Want to know how creative writing helps you blog better? You have come to the right place for the answer.
Last decade has seen a surge in Digital and Social Media Marketing, introducing jobs like content creation, blogging, freelance writing, affiliate marketing and so on. This has benefited especially those people who, for some reason or the other cannot go and work outside their houses.
Focusing particularly on blogging, I would say that you do not essentially need to be a writer. It is a graded myth that you need to know how to write to be a blogger. You might just know what to present and you can hire a writer to write your thoughts for you. But hiring a writer can be an expensive deal if you are new to this sector.
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How Creative Writing Helps You Blog Better
If you write, research and maintain your blog on your own, a little help from creative writing courses can improve the quality of your blog a great deal.
Creative Writing includes poetry, story-writing, writing a novel and so on. It is anything that uses creativity, innovation and imagination.
If you possess an aptitude and passion for creative writing, then surely, blogging is much easier task for you.
Either you can have an aptitude for creative writing or you can learn creative writing. There are a lot of Creative Writing courses and workshops that you can take up online.
In this blog, I have jotted down some points as to how creative writing helps you blog better and suggested two courses that proved to be beneficial for me.
Creative sentences
A blog should be informative but it should also be amusing to the reader. A very technical news like sentence will make your readers close your writing piece in initial 15 seconds. A roll of imagination, pinch of story and use of good words will keep your reader interested in your blog.
Read Different Genres
Creative Writing go hand-in-hand with reading. A writer is a reader first. You do not just get up one day and start writing. Your reading habits are something that push you to write. Hence, make a habit of reading for at least half an hour a day. Try to read different genres, it gives you a knowledge of wide disciplines.
I had been a voracious reader and started reading when I was 13. I started with reading cheesy love stories and I remember the first novel I read. It was “The Princess Diaries”. After reading a lot of happy endings and getting a sense of monotonousness, I started experimenting with different genres and today, my reading journey continues with politics of World War 2. I had a great love for learning new words and ended up making a large word bank.
You need not stick to novels. Read anything that you find – newspaper (though highly boring, I hate them!), magazines (educational and otherwise), articles, short stories, jokes, or may be your old history course books. Try to understand what the writing piece wants to say. If you do not know the meaning, google up the word, if you do not understand the issue, again, google up, but UNDERSTAND THE INTENT. Write a little review of what you read, that is how you inculcate writing habit.
Cultivate New Words
Creative Writing is all about playing with words un-apologetically. Using words in a different way, rhyming them, toning them, weaving them…!
My love for reading and writing have helped me build a long word bank. Whenever I found a very complicated/ different/ amusing word, I would write it in a diary with its meaning. This helped me remember the word and I tend to flaunt these words when I write.
One easier and fun way to learn new words is through watching T.V Series. If you watch American T.V Series, you must have realized they tend to use very hard English words in their day-to-day life. These T.V series makes such words a part of your life and you use it like its part of your own culture. Watching T.V series helps you infer the meaning of the word. You might know the meaning but you understand what the character has been trying to say. You can also write some of the words in your diary.
How to Develop Creative Writing Skills
Just Write…!
It is as stupid as it sounds. Just Write? Like what?
As I already pointed out, you cannot just get up one day and start writing (unless you are writing about your crush in your diary).
To get a good hand on creative writing, start with taking a topic, you have good knowledge on. Write whatever you know about this topic, if it’s a story, write whatever you are imagining. Don’t care about the words.
Once you are finished writing:
- Start decorating your writing piece.
- Start with editing grammatical mistakes.
- Put vocabulary words wherever needed.
- Look for some proverbs to go with your piece.
- Divide it in proper paragraphs and be clear with the conclusion.
This is just a regular way to improve upon your creative writing skills. If you lack self-discipline, then join a course. Remember: A coach can help you open up with your imagination, he can advice you on your writing but he cannot tell you what to write. That is completely your inference of the topic.
This will help you big time in your blogging career. Because this is what blog is about – Taking a topic, writing your mind or Researching topic and Beautifying your piece. Follow the instructions for How to Write a Perfect Blog Post.
Two Best Courses on Udemy for Creative Writing
Some people have creative writing in-built (passion) and some acquire them by practice (hard work). If it helps you get your work done both are good in their own resort.
I was not a blogger but a writer at heart & always had multiple thoughts and judgmental opinions on everything, which I used to write whenever I got time.
I even loved the writing part in my English test.
Eventually I chose to write over everything else. After I shifted to hostel, I started exploring places, food, restaurants.
It was always great to share my experiences with people. Many a times my college mates started asking me which café to go and what to eat there. This inspired me to write blogs.
Anyway, ranting apart, lets dig in some useful courses for the hard workers:
Creative Writing – Get Writing, Keep Writing by Tracy Baines and Louise Croft
Instead of going into the objective of the course, I would just describe what I like about this course.
- First, this course is very helpful if you want to earn through writing, especially as a freelancer.
- It tells you how to inculcate a writing habit on daily basis.
- You do not need to be a great writer to start this course.
- It helps in writing different genres. As a freelance writer, you could be asked to write on different topics like Different kinds of Kitchen Counters or Generic Medicines in India. This course will help you not to lose your mind when you see such boring topics.
Complete Creative Writing – All Genres – The Full Course by Trace Crawford
The best thing about this course is that it plays with four genres – Fiction, Non-fiction, drama and poetry. They give you lots and lots of material and worksheets to complete your assignments and hit the strings of your creative minds.
This is a fun course as you can literally explore the writer in you. They teach you writing techniques and also makes you aware of some basic tools.
Conclusion
All in all, creative writing is one such skill that opens door for a lot of opportunities. You can be a freelancer, content writer, publish your articles in magazines and get fame and so on.
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