the essential poetic act that makes you you.

For example, you don’t see the naked concept “coffee shop.” The image you create is coated with personal feelings, memories and evaluations. You see: “slightly upscale suburban coffee shop trying and failing to send off a hipster vibe.” The imagination, Charles Darwin wrote, “unites former images and ideas, independently of the will, and thus creates brilliant and novel results.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Particles of Order

The guest from America was to arrive in the late afternoon. Ursula, having arranged the welcome platter, waited until she heard a car slowing down in the driveway, its gravel rinsed all day by the rain, before drizzling some honey in broad strokes on the cheese and the nuts. From the kitchen window, she could see the cabdriver—Timothy today—place a suitcase next to the door, heavy, as demonstrated by his eloquent grimace. Likely he had entertained his fare with one of his two America-related stories: the cousin who’d done life in Sing Sing or the great-granduncle escaping Alcatraz on a stormy night. Visitors from America were rare, or else Timothy would have invented more credible family legends.

The woman, Lilian Pang, smiled tiredly as she got out of the car and thanked Timothy. She was between forty-five and fifty-five, Ursula estimated, a time when some people’s lives come into order while others’ fall out of it. It was mid-January, not the best season for anyone to holiday in the Devon countryside, particularly alone. A reservation of two weeks was long; guests usually stayed for a few days at most. Ursula had not dwelled too much on this, but she had noticed the facts. And now, assessing the guest through the window, she did not think there were any red flags. People who have taken the trouble to travel seek something they cannot find at home. Ursula’s job was to provide the possibility, not the certainty, of success.

By the time Timothy drove away, Ursula had cut the pear and arranged the slices in the small bowl, which sat just off the center of the plate. No two guests would see the same composition, but this was a minor achievement, known only to Ursula: a still-life that did not last.

Read an interview with the author for the story behind the story.

How much still-life is too much still-life? Once, when she had told Edmund that the only kind of art works she would never tire of were still-life paintings, he had protested mildly, though before she said anything he had added that she could turn the question back to him. How many murders is too many murders? A prolific writer of murder mysteries, Edmund had been known to say that he had lost track of the body count by mid-career. A few times he had recycled the names of minor characters, but Ursula had made sure to change them when she typed up the manuscript. Margot to Margarette, Mrs. Southward to Mrs. Southwood, Julian to Jude. Edmund never seemed to notice the subtle intervention. He had often stated that he did not feel attached to any of his characters, was interested only in their shared fate.

Ursula gave Lilian a tour of the house, asking about the flight from New York and expressing satisfaction that Lilian had caught the fastest direct train to Exeter, as Ursula had instructed in their correspondence. “Do you live in New York?” Ursula asked.

“Yes, New York,” Lilian said. After a pause, she laughed lightly, as though at a private joke between herself and someone not present. “Actually, New Jersey.”

“Is that the state next to New York?”

Lilian nodded. “It was pointed out to me that it was a bad habit to keep calling New Jersey New York,” she said.

By whom ? Ursula noticed the passive voice.

“I’ve got to stop that,” Lilian said.

“Oh,” Ursula said, not asking why. She knew very little about New Jersey. She said so to Lilian.

“There’s not much to know about it.”

Podcast: The Writer’s Voice Listen to Yiyun Li read “The Particles of Order.”

“Oh, now I remember. One of Kierkegaard’s brothers died in New Jersey,” Ursula said. It was a stroke of luck. She had been reading a biography of Kierkegaard. She was not particularly familiar with his work, but a book she’d been looking for at the library, a biography of George Eliot, was checked out. On the librarian’s suggestion, Ursula had taken the Kierkegaard biography, which was by the same author.

“Really? Where in New Jersey?”

Ursula shook her head. Wasn’t it enough that she had retained one interesting fact about New Jersey? Though, now that she thought about it, what could anyone do with a single fact, which, like a point, begins and ends in itself. You needed two points to make a line, more if you wanted to make a life.

Lilian said it didn’t matter. “It’s too late for me to read Kierkegaard in any case,” she said.

Again, Ursula had a sense that Lilian was talking to someone not present, or else voicing a thought meant for herself. A lone traveller sometimes carried an air of disturbance, but Ursula did not feel the need to fret. She herself was a lone woman. Besides, she did not mind odd people, having lived with—through—odder ones in Edmund’s books.

The collection of Mr. Thornton’s work, Ursula said, could be found in the library next to the solarium. “That is, if you want to reread them. Likely you already know them well.”

“Who’s Mr. Thornton?”

How on earth had an Asian woman from that faraway place called New Jersey decided to come to Beechwood Cottage if she’d never heard of Edmund Thornton? Most guests were avid readers of his work. They came because they wanted to stay for a few days in the place where he had spent his last forty years. They walked to the beech grove where a hidden body could be conjured up in their vivid yet harmless imaginations. They visited the village, which was fifteen minutes away by foot, to catch a glimpse of the context for Edmund Thornton’s work: an idyllic setting for the fine art of murdering and the finer art of detecting. And, in the cottage, they studied a lopsided initial carved on the back of a cabinet door, a half-torn pad in a drawer, an unfinished sentence on a sheet dangling from an old typewriter, not realizing that these artifacts were not genuine traces of the author’s life but vestiges left by other visitors. There was no way to stop the minor vandalisms: the house was not a museum. And any marks left by the visitors could only point to more stories. Edmund would’ve approved, a service done by his readers and for his readers.

Ursula gave a brief introduction to Edmund Thornton. “How did you find us”—she could not help but ask—“if you’d never heard of him?”

Lilian said that a friend’s friend had recommended the house when she was looking for a quiet place in the English countryside.

There were many quiet places in the countryside, but only one of them had once been occupied by Edmund Thornton. Ursula, however, saw no reason to protest. She led Lilian to the kitchen, where she had left a few eggs, a bottle of milk, and some bread and butter. There were shops in the village, Ursula said, if Lilian wanted to prepare her own food. There were also a couple of gastropubs and a coffeehouse, in case that was easier. Lilian nodded, giving the briefest glance at the welcome platter, noticing nothing about the composition.

Before Ursula left, Lilian asked if the house was booked immediately after her stay. Ursula knew that it was not—early February was not yet prime season—but she said she would check and get back to Lilian.

Ursula had been Mrs. Burnett when she first began to work for Edmund, and nearer his death, beset by dementia, he returned to addressing her as Mrs. Burnett, so that once again she addressed him as Mr. Thornton, putting an end to the period—decades—when they had been Edmund and Ursula to each other.

It was in 1982 that she had answered a handwritten note pinned to the co-op’s bulletin board, seeking “a lady typist.” Ursula was twenty-nine that year, not quite a lady, but a young widow. The year before, her husband, Robert, had died when his vehicle slipped off a flooded road into a river, leaving her the farmhouse, which had been in his family for three generations, the land around it, which had dwindled over the years, and some loans, which she managed to repay by letting the last pocket of land go to the Hinshaws, who owned the neighboring farm. For a few months Ursula had thought of selling the farmhouse and returning to Nova Scotia, where her parents and two brothers still lived. They had all adored her as a doll-like child, the youngest in the family; they had adored her despite not knowing her at all. They would have welcomed her back, would even have pretended that her sojourn in England had never happened. There was some solace in imagining that—a tight lid put on three years of marriage, during which she had tried and failed to get pregnant.

Instead, Ursula saw the ad: typing she could do, easily. With that and a few bookkeeping jobs she had picked up during her marriage, she could sustain herself for the time being. Perhaps she would find another man to fall in love with, and they’d have some children if it was not too late.

Link copied

In the end, she did not marry again. She became Edmund’s typist, a situation that caused some raised eyebrows initially, but a friendship rather than a romance ensued. There had not been a scandal because Edmund had been looking for a typist, not love or companionship. Ursula was not an ambitious woman, just an adaptable one.

When Edmund died, in 2017, Ursula read the obituaries in various newspapers, all of which talked about his early life as a boarding-school master, his prime in London writing murder mysteries, his abrupt decision to withdraw to the countryside after his second divorce, and then his decades of living as a recluse while continuing to produce his popular novels—one series featuring a detective who was an aspiring watercolorist, the other, set in Victorian London, about a woman working as a medium, whose séances revealed an underworld where murder victims, like Old Hamlet, demanded justice and revenge. None of the obituaries mentioned Edmund’s working habits, so few people would know of his lady typist.

Ursula was a petite woman, still agile and youngish looking, as though her aging had stopped at the moment she entered widowhood—at least her pageboy haircut had not changed.

When Edmund’s three sons from the two marriages converted the cottage into a rental, to serve curious readers on a literary pilgrimage or a murder-themed holiday, she was the natural choice for the role of caretaker.

