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How to Write a Creative Essay: Useful Tips and Examples

Samuel Gorbold

Essay creative writing is not always seen as fun by most students, but the realm of creative essays can offer an enjoyable twist. The inherent freedom in choosing a topic and expressing your thoughts makes this type of paper a creative playground. Engaging in composing a creative essay provides an opportunity to flex your creative muscles. Yet, if you're new to crafting compositions, it can pose a challenge. This article guides you through the steps to write an impressive creative essay, helping you navigate the process seamlessly. In a hurry? Our writing service is there for you 24/7, with guidance and practical help.

What Is a Creative Essay

A creative essay is a form of writing that goes beyond traditional academic structures, allowing the author to express themselves more imaginatively and artistically. Unlike formal essays, creative ones emphasize storytelling, personal reflection, and the exploration of emotions. They often incorporate literary elements such as vivid descriptions, dialogue, and poetic language to engage readers on a more emotional and sensory level. Follow our creative essay tips to experiment with style and structure, offering a unique platform to convey ideas, experiences, or perspectives in a captivating and inventive way.

To answer the question what does creative writing mean, it’s necessary to point out that it departs from traditional academic writing, offering a canvas for artistic expression and storytelling. It diverges from the rigid structure of formal writings, providing a platform for writers to infuse their work with imagination and emotion. In this genre, literary elements such as vivid descriptions and poetic language take center stage, fostering a more engaging and personal connection with the reader.

Unlike a poem analysis essay , this form of writing prioritizes narrative and self-expression, allowing authors to delve into their experiences and perspectives uniquely. It's a departure from the conventional rules, encouraging experimentation with style and structure. Creative essays offer a distinct avenue for individuals to convey ideas and emotions, weaving a tapestry that captivates and resonates with readers on a deeper, more sensory level.

Creative Writing Essay Outline Explained From A to Z

Moving on, let's delve into how to write a creative writing essay from s structural perspective. Despite the focus on creativity and imagination, a robust structure remains essential. Consider your favorite novel – does it not follow a well-defined beginning, middle, and end? So does your article. Before diving in, invest some time crafting a solid plan for your creative writing essay.

Creative Essay Introduction

In creative essay writing, the introduction demands setting the scene effectively. Begin with a concise portrayal of the surroundings, the time of day, and the historical context of the present scenario. This initial backdrop holds significant weight, shaping the atmosphere and trajectory of the entire storyline. Ensure a vivid depiction, employing explicit descriptions, poetic devices, analogies, and symbols to alter the text's tone promptly.

Creative Essay Body

The body sections serve as the engine to propel the storyline and convey the intended message. Yet, they can also be leveraged to introduce shifts in motion and emotion. For example, as creative writers, injecting conflict right away can be a powerful move if the plot unfolds slowly. This unexpected twist startles the reader, fundamentally altering the narrative's tone and pace. Additionally, orchestrating a fabricated conflict can keep the audience on edge, adding an extra layer of intrigue.

Creative Essay Conclusion

Typically, creative writers conclude the narrative towards the end. Introduce a conflict and then provide its resolution to tie up the discourse neatly. While the conclusion often doesn't lead to the story's climax, skilled writers frequently deploy cliffhangers. By employing these writing techniques suggested by our write my college essay experts, the reader is left in suspense, eagerly anticipating the fate of the characters without a premature revelation.

Creative Writing Tips

Every student possesses a distinct mindset, individual way of thinking, and unique ideas. However, considering the academic nature of creative writing essays, it is essential to incorporate characteristics commonly expected in such works, such as:

Select a topic that sparks your interest or explores unique perspectives. A captivating subject sets the stage for an engaging paper.
Begin with a vivid and attention-grabbing introduction. Use descriptive language, anecdotes, or thought-provoking questions to draw in your readers from the start.
Clearly articulate the main idea or theme of your essay in a concise thesis statement. This provides a roadmap for your readers and keeps your writing focused.
Use descriptive language to create a sensory experience for your readers. Appeal to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to enhance the imagery.
Play with the structure of your content. Consider nonlinear narratives, flashbacks, or unconventional timelines to add an element of surprise and creativity.
If applicable, develop well-rounded and relatable characters. Provide details that breathe life into your characters and make them memorable to the reader.
Establish a vivid and immersive setting for your narrative. The environment should contribute to the overall mood and tone.
Blend dialogue and narration effectively. Dialogue adds authenticity and allows characters to express themselves, while narration provides context and insight.
Revisit your essay for revisions. Pay attention to the flow, coherence, and pacing. Edit for clarity and refine your language to ensure every word serves a purpose.
Share your creative writing article with others and welcome constructive feedback. Fresh perspectives can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your storytelling.
Maintain an authentic voice throughout your essay. Let your unique style and perspective shine through, creating a genuine connection with your audience.
Craft a memorable conclusion that leaves a lasting impression. Summarize key points, evoke emotions, or pose thought-provoking questions to resonate with your readers.

