Part 1: Expressing Creative Thoughts through Imaginative Writing
Name ________________________________________ Date
_______________________
Grade & Section _______________________________
Lesson 1: Creative Writing vs Other Forms of Writing
Introduction
Writing is one of the macro skills each student has to gain mastery on. As their grade level goes higher,
students are introduced to higher order English subjects which lead them to encounter different texts. Thus, this
module guides the students to gain consciousness on their emotional and intellectual responses as readers and
as writers of their own literary pieces. The activities in this module allow the students to acknowledge their
senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The acknowledgment of these senses help the students create
their own literary pieces with the input of elements of creative writing and language.
Lesson Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
a. Define creative writing;
b. Understand the nature of creative writing;
c. Differentiate creative writing to other forms of writing;
d. Appreciate creative works of literary authors;
e. Write their creative writing piece
Pretest: (Diagnostic Paragraphs)
Answer the following paragraph prompts.
1. If I were a literary piece, I would be a ________________________________________________________
2. Creative writing is just like a _______________________________________________________________
3. For me, the greatest literary masterpiece of all time is ___________________________________________
4. The work of a creative writer involves _______________________________________________________
5. While on my way to Creative Writing class I __________________________________________________
Fill in the blanks
Last ___________________, I decided to _____________________ at a nearby ____________________.
The morning seemed ___________________________ when all of a sudden a _______________ crossed my
path and ________________________. There was nothing else I could do but __________________________
___________________ because ___________________________. Fortunately, _________________________
Arrived to _____________________. At the end of the day, I thought _______________________.
Startup
The human mind is a vast universe that contains limitless thoughts and no one can fathom its complexities
unless explored and expressed. It is necessary that one share pieces of their universe in any form possible to
liberate the encapsulated ideas inside them.
There are various ways on how people share these thoughts. Others do it through visual arts. Some of the
movements, many of music and a lot of writing. This lesson focused writing to express. Though there are
different types of writing, this will primarily highlight creative writing and its differences to other forms of
writing.
What is Creative Writing?
Creative writing is the artistic expressions through written word. It is used to express the writer’s ideas and
emotions in an artistic manner. Unlike other forms of writing, it uses a language that aims to entertain and
captivate the audience.
Also known as ‘the art of making things up’
Its writing is done in a way that is not academic or technical but still attracts an audience.
Any writing that is original and self-expressive.
Purpose of Creative Writing
To both entertain and share human experiences like love or loss
Writers attempt to get at truth about humanity through poetics and storytelling.
If you’d like to try your hand at creative writing, just keep in mind that whether you are trying to express a
feeling or a thought, the first step is to use your imagination.
Types of Creative Writing
Poetry
Plays
Movies and television scripts
Fiction (novellas, novels and short stories)
Songs
Speeches
Memoirs
Personal essays
As you can see, some nonfiction types of writing can also be creative writing. Memoirs and personal essays for
example can be written creatively to inform your readers about your life in an expressive way because these
types are written in first person, it’s easier for them to be creative.
The table below shows the comparison between creative writing and technical writing to fully understand what
creative writing is.
Technical Writing Creative Writing
Form/samples Research, journals, proposals, reports, Poetry, fiction, drama
guidelines
Objective Aims to instruct and inform the readers Aims to entertain the readers
Content Shows facts Reflects the writer’s imagination
Audience With specific target audience Broader imagination
Diction Formal informal
Structure Systematic artistic
Technical Writing vs Creative Writing
Factual Fictional and imaginative
Informative, instructional, persuasive Entertaining, provocative and captivating
Clear, precise and straightforward Artistic, figurative, symbolic or even vague
Objective Subjective
Specialized vocabulary Generalized vocabulary
Creative Writing vs Academic Writing
Need not to adhere to any specific style Needs to be structured and executed adhering to a
parameters series of guidelines
Inspired, artistic, and entertains with word Rigid, procedural, purposed purely to convey
pictures, concepts and deep meaning knowledge, data and information
Enjoyable to read Orderly, organized and follows a formula
It touches us while teaching us Requires more factual evidence for support and
presents challenges such as the pressure of time
It’s not necessary to learn but a joy to those who
do Aims to explore an idea, argument or concept
Allows for more personal expression
Techniques used in Creative Writing
Character development Emotional appeal
Plot development Heavy description
Vivid setting
Underlying theme
Point of view
Anecdotes
Figures of Speech
Imaginative language
Key Differences
In Creative Writing, most of its part is self-created although the idea might be inspired but in technical
writing the facts are to obliged and the note is delivered from leading on what previously other greats have
concluded.