It was not an onerous job. A young woman from the village came to help her clean, and Mark, the son of the old gardener, mowed the grassy slope and replenished the annuals in the pots. Ursula liked to study the guests and wonder who among them would’ve found a place in Edmund’s next book, had he been alive. Most of them would do as a body neatly tucked away or haphazardly sawed apart. Few of them, despite their belief otherwise, looked the part of a murderer or a detective.

In the next three days Ursula did not see Lilian in the village, and casual exchanges in the shops confirmed that no, the guest staying in the cottage had not been spotted. Perhaps Lilian had stretched out the food left by Ursula, or she was on a special diet and her nourishment came from her suitcase. She would not starve, Ursula thought, but there were other possible scenarios that might justify checking on her: an accident in the shower, a heart attack, and, of course, a suicide. Ursula thought this last scenario improbable. If Lilian did mean to kill herself, a few days’ stay might suffice. A reservation for two weeks would be a waste, no? But right away Ursula realized that she had made the same mistake many characters in Edmund’s books did: much of life, contrary to what they believed, did not operate according to logic. Only a mystery writer relies on logic, to construct the puzzle of the crime and its resolution.

Ursula put a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, some eggs, and a couple of apples in a basket. On second thought, she took out everything but the milk and placed her book-size calendar in the basket. She could easily say she was stopping by to show Lilian that there would be two and a half weeks of vacancy after her reservation ended.

It was a day of sun between days of rain, and Ursula had decided to try the solarium first. Her instinct was proved right. Lilian was hovering over some books, seemingly hard at work. She had not noticed Ursula outside or the shadow she cast before she tapped on the glass.

“Oh, hello,” Lilian said when she opened the French windows.

Ursula handed the milk to Lilian and asked if everything in the cottage was satisfactory. In the past, some guests had complained about the Wi-Fi connection, she said, and Lilian thanked Ursula, saying she hadn’t really been online, and everything else worked perfectly well.

Having little more to say, they smiled at each other, one waiting to be invited into the solarium, the other waiting for the intruder to take her leave. After a moment, Lilian gave in and asked Ursula to step inside. Ursula pulled a second chair close to the round table, so that Lilian would feel obliged to sit down again.

There had been a few knickknacks on the table—a bust of the Duke of Wellington, an ornamental inkstand, a set of miniature porcelain owls, and an antique butter stamp with a crudely carved bird holding a berry in its beak—but Lilian had cleared them off. She pointed to a box at the corner, where all the things were safe, she said. She promised that she would return every object to its original place before she left. She had taken a picture of their display on the table. “I suppose they belonged to Mr. Thornton?” she asked.

Ursula nodded. She recognized the desultoriness of small talk in Lilian’s question. Of course she would not recognize the meanings of those objects. They, like many other things in the cottage, had entered Edmund’s work, a trail of bread crumbs left behind . . . For whom, though? Ursula wouldn’t allow the thought that they were for her. For himself, really.

“People in the shops said you haven’t been in. I want to make sure you have enough food,” Ursula said. I want to make sure you’re alive, unlike Ellie Boyle, a girl with hazel-green eyes, who never saw another day after checking into the Fox and Hounds .

“Oh, food,” Lilian said vaguely, as though she did not understand the real query in Ursula’s words. “I suppose I’m doing fine.”

There was a stack of books and an open notebook on the round table, but Ursula resisted the urge to scrutinize them. Instead, she looked around and said that the solarium was her favorite part of the cottage. Her favorite, too, Lilian agreed, and then praised the loveliness of the house. Flavorless words—Ursula thought that neither of them was good at putting on a performance beyond mere human courtesy. Any moment now she should stand up and take her leave. She wished she had entered via the kitchen and put the kettle on, so there would be the excuse of waiting for the water to boil and the tea to be made and drunk. There would also be the opportunity to have a quick glance around the cottage for signs that might or might not tell a story. Ursula did not remember another case when she’d had a solo guest in the cottage.

“Guess what? I found out where Kierkegaard’s brother died,” she said, when they seemed to have run out of small talk. “In a place called Paterson, in New Jersey.”

“How fascinating,” Lilian said, lacking enthusiasm.

“He died in a hotel,” Ursula said. She remembered thinking of the poor maid who must have discovered the body after having knocked on the door to no answer.

“Oh, how sad.”

“He died at twenty-four. Very young.”

“I suppose that could be called young.”

Robert had died at thirty-one, and at the funeral several people had repeated the same words: gone too soon. “Twenty-four is young,” Ursula said, and felt right away that her tone came across as argumentative. She softened it and asked Lilian if she had been to Paterson.

Lilian said she had never been to that part of New Jersey. She added that she made it sound as though New Jersey were a giant state, but it was really a tiny one. Ursula said she understood—there were still parts of Devon she had never been to, even though she’d lived here most of her adult life.

“But do you want to visit those parts?” Lilian asked.

Ursula was mildly taken aback. So far, they had abided by the rule that governs conversations between strangers, talking about neutral topics instead of themselves. It had taken her and Edmund nearly a year before they had ventured into personal conversation. Every Tuesday and Friday, she’d brought cleanly typed pages to him and received more handwritten pages, and sometimes typed pages that had been cut up and pasted on new sheets, with paragraphs and sentences rearranged. But one Tuesday he had asked her if she was fond of green. He had noticed, he said, that she often had some shades of green in her attire. Not surprised but touched that he had paid such attention, she confessed that her mother used to praise the color of her eyes—hazel—and often dressed her in ways to accent the green, and she had retained the habit. A few weeks later, Ursula encountered Ellie Boyle in his manuscript, a young woman whose hazel-green eyes had caught the fancy of a man because his mother had the same eye color.

“What I mean,” Lilian said when Ursula did not speak right away, “is that the parts of New Jersey I haven’t been to, I have no desire to visit.”

Ursula smiled. “In fact, there’s one part of Devon I did want to visit. Thirty minutes by bike in that direction,” she said, and pointed beyond the garden. “You see, Mr. Thornton wasn’t the only writer in this part of the world. There was another writer who used to live not far from here. I always thought, Wouldn’t it be nice to bike down and take a look at his house?”

“But you didn’t? Why?”

Ursula could say that it was impolite to intrude, and she understood a writer’s need for privacy, but these were only convenient excuses. These explicable reasons would not have deterred her from going, had she wanted to. “Don’t you think sometimes it’s enough just to have imagined it?” she said. It was one of Edmund’s sentences, she knew, except that his characters never followed that line of thinking. Mere imagination was never sufficient for murderers or for detectives.

Lilian was silent for a moment, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “What was this other author’s name?”

“William Trevor.”

“Oh, I’ve read his books,” Lilian said. “I didn’t know he lived near here. Do you like his work, too?”

Ursula would never ask a visitor, Do you like Mr. Thornton’s work? Rather, she would ask, Do you reread Mr. Thornton’s work? Or, Which of his books is your favorite? Even, Which of his books has upset you most? “ ‘Like’ may be the wrong word,” she said. “What I think—sometimes—is that my life is a William Trevor story.”

For the first time, Lilian studied Ursula, and there was no longer a vague, distracted look in her eyes. “Do you mean you see yourself as one of his characters? Or do you think your life follows his kind of . . . plot? But, of course, his work is not about plot, unlike Edmund Thornton’s.”

“Not all murders have a plot,” Ursula said.

“But a murder mystery has to have a plot, no?” Lilian asked.

Ursula understood right away that Lilian was not a reader of murder mysteries. “People often make that mistake,” she said. “Mr. Thornton would say that a good murder mystery is never really about the plot. Or even about the murder. He would say that a murder mystery is all about logic and intuition.”

Lilian pondered. “Whose logic and intuition? The detective’s or the murderer’s?”

“Neither,” Ursula said. “The writer’s. And, of course, the reader’s. Mr. Thornton would say if a writer offers a puzzle that’s beyond the reader’s ability, then it’s not a good book.”

“So it’s . . . like a game?”

Ursula did not like the word “game,” and she smiled without answering.

“And everything is in order by the end, for the writer and the reader?” Lilian asked.

“Yes,” Ursula said. “Mr. Thornton would say that the world fails to live up to the standard of a murder mystery in that aspect.”

Lilian thought for a moment. “But all good writing is about logic and intuition, don’t you think? Does this mean that the world fails to live up to the standard of good writing?”

It mattered little to Ursula if the rule applied to all good writing or to some good writing. Edmund’s writing was about logic and intuition—that fact alone was enough for her.

“For instance, you could say that William Trevor’s writing is also about logic and intuition,” Lilian said, a bit too adamantly.

Ursula could feel a strong disagreement arise within her, but she did not want to argue. She shrugged.

