Unlike science fiction, fantasy avoids scientific themes. Instead the focus is primarily on magical and fantastical themes. Fantasy can cover things like fairytales, folklore, mythology, witchcraft, mediaeval themes, and new worlds such as The Hobbit.
As a genre it has gained more popularity again over recent years with books such as the Harry Potter series and the 'Lord of the Rings' film trilogy. Fantasy writing often involves the writer creating a new world, or they may present a new take on the existing world where the fantasy can exist, and where the reader or audience can escape to. The fantasy genre has also been popularised by video games and television series such as 'The Dresden Files' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.
In 'The Dresden Files' a wizard exists in modern day America. In 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', vampires exist in the real world. Most people conduct their everyday lives oblivious to the fact that vampires and wizards exist, but they do exist to the enlightened few and the audience in the world that the writers created.
The world is still that which we are familiar with, but supernatural creatures co-exist. Similarly, J.
Rowling created a secret world in the Harry Potter series, where wizards and witches exist under the nose of the unsuspecting general public. Crime Fiction Crime fiction is also a popular genre which really became recognised as such around the beginning of the twentieth century, although Edgar Allan Poe wrote several crime themed novels in the mid s. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' books are widely regard as being the publications which propelled this genre into public interest.
Crime fiction is often categorised into subgenres, for instance:. Poetry Poetry is more a major form of literature along with novels, novellas, plays drama , and short stories rather than a genre per se. However, within poetry are many genres and subgenres. Types of poetry range from ballads to haiku, free verse to poetic stories for children, slam poetry and so on.
The main genres within poetry are as follows:. Science fiction is related to fantasy writing in that it is a subgenre of speculative writing, and a science fiction story may create a new world — a new planet or a future version of planet Earth. The main difference is that as the name suggests it utilises scientific principles and laws to create credible worlds.
The focus is also very much on the future - how things might be should certain scientific innovations come to pass. Romance and Relationship Writing Romance writing is one of the oldest genres although what many now regard as romance is not what it used to be. Traditional romance is also sometimes called heroic literature as if often depicts a hero who embarks on an epic journey. These were often knights and some of the stories were told in verse. The overall intent of creative writing is not to inform.
A poet uses events, images and people to deliver concentrated emotion. Dramatists and screen writers convey and stir emotions through action and dialogue. A magazine feature writer comments on real people and real lives to arouse our sympathy, delight, horror or concern. The point is that almost any genre or category of writing can be written to engage the reader emotionally as well as intellectually.
What makes a work more creative than informative is its emphasis. Creative writing is primarily about creating emotional effect and significance. Differences between creative and informative writing are sometimes quite blurred. Some well-known and esteemed pieces of writing that are primarily informative are also very creative, sensitive and beautiful, while some primarily creative works are also highly informative. To understand this better, read a chapter from A. You will also see writing where creativity and information carry equal weight and importance in some newspaper feature articles, often found in the centre pages of the weekend editions, and in many magazine articles.
Good creative writing uses the same kinds of writing that make for good informative writing, or good argument, or good exposition. Hannah Lee Kidder, a very talented author and Youtuber, gave me this writing exercise and I have used it many times.
All you have to do is sit down and describe your day — starting with waking up — as if you were writing it about another person. Use your creative writing skills to bring life to even the dullest moments, like showering or brushing your teeth.
With this exercise, the goal is to write your description with the goal of showing the reader as much as you can about your character without ever mentioning them at all. Believe it or not, editing does count as writing and can actually sharpen those creative writing skill more than you think. It can be a little scary to pull up a story you wrote last week or even two years ago and tear it apart. Check out this video of me editing my old writing in order to replace weak verbs with stronger, better ones to get a taste of what this can look like and how it can help you get better.
One of my favorite parts of writing is giving unique voices to each character. Their dialogue as the power to pull readers in, or push them out of the book completely. During this creative writing exercise, your focus will be to pick 4 different emotional states and write dialogue and narrative of how your character feels and interprets those feelings. For this one, craft a character in your mind. It can be one you already created or a completely new one. Choose your 4 emotional states — and get creative.
You can choose sadness, anger, happiness, and excitement BUT you can also go a bit further and choose to use drunk, flirty, terrified, and eager. After you have 4 emotional states, write one page of each using dialogue and narrative your character would use. Creating strong visuals is one of the most powerful ways to become a great creative writer. In fact, practicing this will help you craft books that really hook readers. During this exercise, you will learn a lot about how to write a scene using entirely dialogue.
This will also help you understand how to show and not tell in creative writing. To start, choose a scene you wrote previously that has little to no dialogue, but is still very important. Next, rewrite the entire thing using dialogue including dialogue tags and body language descriptions. You will quickly become better at using dialogue to show and not tell.
This writing exercise will really help you think creatively about something a large part of the world knows about. However, you have to think of a very unique, interesting way of presenting this common idea. The purpose of this is to help you dig deeper within your own story and plot in order to come up with the very best, most unique ideas — because that is what will stand out in your book.
Begin this story like you would any other. Develop who the very first Tooth Fairy is and understand their character. Then, start creating a backstory that coincides with how they ended up becoming the tooth fairy. This is a fun one! The idea behind this creative writing exercise is to focus on interpreting themes through story.
Otherwise, it can get lost. Not knowing the theme can often leave readers feeling unsatisfied — and rightfully so. For this exercise, pick an overarching theme you want to focus on. This can be anything from equality to the difference between right and wrong.
Next, craft a short story with the setting being and do your best to make sure that theme shines through. Get creative! Your attic can even contain a portal to another dimension if you really want it to. So no, we will not be creating new languages with this exercise.
One of the beauties of creative writing is that you have the power to change the way someone sees the world. You can make it more appealing and special to them — if you know how.
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