Most commonly, it is for general audience or for masses but technical writing is for specific audience.
The creative writing entertains people as it has poetry or some illustrations or another idea whereas the
technical causes boredom as it follows the strong pattern based on facts and is just to transfer the
information to the audience.
Humor and satire might be useful essences in creative writing but such thoughts or ideas have no link with
the technical writing.
Different Forms of Creative Writing
1. Fiction writing - is the composition of non-factual prose texts. Fictional writing often is produced as a story
meant to entertain or convey an author's point of view. The result of this may be a short story, novel, novella,
screenplay, or drama, which are all types of fictional writing styles.
a. Play writing - plays are of a different narrative language to other mediums in the way they favour character
and performance. These presentations are an experience for the listening audience, Plays are interesting in the
way that the audience cares not for the relatively sparse props and environments used but rather for the acting
of the individuals involved. Plays are at their core, bare bones story telling. When children watch shadow
puppets dancing on the wall they care not for the lighting, location or aesthetics of what is occurring. Instead, it
is the characters and their interactions that are of paramount importance; the dialogue, which strikes an
emotional chord, rings long after the event is over.
Ex. Shadow plays, theatrical plays, stage plays
b. Screenplay writing - in life, people do not roam the streets, describing their ardent passions and desires. If
we seek to understand the emotions of our peers, we use the signs a lifetime of interaction has provided us with.
Often we are able to sense the emotion of people we may not know. We see the way their eyes burn into the
distance or the way they hold their head. We are given a world of thought by the occurrences of the external.
To write screenplays is to refrain from overtly exposing the intricacies of what we or others feel. Instead, it is to
show the audience location, character, plot or structure. To write screenplays is to emulate the human eye and
aestheticize human emotion.
Ex. movie scripts
2. Poetry writing - there’s an old Chinese proverb which states that a picture is worth a thousand words. In a
way this reflects the nature of poetry. The medium paints a picture through a small vision of the world.
However under closer scrutiny, it’s so much larger. We can see the time, the place, the colours and texture
embedded in the portrait of life before us.
a. Songwriting - similar to the nature of poetry, songs can work on many levels at once. Levels of meaning,
structure or emotion. The ability to write songs doesn't come from a foolproof structure or set of rules. The craft
of writing to music comes instinctively. Musicians often absorb ideas about form and style from the world they
know and live in. This reverberates to their listening audience. For some, a ballad could reflect the image of a
soft flowing river, easy on the ears and full of beauty. While to others the same tones and chords could reflect
the jagged nature of a white water stream, full of force and pace.
Activity 1: Identify if the following statements are TRUE or FALSE. Write your answers on the blank.
_________1. Creative writing is a writing that tries to share human experience
_________2. A research paper is an example of creative writing
_________3. Creative writing is not entertaining.
_________4. Creative writing and technical writing serve the same purpose.
_________5. Unlike technical writing, creative writing caters to specific audience only.
_________6. Poetry is a branch of creative writing.
_________7. Creative writing is a way to create literary masterpieces.
_________8. Writers write to earn money.
_________9. Technical writing is a form of creative writing.
_________10. Bloggers write good personal works of fiction.
References:
Buhisan, A. G., Sayseng, A. H., (2016) Creative Writing: JFS Publishing Services