“Have you ever thought of yourself as a character in Edmund Thornton’s work?” Lilian asked.

“I don’t think I would be a good model for a murderer,” Ursula said, not entirely honestly. In one sense, she would’ve made a perfect murderer in Edmund’s work—a harmless-looking person, indispensable to nobody. Only, he had never modelled one on her.

Ursula looked at Lilian, whose curiosity could be called impudent by now, although Edmund would’ve liked this turn of their conversation. Together, talking in their odd manner, they would have offered the possibility of a lead in the case, but, ultimately, they would simply be a pair of bystanders. Most characters in a murder mystery are just part of the backdrop of the drama. “I guess I’ve never felt the urge to kill someone,” Ursula said. She turned away from Lilian’s gaze and looked at the open notebook on the table. There were letters and numbers written across the page.

“But you don’t see yourself as a murder victim, either? He must have had all kinds of characters murdered in his books?”

What could she say to that? Sometimes Ursula wondered if all the victims in Edmund’s books—or those since she had begun to work for him—were the same person named Ursula Burnett, even though they went by other names in his pages. “I’ve never thought of that,” she said. Then she changed the subject, pointing to the notebook and asking Lilian if she was a mathematician.

“Oh, God, no, I have very little talent for mathematics,” Lilian said. She picked up the top book from the pile and showed the title to Ursula. It was Book I of Euclid’s “Elements.” “I figured I could take a couple of weeks off from work to do a bit of studying. I wanted to see if I could make some sense out of this.”

“Why geometry? Or why Euclid? I don’t honestly know why. It’s something to tackle on a holiday?” Lilian said, and laughed, again, as though she were sharing a joke with someone not present. “That’s really not a good answer. I could’ve brought Proust’s work in French.”

“You know who liked to talk about geometry?”

They nearly replied at the same time—“Mr. Thornton” and “Edmund Thornton”—and both laughed.

“He once said a good grasp of geometry was all you needed to write a murder mystery,” Ursula added.

“That must be the logic-and-intuition part—I’ve heard geometry described that way. In fact, that’s why I brought the books on the trip,” Lilian said, looking at the pile of books with a tender suspicion. “I don’t know how feasible it is for me to finish these books in two weeks. It’s not easy reading.”

Ursula fetched her calendar from the basket. “I promised to bring you the answer. The house will be vacant until the sixteenth of February.”

“Which means it’s possible for me to stay till then?”

“Yes . . .” Ursula said.

Ursula said there was no “but,” though she had noticed that Lilian hadn’t been to the village. “I didn’t leave a lot of food for you.”

“Oh, that,” Lilian said, as though she were surprised by the necessity. “I’ll try to go and get some provisions, if that makes you feel better.”

Ursula said she wouldn’t mind stopping by every now and then and bringing some supplies with her, and Lilian appeared relieved, accepting the offer.

Ursula looked at the sky outside, which during her visit had turned heavy with clouds again. “It isn’t really the best season to visit,” she said. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to leave the house.”

Lilian nodded, waiting, Ursula suspected, for her to leave finally.

“What do you do?” Ursula asked. “You said you were taking some time off from work.”

“I teach at a university. And I write some books.”

“In what field?”

“Oh, I don’t have a field, really,” Lilian said. “I write fiction, but not the kind of work that’s as widely read as Edmund Thornton’s.”

Ursula did not point out that Lilian had never heard Edmund’s name before her arrival. “Do you write more like William Trevor?”

Lilian laughed. “I would have to suffer from delusions of grandeur to compare myself to him.”

They were no longer strangers. Ursula smiled, and stood up to leave. At the door she said to Lilian, “I’m afraid you’ve got one thing wrong about William Trevor. His work is about illogic.”

Lilian, surprised, said that she would have to think about it and they would discuss it when Ursula came back.

The next day, the sky was dark as lead, the rain icy cold. Ursula wondered if she should wait for the weather to ease up before going to the cottage, but the forecast did not look promising for the entire week, and Lilian, she thought, could do with some more food. Then Ursula wondered if she was doing what many ordinary people had done—in life as well as in fiction. Favoring logic over intuition, they’d dismissed their misgivings, as though they strove to present themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Robert, refusing to believe in the possibility of a flood, because the last flood had been fifty years earlier, or Edmund’s murder victims, nearly all of them contributing in one way or another to their own demise.

Are you indulging your imagination? Ursula asked herself. Edmund used to scoff at people who praised his imagination, saying that it was like praising a master jeweller for the velvet on which he showcased his creations. Lilian was studying Euclid, not reading Edmund’s books for murderous inspiration. A caretaker of a house once occupied by a writer of murder mysteries is found dead in that very house, killed in a manner that had been described in one of his books—Edmund would’ve considered such a scenario beyond the pale. Or did Ursula fear that she herself, a harmless old woman, might act uncharacteristically, committing a crime that would not present a technical challenge for any detective and yet would remain a puzzle for all concerned?

Perhaps there was a simpler explanation for her wish to see Lilian, Ursula thought. Odd women tended to exist in parallel. An encounter between two such specimens should not be avoided.

Lilian poured tea and neglected to offer milk. Today she did not have time for small talk. “When you said that William Trevor’s work was about illogic, did you mean the characters’ illogic or the author’s?”

Again they were sitting at the round table in the solarium, the rain drumming on the glass roof. Ursula had to ask Lilian to repeat the question. They raised their voices, like two people hard of hearing.

Ursula thought about the question and said that she wasn’t a writer, so she couldn’t really say for sure. “Only, you see, the murderers in Mr. Thornton’s work may surprise others, but they never surprise themselves. People in William Trevor’s work are often strangers to themselves.”

“But does that mean that Trevor’s characters are lacking logic?”

“It looks to me as if they wouldn’t have become his characters if they had a strong sense of logic. They would’ve known themselves, and they wouldn’t have ended up in his story.”

“Because William Trevor doesn’t make puzzles that can be solved. Those characters simply live on,” Ursula said.

Lilian thought and then nodded. “I used to think I lived like a William Trevor character,” she said. “There’s something comforting about the idea of living in his fiction, don’t you agree?”

Comforting? Ursula thought of the years she’d spent as Edmund’s typist—nearly half her life. All that time, however, could easily be condensed into a single image in a William Trevor story, no more than two or three sentences. A woman walks alone by the sea. A man, whom she has not stopped loving, lives without returning her love and then dies without thinking of her. “I suppose very few people in William Trevor’s work get themselves murdered, if that’s what you mean by ‘comforting.’ ”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about that,” Lilian said. “What I mean is, in William Trevor’s work, life remains endurable.”

“But isn’t that because his characters are the kind who have set their hearts to endure?”

“You can set your heart to endure, but that doesn’t mean you get to live in his stories,” Lilian said with a mocking smile. “Sometimes I feel like I got evicted from Trevor-land.”

Ursula held Lilian’s eyes steady with her own, waiting with patience. A person exiting a William Trevor story—where would she go from there?

“Do you have children?” Lilian asked.

Ursula shook her head. There were many solitary and lonely women in William Trevor’s stories, and not all of them were mothers.

“I had two,” Lilian said. “Two boys, and they both chose suicide. No, you don’t have to say anything. It’s a fact, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Ursula nodded. A jarring fact could never be softened by words. “Did they die together?” she asked. Perhaps she was wicked, asking such an impertinent question, but then, she thought, she could be no more wicked or impertinent than life.

“No, some years apart,” Lilian said.

“How old were they?”

“Young. Younger than Kierkegaard’s brother.”

That woman walking alone on the waterfront, with the sea breeze lifting her scarf and messing up her hair—those who knew her by sight might be moved to pity her, but their pity could come only from their conjecture about her life. They could look for clues, but they would not have the facts. No wonder Lilian had wanted to find a quiet place in the English countryside, where a cabdriver told fairy tales about criminal America. Very few deaths could remain private. In that sense, Ursula counted herself fortunate: Edmund’s death, so public, nevertheless had left her safe in her bereavement. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did the second child . . . Did it happen recently?”

“Six weeks ago, and, before that, six years ago,” Lilian said. “So you see, I can never return to a William Trevor story. It would be a comfort to endure only the endurable.”

Where could Lilian go? Into a Greek drama or a Shakespeare play? Even Edmund would not make this mother a murderer or a murder victim.

“But I just realized a slip in my logic,” Lilian said. “I can’t call my life unendurable. If it’s endured, it would become, by definition, endurable.”

“What about your . . . well, the father of the children?”

“My husband? He’s somewhere in Herefordshire, staying in an abbey,” Lilian said. “We thought it might do us good to have a change. He’s going to spend some time reading Wittgenstein there. I’m reading Euclid here.”

“And you both chose well. A quiet place is what you need.”

Lilian nodded, looking up at the rain, which made a torrent on the glass ceiling. “A quiet place where the vultures cannot find me.”

“Vultures?”

“Untimely and unnatural deaths attract them. I suppose Mr. Thornton had plenty of those characters in his books?”

Ursula thought of the other guests, who came because here they could catch a few glimpses of a man who was gone from the world. Vultures of a kind they were, too, but they knew only his work, which was no more than the husk of a real person. It was for this reason that Ursula had resisted the urge to ride her bike past William Trevor’s house, both before his death and, particularly, afterward. “Yes,” Ursula said. “But Mr. Thornton spent very little time writing about what you call vultures. They didn’t interest him.”

“And that’s the luxury an author has when writing,” Lilian said. “In real life . . .”

“People wouldn’t leave you alone?”

“Some strangers could not,” Lilian said. “ ‘Dear Ms. Pang, I’m sorry for your loss. I decided to dedicate my next book to you. Can you help me find a publisher?’ Or, ‘Dear Lilian Pang, I have suffered a greater tragedy. Please call this number at your earliest convenience, so you can hear my story. Maybe you can write my life into your book.’ ”

“Oh, my. What do you do with these people?”

“Nothing. They can’t help themselves, and they can’t be helped,” Lilian said. “But they’re harmless.”

“Mr. Thornton used to say some people are like sixpence balls and you have to allow them to bounce just like sixpence balls.”

Lilian laughed. “He was absolutely right. The real problem is that there are plenty of sixpence balls who have taken it upon themselves to be crystal balls in life.”

“What do they do?”

“Tabloid journalists create a dramatic woman writer who suffered tragic losses as clickbait. YouTube psychologists give analyses on how I’ve failed as a mother. Armchair astrologers look into my birth data. Trolls. Conspiracy theorists. They’ve all made noise about this mother who killed her children.”

“Jesus.” Ursula shook her head, not fully grasping everything Lilian was saying, but she knew that these were people who would never be given a place in a William Trevor story. There was some solace in that. Grace, even.

“I must specify that many of these people are from China. I grew up there, and my life is too sensational for them not to revel in this. Some see the justice of a divine punishment, because I’ve long turned away from the mother country. Many simply cannot resist the temptation to make a statement.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t pay them any attention.”

“I know, but what can they do to me when my life has done much more?” Lilian said. “People are predictable in their mean-spiritedness and wrongheadedness, but I always wonder if someone among them might surprise me. You see, I can’t be helped, either. That’s a vocational hazard for a writer.”

“Are there surprises?”

“Someone called for an investigation to see if I’m connected to some cult that specializes in putting suicidal thoughts into people’s minds, and to ascertain whether there’s an elevated rate of suicide among people who have read my books.”

“What?” Ursula said. “Why did you even look at this rubbish?”

“Because one always wants to know the world as it is,” Lilian said. “But, really, what makes that conspiracy theorist any different from Edmund Thornton? If a crime can be imagined, it can be committed, too, is that right? No, don’t you worry. I’m not in a cult.”

Ursula hesitated. Very few murderers would call themselves murderers.

“Of course, you have nothing to go by but my words,” Lilian said. “But, if you think about it, this person’s suicide-cult hypothesis could be a perfect subject for a murder mystery. A serial killer by words?”

“But Mr. Thornton did not take anything from real life,” Ursula said. “He wrote murder mysteries as an intellectual activity, not as an act to harm anyone in real life.”

“Are you sure he never took anything from real life?” Lilian asked. “That would be rather . . . extraordinary.”

Ursula looked away. If those victims could all bear her name, perhaps all the murderers, too, were but one person named Ursula Burnett. If she had been killed many times and if she had killed many times, all through Edmund’s pen, could it be that he was not entirely ignorant of her feelings? On her side, she had imagination only, but on his side he had intuition and logic. Those minor changes she had introduced while typing—the hair length of a character, another character’s favorite brand of wheat flakes, the plate number of a suspect’s vehicle, all of them bearing a shadowy resemblance to her life—perhaps Edmund had been aware of them? He might have deemed the changes harmless to his work; he might even have accepted that they were meaningful to her.

“Well, in any case, I got tired of the noise,” Lilian said. “That’s why I’m here, reading Euclid. He makes a better companion than many people. Would you like some more tea?”

Ursula said yes, and Lilian went into the kitchen to boil more water. The rain had abated, but only for the time being.

If a person’s imagination, kind or wicked, was boundless, sooner or later what was imagined could become a fact. If Ursula slipped something into Lilian’s food, people might say she had been too heartbroken by her children’s deaths to live on, and what a tragedy it was that she should have come all the way from New Jersey to Devon to die. If Lilian, on the other hand, slipped something into Ursula’s tea, she, too, could die, the meagre history of her life forever sealed, just as she had always wished.

But the woman walking by the seaside in William Trevor’s story would never throw herself into the water. And all things unendurable, in the end, become less so. For that reason, Ursula knew that she and Lilian were going to be all right. In a world of disorder, they would hold on to their positions as two particles of order—against logic, perhaps, but true to their intuitions. They met, they parted ways, but they would not make this cruel world more senseless for each other. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

An Oscar-winning filmmaker takes on the Church of Scientology .

Wendy Wasserstein on the baby who arrived too soon .

The young stowaways thrown overboard at sea .

As he rose in politics, Robert Moses discovered that decisions about New York City’s future would not be based on democracy .

The Muslim tamale king of the Old West .

Fiction by Jamaica Kincaid: “ Girl .”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Imagination

Rediscovering wonder: how to spark adult imagination, imagination is a superpower that can boost creativity and transform us..

Posted August 30, 2024 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• As children, our imaginations run free but as adults, our imagination can become idle and inflexible.
• A lack of imagination reduces problem-solving, social skills, resilience, job performance, and fulfillment.
• An enriched imagination permeates everything we know and perceive, allowing us to create novel possibilities.

Children see the world naively, with curiosity, wonder, and unfettered imaginations. When exploring the world, a child’s imagination is spontaneous, creative, and unconstrained by shored-up beliefs about reality and social norms. This creative and flexible imagination can be put to the side when in adulthood. As adults our cognitive processes, including creativity and imagination, become more structured and reality-bound, informed by what we have learned and lived experience (Weisberg and Gopnik, 2013). In other words, the quality of our creative thinking changes with developmental demands, becoming more practical, as it becomes more goal-directed, in the service of realistic problem-solving. Childhood reflects a period of exploration for reality and social construction. In adulthood, executive functioning takes center stage and imagination becomes more complex, incorporating abstract thinking, planning, decision-making , and mature empathy (Taylor and Carlson, 1997).

As stress and responsibilities increase, and the focus of imagination shifts to efficient problem-solving, one’s available mental space for creativity can become inflexible, or get squeezed out altogether. The imaginative play of childhood declines as adults’ engagement with playful activities decreases and we turn to routines, daily pressures, and career and family responsibilities (Pellegrini and Smith, 1998). But, a lack of imagination can produce significant negative outcomes in multiple areas including problem-solving, emotional resilience , social skills development, job performance, and personal fulfillment (King and Hicks, 2014). When your imagination becomes rigid or underutilized, you may struggle to find novel solutions to new situations, envision and plan for future scenarios, and or experience social difficulties due to a lessened ability to understand other people’s points of view or empathy. To fully flourish as adults, we must be intentional about nurturing and expanding our imaginative capacities, working with changing demands across the lifespan.

What Is Imagination and What Are the Benefits?

Imagination is a complex cognitive process involving the ability to create mental images, ideas, and constructs that are not physically present, including symbols and other representations of things (Currie and Ichino, 2013). A robust imagination improves cognitive flexibility, creative thinking, and problem-solving; as well as, bettering our ability to connect and bond with others, manage stress, decrease anxiety , and process difficult emotions (Drapeau, 2018).

Curiosity is closely linked to imagination. It is a desire to acquire new knowledge and experiences. Curiosity stimulates and enhances imaginative thinking as it encourages the exploration of new possibilities and solutions (Silvia and Kimbrel, 2010). Curiosity and imagination often overlap. Both revolve around novelty. Further, they exhibit a reciprocal relationship, driving and reinforcing one another. Both fuel creativity where one’s imaginative ideas are transformed into something interesting, valuable, and novel.

How Do I Improve My Imagination?

Some people are more creative by nature, so there is a genetic link that influences imagination and creativity; however, these traits are strongly influenced by environmental factors and individual life experiences. Even if you are not naturally a highly creative individual, your imagination, as an adult, can be nurtured by implementing several specific practices.

When you intentionally participate in creative activities, you are stimulating your imagination. The particular activity you choose is up to you, it’s about finding something that engages you so you’ll return to it over and over again. Activities like writing, drawing, painting, or playing music are familiar ways to enhance imagination but even coloring, doodling, and viewing art have been shown to enhance imaginative thinking, improve mood and increase emotional wellness (King and Hicks, 2014).

There are other ways to stimulate your imagination (Drapeau, 2018). Spending time in nature enhances imaginative thinking, by providing exposure to a rich array of sensory experiences such as diverse shapes, textures, and sounds, as well as movement, open spaces, and natural materials. When we become more connected to the natural world around us, it opens us up and generates positive emotions like joy and calm that increase focus and spark creativity. Other activities also nurture imagination. Mindfulness and meditation reduce stress and foster a more positive and expansive imagination. Engagement in positive social interactions releases a cascade of dopamine , serotonin, and oxytocin , creating an optimal environment for creative imagining.

Perhaps the most critical practice for improving your imagination is becoming more open to new experiences. Openness to experience and exposure to novel situations is very strongly correlated with increased creativity, curiosity, personal growth, aesthetic appreciation, absorption and flow, divergent ideation, innovative problem-solving strategies, and willingness to entertain a variety of perspectives (Abu and colleagues, 2023). When you are open to novel experiences, people, and places you are more likely to gain new knowledge and consider alternative points of view so your creative imagination is optimally positioned to spark and recognize new, original ideas.

A practice related to openness is intellectual risk-taking . Here we are not discussing behavioral recklessness but the kind of risk you experience when you share a unique idea or new solution with other people. Especially when these ideas differ from convention, you are taking a risk. When you put a novel idea out to others, you risk failing or being perceived in a negative light. Risk, opportunity, innovation, and failure all overlap with one another. Even in failure, you are learning and growing. Giving in to a fear of failure and rejection restricts idea generation and creative, imaginative thinking. Challenging your conventional thought patterns and employing exploratory thinking are critical tools for expanding your imagination and creativity. We live in a time of terrific uncertainty. Learning to embrace uncertainty and take intellectual risks will open new opportunities, improve the flexibility of your imagination, and enhance your creativity.

Let the Mind Wander A final practice that can help boost your imagination is allowing time for daydreaming. Daydreaming is seen by many people as a waste of time but structured imaginative activities promote creative thinking. Positive imagination can lead to creative problem-solving and emotional processing (Smallwood and Schooler, 2015). When we use our minds to simulate imagined worlds and situations, we briefly set aside the mundane and routine aspects of our daily lives and, in doing so, invite inspiration. Permitting yourself to daydream; and, creating time and space to engage in the practice can improve the flexibility of your imagination and foster creativity.

A note for those with children, by fostering your child’s imagination, you are also boosting your own. When you read books or tell stories together, create art, spend time in nature, and or encourage role play and pretending, you are equipping your kids with greater potential for academic achievement, professional innovation, and personal fulfillment—but you are also, enhancing your imagination.

Imagination is pivotal to understanding the world and to propelling us beyond what we know to create new ideas, and innovations and build personal growth. When we imagine new ways of living and can imagine the world through the imagination of others, we can begin to create better ways of living. When individuals and groups can identify and pursue alternative futures, our ability to collectively respond to sustainability challenges increases and can inform policy and decision-making on a global scale, able to enhance social, ecological, economic, and cultural well-being in our uncertain world (Moore and Milkoreit, 2020).

Abu Raya M., Ogunyemi A.O., Rojas Carstensen V., Broder J., Illanes-Manrique M., Rankin K.P. (2023). The reciprocal relationship between openness and creativity: from neurobiology to multicultural environments. Frontiers in Neurology, 14. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1235348.

Drapeau, S. (2018). Imagery and emotional regulation: A review. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2406. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02406

Currie, G. & Ichino, A. (2013). Imagination and make-believe from: The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Routledge. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203813034.ch31

King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2014). Imagination and the Pursuit of Meaning: The Role of Future-Oriented Thinking in Personal Fulfillment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107,4, 614-627.

Moore, M-L. & Milkoreit, M. (2020). Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures. Elem Sci Anth, 8, 1. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.081

Pellegrini, A. D. & Smith, P. K. (1998). The Development of Play during Childhood: A Review of the Literature. Child Development, 69, 3, 1004-1021.

Silvia, P. J., & Kimbrel, N. A. (2010). The relationship between openness to experience and creativity: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14,3, 316-332.

Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015). The science of mind-wandering: Empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 487-518. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015331

Taylor, M. & Carlson, S. M. (1997). The Relation Between Individual Differences in Fantasy and Theory of Mind. Child Development , 68(3), 436-455. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01953.x

Weisberg, D. S. & Gopnik, A. (2013). Pretense, Counterfactuals, and Bayesian Causal Models: Why What Is Not Real Really Matters. Cognitive Science , 37, 8, 1360-1381. doi:10.1111/cogs.12069

Leigh W. Jerome, Ph.D. , is a clinical psychologist, artist, and the founder and executive director of the non-profit art forum Relational Space.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

The Silenced Prophet of Peace

Few popes have lived in more perilous times than Pius XI and fewer still have shown as much courage in the midst of peril.

There have been many bad popes throughout the history of the Church. Indeed, there have been so many that it is a miracle that the Church has survived them. On the other hand, of course, and thanks be to God, there have been many more good popes than there have been bad. Many of these have been canonized, an assurance to the faithful that they have joined the company of the saints in the Church Triumphant. Others were good and even great but, for whatever reason, have not been canonized.

In recent times, we might think of Leo XIII, who encouraged and reinvigorated the study of the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, heralding the much-needed neo-Thomistic revival. He also issued  Rerum Novarum , the papal encyclical which laid the foundations of the Catholic Church’s social teaching with respect to the twin materialistic evils of Mammon and Marx.

Another pope of recent times who has yet to be canonized is Pius XI. Few popes have lived in more perilous times than Pius XI and fewer still have shown as much courage in the midst of peril. Pius XI’s papacy began in February 1922, eight months before Mussolini’s March on Rome brought the Fascists to power in Italy, and ended in February 1939, seven months before the beginning of World War II. He spent the entirety of his papacy, therefore, in the midst of a Fascist regime which paid little heed to the rights of the Church, riding roughshod over religious liberty in the name of secular fundamentalist ideology.

Nor was Italy the only secular fundamentalist regime with which the pope had to contend. The Communists had risen to power in Russia in 1917, and the Nazis would rise to power in Germany in 1933. Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical condemning atheistic communism and another encyclical condemning the racism, neo-paganism, and “pantheistic confusion” of the Nazis.

Most important, perhaps, was his reiteration of the Church’s social teaching in the encyclical,  Quadragesimo Anno , published in 1931 on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Leo XIII’s  Rerum Novarum . These two encyclicals, together with St. John Paul II’s  Centesimus Annus , which would be issued in 1991 on the centenary of Leo XIII’s groundbreaking document, indicate all too clearly that the Catholic Church advocates the only just and sustainable alternative to the monopolizing and globalizing power of Big Business and Big Government.

The final act of Pius XI that should be mentioned was his establishment of the liturgical feast of Christ the King in response to the rise of secularist tyranny. In establishing this feast, Pius was reminding the world that every government is under the kingship of Christ, whose power transcends and supersedes any secular tyrant or secularist tyranny.

Pius XI’s predecessor, Benedict XV, was the reigning pontiff during World War I, which he described prophetically as “the suicide of civilized Europe.” He deserves to be remembered primarily as the pope who could have saved the world from the horrors of the following World War if his words had been heeded.

In August 1917, over a year before the war ended, he proposed a peace plan which was conciliatory in tone and designed to bring both sides to an agreement to end hostilities. The steps he proposed were necessary to end the “useless massacre” that the war had become but also to avert “the recurrence of such conflicts.” Addressing national leaders at the conclusion of his peace proposals, he stressed the gravity of the situation and their personal responsibility for the consequences of ignoring the call to peace:

On your decisions depend the rest and joy of countless families, the life of thousands of young people, in short, the happiness of the peoples, whose well-being it is your overriding duty to procure.

At around the same time as the pope was issuing his peace proposal, Blessed Karl of Austria, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was involved in secret negotiations with the Allied Powers aimed at bringing the war to an end. Well may such a holy and peace-loving monarch, a lamb among ravenous warmongering wolves, have been beatified by the Catholic Church, but his role should not eclipse the historical importance of the pope’s place in the quest for peace.

After the Armistice, the Allied Powers not only ignored Benedict XV’s peace proposals, they silenced his message of peace. He was excluded from the international peace conference at Versailles, ensuring that his call for reconciliation and justice would not be heard. In the event, the imposition of the egregiously unjust and maliciously vengeful Treaty of Versailles sowed the seeds of the Second World War twenty years later. It was ironic that the refusal of the viciously anticlerical governments of Italy and France to allow the pope to be a part of the conference at Versailles led to both their countries suffering the evil consequences of a second war that could have been avoided.

It was a fitting tribute to Benedict XV that Pope Benedict XVI should adopt his name. During his first general audience as the newly-elected pope in April 2005, Benedict XVI expressed a desire to follow in the earlier Benedict’s footsteps:

Filled with sentiments of awe and thanksgiving, I wish to speak of why I chose the name Benedict. Firstly, I remember Pope Benedict XV, that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church through turbulent times of war. In his footsteps I place my ministry in the service of reconciliation and harmony between peoples.

Although the recently departed and greatly missed pontiff had sung his praises so effusively, Benedict XV, “that courageous prophet of peace,” remains unsung by the Church insofar as he has not been raised to the altar as a canonized saint. The same is true of Leo XIII and Pius XI. Nonetheless, and official recognition notwithstanding, we can surely hope and pray, and indeed believe, that all three of these noble popes are singing the praises of their heavenly King in that celestial choir that is the eternal voice of the Church Triumphant.

Republished with gracious permission from  Crisis Magazine  (June 2024).

This essay is part of a series,  Unsung Heroes of Christendom .

The Imaginative Conservative  applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider  donating now .

The featured image is a photograph (c. 1922) of Pope Pius XI by Nicola Perscheid, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons .

All comments are moderated and must be civil, concise, and constructive to the conversation. Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved, but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published. Also, comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved. Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the author: joseph pearce.

Related Posts

Long Defeat in Baseball

A Day of Gratitude

Eternity in Time: Augustine, Russell Kirk, & Christopher Dawson

Saint Augustine on Figurative Language in Scripture

An Invitation to Augustine’s “City of God”

I searched and searched, but couldn’t find the word racism in any encyclical of pius xi or any papal document before 1958. Would you provide the entire quote that contains the works racism?

Happy to learn more about Pius XI

Leave A Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation ? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Current Issue

Guy Davenport—the Last High Modernist

In the essays collected in Geography of the Imagination , one can glimpse the inner workings of the mind of a 20th-century literary genius.

Whitman appearing at Poe’s funeral, toward the back. A young Picasso catching a glimpse of the prehistoric bull paintings at Altamira. Allen Ginsberg, mid-chant at Charles Olson’s funeral, accidentally pressing the pedal to lower the coffin, leaving Olson’s remains “wedged neither in nor out of the grave.” Whittaker Chambers sponsoring Louis Zukofsky’s Communist Party membership bid. Kafka observing an air show as the first pilots took flight. Emerson expressing his dismay at the dinner-table talk of Thoreau and Louis Aggasiz on the sexual habits of turtles.

Books in review

The geography of the imagination: forty essays.

These are among the meetings of the minds gathered together in Guy Davenport’s masterpiece The Geography of the Imagination , a wide-ranging collection of essays that fuses together the multifaceted author’s long engagements with his cultural ancestors . The fruits of serious time spent reading, Davenport’s gift is a kind of literary eros: His affinity for these artists is so great that, even as he brilliantly analyzes their texts, he can’t help but try to conjure them to life. Scholar, critic, and artist rolled into one, Davenport was the standard-bearer for a variety of serious belles lettres, the likes of which is rare today—who now has done so much homework? Returned to print with a new introduction by John Jeremiah Sullivan, Geography is a powerful reminder of the pleasures of erudition, and perhaps a barometer of today’s literary culture and its diminished capacity for difficulty.

For Davenport, the literary anecdote mattered; he recognized it as the “last survivor of an oral tradition.” And it was part of how his mind moved: Revolutionary ideas were embodied by great men (and, tellingly, less often women)—heroes of the past who came into contact, often fleetingly, and exchanged their genius. In his view, the flowering of culture is the product of these meetings rippling through history. Davenport himself was no stranger to these anecdotal encounters—he seems to have met a fair number of his artistic gods.

Here are some of the stories he sorts through: stumbling upon Ezra Pound’s original blueprint for The Cantos while helping the aged, mad poet move into a new apartment in Rapallo; a coffee chat with Samuel Beckett; attending boring Oxford classes taught by J.R.R. Tolkien; lunching in Kentucky with the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, the monk and writer Thomas Merton (“in mufti, dressed as a tobacco farmer with a tonsure”), and “an editor of Fortune who had wrecked his Hertz car coming from the airport and was covered in spattered blood from head to toe.” He reports that the restaurant treated them with impeccable manners. Perhaps more importantly, these morsels of storytelling lend Davenport’s formidable learning a voice, one with charm and humility, even a kind of boyishness (hero worship is always at hand). Moreover, they stitch together his unconventional leaps of logic and arcane references, grounding the reader even when the path of the essay may be unfamiliar.

The pleasure of reading Davenport is not just in spending time with someone who has read more widely and deeply than you have—though it’s that, too—but rather in his power of making surprising connections. The memorable lines that open the collection’s title essay propose to put all of culture, across all time, into some kind of relationship:

The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical moment, necessity, and destiny, is before all a difference of imagination.

This assertion is, at its heart, a question of style: All cultures have buildings, beverages, music, theater, and modes of transportation, but the contrasts between them are central to how we understand ourselves and others. How these choices came to be, however, requires an investigation that can span centuries and vast distances. “Every force evolves a form,” taken from the Shakers and the seemingly inevitable simplicity of their art, is one of Davenport’s most cherished phrases—even as artists choose, forces of nature always work upon those choices. Chance and circumstance are key, but Davenport still insists on that most elusive of qualities, the imagination, to explain the particulars: People dream, guess, and suppose (to paraphrase him slightly), and these intangible urges press up against their material conditions and lead to moments of creativity. Even if you grew up in a cornfield, you might still dream of the sea.

“The imagination; that is, the way we shape and use the world, indeed the way we see the world,” Davenport writes, “has geographical boundaries like islands, continents, and countries. These boundaries can be crossed.” The title essay labors to construct an elusive third option between cultural determinism (that you are inevitably a product of your origins) and a free-floating subjectivity (that we can escape our contexts entirely). Davenport’s sprawling project as an essayist, then, is to try to track those boundary crossings and detect influences that might have escaped our notice at first. The essay’s culmination is an extended close reading of Grant Wood’s American Gothic , drawing a map out of every item in the frame. The bamboo screen from China (“by way of Sears Roebuck”), the glass from Venice, the pose of the couple out of the whole history of portraiture—this most American of images was created by a global flow of ideas and materials. Davenport’s “geography” is a kind of spatial aid to the way we think about culture: The painting isn’t just one exhibit in a long gallery of “periods” that follow one after the other. Instead, it’s a demonstration of many traditions all intertwined on the same canvas. Like a map—if one knows how to read it. And taking it all in at once is how we might begin to understand how the boundaries blur.

Another pleasure of reading Davenport is in his roaming, in never knowing his exact destination. He is just as likely to resort to simile and metaphor (“The imagination is like the drunk man who lost his watch, and must get drunk again to find it”) or swerve into a subject that is completely fascinating but also somewhat unclear in exactly how it connects to his original point. On the way to American Gothic is an extended examination of Edgar Allan Poe’s tripartite imagination: grotesque, arabesque, and classical, in Davenport’s telling. The close reading itself is elaborate and entertaining enough to quell the reader’s doubts of how, exactly, everything will fit together. Onward, then, he leaps to the Goncourt brothers, Spengler, Joyce, and so on. With Davenport, the reader is always on a journey, and it can feel good to know that there is someone a few steps ahead of you, guiding the way even if you’re temporarily lost.

Peripatetic as his writing was, Davenport was, by his own admission, someone who hated travel. He was born in South Carolina in 1927, and his Southern roots occasionally surface when his writing dips into the personal (particularly memorable is his story of being taken to his Black nurse’s house to eat clay in order to cure his indigestion). The majority of his life took place in the university: Duke, Oxford, Harvard, and eventually a post at the University of Kentucky. “The farthest away for the highest pay,” he is reported to have said. There were brief interruptions for travel as well as time spent in the US Army during the Korean War—his main memory of the latter seems to be reading Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers in the Fort Bragg rec room. Davenport would teach at Kentucky for decades, although his attitude toward the experience seems to have been ambivalent at best—he considered teaching noble in the abstract, but in practice a futile chore. Meanwhile, he toiled away inside his immense library at his brilliant and often arcane writing.

The Nation Weekly

After winning a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1990, Davenport retired to write full-time. Before his death from lung cancer at the age of 77 (he was a lifelong smoker), he was incredibly productive, with numerous volumes of essays, fiction, poetry, and translations of ancient Greek poets and philosophers to his name. He was also a painter and often an illustrator of his own work. In another essay collection, Davenport approvingly notes the wisdom of Montaigne in leaving the world of business and court intrigue to spend his days in peaceful, humanistic introspection. It’s not hard to see the older Davenport in this image: a gentleman squire, intellectually engaged but essentially aloof. He took pleasure in life outside his library, but his understanding came through the texts that structured his world.

At times, Davenport has the aura of “The Last Man Who Knew Everything,” the epithet once bestowed on the English polymath Thomas Young. However, a closer inspection shows that Davenport’s breadth of subjects, while impressive, has a focus. High modernism is his home, particularly in literature (Joyce for his master’s thesis, Pound for his PhD), though he writes compellingly about the visual arts as well. Around half of Geography ’s essays are about, or at least significantly involve, poets: Poe, Whitman, Stevens, Moore, Olson, Zukofsky, and others more obscure (a fascinating essay on the lesser-known Ronald Johnson is one of the collection’s best). In general, he is more content to root around in the text—if it is complex enough, he will find food for thought. His essays often have no fixed thesis or argument to speak of, and some of his sprawling close readings are more convincing than others: While his dissection of Olson’s famously opaque “The Kingfishers” is genuinely illuminating, his theory of Ulysses as based, chapter by chapter, on an ancient Celtic alphabet is perhaps more technically impressive than it is useful. He has many touchstones, or hobby horses, that he returns to again and again: Leonardo da Vinci (one of the first books Davenport read as a child was the artist’s biography, an obsession that seems to have molded him for a lifetime), prehistoric cave painting, Dogon theology, the ancient Greeks, Fourier, Wittgenstein, and above all, those demigods of the earlier 20th century—Picasso, Joyce, and Pound.

If “imagination” is the key to Davenport’s thinking on culture, he did not mean it in the way that it is often invoked today: a disruptive idea that strikes like a bolt from the blue. Tradition was indispensable, even inescapable, in the act of creation, he believed. In one of the collection’s most famous essays, “The Symbol of the Archaic,” Davenport provides another axiom of his thought: namely, that modernism needed to look backward, deep into the past, to advance. “What is most modern in our time frequently turns out to be the most archaic,” Davenport writes. “The sculpture of Brancusi belongs to the art of the Cyclades in the ninth century B.C. Corbusier’s buildings in their Cubist phase look like the white clay houses of Anatolia and Malta.” If The Geography of the Imagination asks us to think spatially or cross-culturally, Davenport here asserts the power of the “midden” of history, what he sees as the 20th century’s reabsorption of the past to create new, more vital work: “Archaic art, then, was springtime art in any culture.”

This attitude is itself characteristically high modernist, and Davenport saw his own style as a kind of primitivism, perhaps more in the “naïve” spirit of self-taught artists like Balthus and Henri Rousseau—the claim is debatable, but perhaps can be chalked up to Davenport’s modesty. This insight, or tension, lies at the heart of Davenport’s peculiar aesthetic: Returning to the archaic is a source of art’s freshness, but it simultaneously requires a huge scholarly apparatus to fully unwind the connections. In effect, his role as one of modernism’s great interpreters came with a downside: Davenport’s own archaic impulse, his desire to make art visceral, was always at risk of being overwhelmed by his learning.

Davenport was, of course, more than an essayist. His large body of fiction—mostly stories—has its champions, such as Sullivan. It also has its moments, but to my ears his essayistic experiments in fiction lack the grace of his “nonfiction” voice. Given that he had no real skill with character or plot, Davenport’s layerings can feel overworked, top-heavy with the relay of information in baroque language. And his conceits (Kafka, again, at the air show, or Robert Walser’s early career as a butler), which summon the hero worship that is central to his thinking, feel more at home in the realm of criticism. In “The Critic as Artist,” an essay collected elsewhere that perhaps best articulates Davenport’s own strengths, he concludes with a rather surprising cliché by his standards: “Literature does not ever say anything. It shows. It makes us feel. It is, in the world’s language, as inarticulate as music and painting. It is critics who can tell us what they think it means.” Perhaps Davenport was simply too articulate to re-create the absorption that he believed was literature’s highest achievement. His essays, which show more of his personality (though he is ultimately not a “personal essayist”), accomplish far more.

As Sullivan puts it in his breezy, pleasingly personal introduction, Davenport saw himself as “somebody who was working at the end of a civilization or tradition.” For him, “Modernism had been a cultural summit, like the Athenian Golden Age,” and now we were living “in the radioactive ash-lands of whatever that involved.” Of course, emphasizing that you stand on the shoulders of giants can tend toward diminishment—because of his density and his allusions, it’s easy to think of Davenport as a “writer’s writer.” Nostalgia can bring out the crank in him, although the stance is characteristically charming. His greatest contemporary antipathy was for the automobile, which Davenport blamed for the ravaging of American cities and culture, a quite defensible and prescient position.

Although Davenport is undoubtedly encyclopedic in many ways, it’s also worth noting what he omits—the most noticeable absence is any trace of pop culture. So many essayists today who claim a unique style (particularly those who aspire to “creative” or “literary” nonfiction) often seem duty-bound to rope in contemporary culture—Taylor Swift, say, or the latest Internet ephemera. Today, the poptimism wars are over (or, to put it differently, the “unpacking” of cultural ephemera as seen in Barthes’s Mythologies simply became the dominant form of cultural analysis), and pop won. Writers, fearing their irrelevance, feel they must insist that they belong to the “now.” Not so for Davenport: He stays firmly entrenched in his books, looking for deeper and deeper symbols in his masters. Although Davenport’s era is long past, there’s something appealing, almost romantic, in how little he fears irrelevance. Instead, he asks you to give things time: You may not understand everything in a difficult text, but that is itself the extended pleasure of reading. There will always be something further to encounter, if you choose to go on.

Davenport’s imagination always returns to Pound, that ever-troublesome modernist founding father, and a paragon of the ambiguity and density that Davenport valued. Pound is mentioned in or the subject of 26 of the 40 essays in Geography . His extreme eclecticism is perhaps the master key to Davenport’s imagination, as Pound’s best-known work, The Cantos , operates by extensive, almost uncontrollable, analogy. Incredibly disparate references are juxtaposed—Dante and Woodrow Wilson, Confucius and Odysseus—attempting to force the reader into thinking about what their relationship might be. Davenport is Pound’s ideal reader, able to grasp the threads of connection where those less booked-up might simply throw up their hands in bewilderment (and maybe for good reason). Davenport is not particularly forthcoming on Pound’s antisemitism or fascism, eliding it as madness. A political reticence, or at least mildness, is obvious. Rarely does Davenport acknowledge the perils of over-reading a text—the conspiratorial germ in Pound, for instance, is neutralized by ignoring how it might spill over into life. Complexity can be its own kind of safety, too.

As a supercharged reader, Davenport always tries to make the most of the texts he loves. Another of Geography ’s best essays is a fascinating but far-fetched dive into the work of Eudora Welty, reading her fiction largely through the myth of Persephone. The intention is to situate Welty as a major modernist in the mold of Pound or Joyce, giving deep symbolic readings of her major novels and stories. Davenport recounts elsewhere, somewhat bashfully, that Welty wrote him once to say that his interpretation did not at all conform with her own sense of her work. “Death of the author” pending, Davenport’s humility at recounting this exchange breathes warmth into the analysis. And perhaps there’s something to be grasped from this ever-deeper excavation: the unconscious patterns in art and literature that hum in the air around any enduring work.

In the literary theorist Anna Kornbluh’s recent book Immediacy , Kornbluh writes about the dominance of a contemporary style that pretends to have no style at all: autofiction, streaming television, the low-friction churn of memes and social-media posts. In our hurry to move through the flow of stuff , we have become subject to a kind of art that feeds us “effortlessness” while depleting art’s essential power to make us stop and reflect. Davenport, in his labyrinths, his constraints, his obscure references, is the model of an artist who believes in dwelling with artworks. There is a density to his writing, a willingness to embrace the uncertain and to make us work a little harder to capture the meaning or the beauty of an image.

It’s Not Too Early to Ask: Who Should Replace Merrick Garland? It’s Not Too Early to Ask: Who Should Replace Merrick Garland?

Elie Mystal

The Beltway Media Got Its Harris Interview. Can We Move on Now? The Beltway Media Got Its Harris Interview. Can We Move on Now?

Don’t underestimate donald trump’s coalition of the weird don’t underestimate donald trump’s coalition of the weird, roberts’s rule of disorder in voting rights law roberts’s rule of disorder in voting rights law.

David Daley

His work feels salutary exactly because such ambitions are increasingly rare—modernism and its ambitions are receding from our culture, warts and all. At the same time, we experience a massive crush of information every day, a circumstance that more than ever requires a mind capable of describing, or inventing, relationships between the disparate works of art that populate the feed. Davenport asks us to practice invention in our associations, to not just settle for the catch-alls of “everything” and “all the time.”

Through the effort of thinking through those connections, even when they’re perplexing, a critic—or an artist—manages to make something from the information “midden” that might otherwise have been lost. As Davenport observes in “Finding,” one of the few purely autobiographical essays in the collection, “I learned from a whole childhood of looking in fields how the purpose of things ought perhaps to remain invisible, no more than half known. People who know exactly what they are doing seem to me to miss the vital part of any doing.” To take up Davenport, we should make haste slowly. Unhurriedness, distance, the eye unfocused at first: Through these patient arts, something rare might emerge.

• Submit a correction
• Send a letter to the editor
• Reprints & permissions

Can we count on you?

In the coming election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights are on the ballot. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are scheming to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision across all levels of government if he should win.

We’ve already seen events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism—throughout it all, The Nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers have sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, unpacked the shallow right-wing populist appeals of J.D. Vance, and debated the pathway for a Democratic victory in November.

Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical juncture in our country’s history. Now more than ever, we need clear-eyed and deeply reported independent journalism to make sense of the headlines and sort fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and uplifting the voices of grassroots advocates.

Throughout 2024 and what is likely the defining election of our lifetimes, we need your support to continue publishing the insightful journalism you rely on.

Thank you, The Editors of The Nation

David Schurman Wallace

David Schurman Wallace is a writer living in New York City.

More from The Nation

Move Over Hollywood, Here Comes Chick-fil-A Move Over Hollywood, Here Comes Chick-fil-A

The fast-food giant is poised to move the entertainment world further to the right.

Ben Schwartz

Natasha Trethewey’s Life in Poetry and Prose Natasha Trethewey’s Life in Poetry and Prose

A work of biography, an essay on literature and memory and the South, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, Trethewey's latest book is like all of her others: a master study of ...

Books & the Arts / Edna Bonhomme

The Genius of Garth Greenwell The Genius of Garth Greenwell

Set abroad or at home, in unfamiliar worlds an ocean away or in an intensive care unit in Iowa, Greenwell's novels are songs of the self and of the United States as a whole.

Books & the Arts / Hannah Gold

Stay-at-Home Stay-at-Home

Poems / Matthew Buckley Smith

Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop

An elegiac retelling of rap's origins, Hip-Hop Is History also ends with a sense of hope.

Books & the Arts / Bijan Stephen

Danzy Senna’s Acerbic Satires of Art and Money Danzy Senna’s Acerbic Satires of Art and Money

Having gnawed away at literary and political conventions from within their hallowed forms, Senna has now set her eyes on Hollywood.

Books & the Arts / Lovia Gyarkye

Latest from the nation

The beltway media got its harris interview. can we move on now, i’m still hoping to vote for kamala harris, campaigns and elections, don’t underestimate donald trump’s coalition of the weird, big tech is very afraid of a very modest ai safety bill, it’s not too early to ask: who should replace merrick garland, editor's picks.

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

• Get involved

A ray of light falls on the family budget

Author: Guzal Fayzieva

August 26, 2024

Khusnida Karimjanova

How an ordinary rural family saves on electricity bills

Oydin and Khusnida Karimzhanovs are the wives of two brothers, “ovsinlar” in Uzbek, members of one large family in the rural hinterland – the village of Bakhrin in the Khodjabad district of the Andijan region of Uzbekistan. This is where you can feel the Uzbek traditional way of life, centuries-old foundations and customs. In the provinces, people mostly live in large families consisting of several generations. The heroines of our story developed friendly and almost familial relationships - living under the same roof, they became accustomed to helping each other.

A warm summer breeze sways the trees, quails sing leisurely, and a family is having breakfast sitting on a topchan, a traditional Uzbek wooden piece of furniture that is a square platform with small walls, designed for relaxing and dining outdoors. Strong green tea is poured into bowls – strictly half full, which signifies respect and honor; right there on the dastarkhan (tablecloth) is golden “navvat” – crystal sugar, popular in eastern countries, and hot flatbreads, straight from the tandoor... The conversation is going about the latest news that the elder daughter-in-law Oydin brought. She works as a cashier at a local bank, and today she learned from colleagues there is an opportunity to get subsidies for solar panels - devices that convert sunlight into electricity. By installing them on the roof of the house, it is possible to significantly reduce energy costs and ensure its sustainability. And most importantly, women are provided with a higher rate of subsidies! This news caused lively debates in the family - of course, it is scary to try something new and unusual. We have lived without it so far, and we have enough expenses already… However, using solar panels could help to avoid sudden power outages - and this is a strong argument. The electricity supply in rural areas is a sore subject, especially in winter. After heated discussions, it was decided - Oydin goes to apply for a loan in her own name.

Oydin Karimjonova with her children

Subsidies for energy efficient technologies and materials are provided in Uzbekistan within the framework of the project “Market transformation for sustainable rural housing in Uzbekistan”, which is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the financial support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and in cooperation with the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Republic of Uzbekistan. When purchasing products such as solar photovoltaic panels and energy storage systems, solar water heaters, heat pumps, double-glazed windows and heat-insulating materials for external walls and roofs, part of their cost is covered by subsidies from the UNDP/GEF project. The use of the listed materials and technologies helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is the main goal of the project - to provide the rural population of Uzbekistan with improved and affordable housing conditions that do not harm the environment. Thus, the project contributes to increasing demand for energy-efficient and low-carbon housing among the rural population of Uzbekistan. At the same time, women, pensioners and persons with disabilities, as well as those included in the “iron notebook”, are provided with higher subsidy rates - by 2.5% more.

To receive subsidies, it is necessary to conclude a purchase-sales agreement or a service agreement with the supplier company and obtain a subsidized loan from the nearest bank branch with an additional partial subsidy from the UNDP/GEF project. Next step is installing energy-efficient building materials and equipment in the house, which is what the Karimzhanovs family did on the initiative of their elder daughter-in-law, Oydin. According to the terms of the project, the woman received a 32.5% subsidy for the purchase. Soon after completing the paperwork, specialists came to their house to install solar panels on the roof, which aroused the interest and curiosity of the neighbors.

"They ask, what is this thing on your roof, what is it for? Do you think it will work? And then, when there was a sudden power outage in the area, how surprised everyone was that the lights were still on in our house», - Oydin Karimjanova remembers with a smile. «We thought it would be difficult to operate such equipment, but actually there is nothing difficult, and the panels do not require special care. It's been a few months since we installed these panels, everything works great, and how much money we've saved! For example, electricity consumption in our house has decreased by almost 40 percent. The most important, during the cold weather, our children are warm and cozy".

According to experts, the main conditions for success are competent placement of solar panels and an effective control system. Such power supply enables to be practically independent of the centralized electricity supply. 

"Once my daughter had a birthday party, we invited guests, relatives, neighbors, set the table. We were sitting, and suddenly the lights went out. And it was unknown when it would be turned back on. Well, what to do, we turned on the flashlights on our phones, lit candles, and somehow celebrated the holiday. Now we are insured against such cases. And most importantly, in winter the air conditioner and heater work well, which is the most important thing", - Khusnida Karimjanova shared in an interview.

In addition to housework, Khusnida does sewing and takes orders at home - her working tool, a sewing machine, is always at hand, and therefore the availability of electricity is especially important for her. But this is temporary, and when her children grow up a little, she, like Oydin, plans to go to work in her specialty - as a biology teacher at a local school. Khusnida graduated from the Namangan State University, she has two specialties - biologist and agronomist.

"It is important for a woman to get an education, to have a profession that will generate income. I am pleased to see that in our country women reach great heights, it is inspiring. And even this project provides women with a higher subsidy rate – thanks to such measures we feel supported and encouraged to move forward", - says Khusnida Karimjanova.

In the evening the whole family gathers around the TV watching their favorite “soap opera”- the cozy moments of harmony. The bulb under the ceiling lights the room, the air conditioner provides cooling, the foreign characters play they roles on the TV screen – the power supply is uninterrupted.

Khusnida Karimjanova with her family

To date, the UNDP/GEF project has provided subsidies worth almost 500 million soums. To receive subsidies for energy-efficient technologies and materials, one must contact the banks that are partners of the project, or submit an application on the website  www.energymarket.uz . Suppliers of these products can also register on the online platform  www.energymarket.uz to participate in the project. Follow the news about the provision of subsidies on the Telegram channel @ BMTTDsubsidiyasi.