Types of Creative Writing Essays

A creative writing essay may come in various forms, each offering a unique approach to storytelling and self-expression. Some common types include:

Reflects the author's personal experiences, emotions, and insights, often weaving in anecdotes and reflections.

Descriptive

Focuses on creating a vivid and sensory-rich portrayal of a scene, person, or event through detailed descriptions.
Tells a compelling story with a clear plot, characters, and often a central theme or message.

Reflective

Encourages introspection and thoughtful examination of personal experiences, revealing personal growth and lessons learned.

Expository

Explores and explains a particular topic, idea, or concept creatively and engagingly.

Persuasive

Utilizes creative elements to persuade the reader to adopt a particular viewpoint or take a specific action.

Imaginative

These creative writing papers allow for the free expression of imagination, often incorporating elements of fantasy, surrealism, or speculative fiction.

Literary Analysis

Learning how to write a creative writing essay, analyze and interpret a piece of literature, and incorporate creativity to explore deeper meanings and connections.
Blends personal experiences with travel narratives, offering insights into different cultures, places, and adventures.
Focuses on creating a detailed and engaging portrait of a person, exploring their character, experiences, and impact on others.

Experimental

Pushes the boundaries of traditional essay structures, experimenting with form, style, and narrative techniques.
Combines elements from different essay types, allowing for a flexible and creative approach to storytelling.

As you can see, there are many types of creative compositions, so we recommend that you study how to write an academic essay with the help of our extensive guide.

How to Start a Creative Writing Essay

Starting a creative writing essay involves capturing the reader's attention and setting the tone for the narrative. Here are some effective ways to begin:

Pose a thought-provoking question that intrigues the reader and encourages them to contemplate the topic.
Begin with a short anecdote or a brief storytelling snippet that introduces the central theme or idea of your essay.
Paint a vivid picture of the setting using descriptive language, setting the stage for the events or emotions to unfold.
Open with a compelling dialogue that sparks interest or introduces key characters, immediately engaging the reader in the conversation.
Incorporate a relevant quotation or epigraph that sets the mood or provides insight into the essay's theme.
Begin with a bold or intriguing statement that captivates the reader's attention, encouraging them to delve further into your essay.
Present a contradiction or unexpected scenario that creates a sense of curiosity and compels the reader to explore the resolution.
Employ a striking metaphor or simile that immediately draws connections and conveys the essence of your creative essay.
Start by directly addressing the reader, creating a sense of intimacy and involvement right from the beginning.
Establish the mood or atmosphere of your essay by describing the emotions, sounds, or surroundings relevant to the narrative.
Present a dilemma or conflict that hints at the central tension of your essay, enticing the reader to discover the resolution.
Start in the middle of the action, dropping the reader into a pivotal moment that sparks curiosity about what happened before and what will unfold.

Choose an approach to how to write a creative essay that aligns with your tone and theme, ensuring a captivating and memorable introduction.

Creative Essay Formats

Working on a creative writing essay offers a canvas for writers to express themselves in various formats, each contributing a unique flavor to the storytelling. One prevalent format is personal writing, where writers delve into their own experiences, emotions, and reflections, creating a deeply personal narrative that resonates with readers. Through anecdotes, insights, and introspection, personal essays provide a window into the author's inner world, fostering a connection through shared vulnerabilities and authentic storytelling.

Another captivating format is the narrative, which unfolds like a traditional story with characters, a plot, and a clear arc. Writers craft a compelling narrative, often with a central theme or message, engaging readers in a journey of discovery. Through vivid descriptions and well-developed characters, narrative articles allow for the exploration of universal truths within the context of a captivating storyline, leaving a lasting impression on the audience.

For those who seek to blend fact and fiction, the imaginative format opens the door to vivid exploration. This format allows writers to unleash their imagination, incorporating elements of fantasy, surrealism, or speculative fiction. By bending reality and weaving imaginative threads into the narrative, writers can transport readers to otherworldly realms or offer fresh perspectives on familiar themes. The imaginative essay format invites readers to embrace the unexpected, challenging conventional boundaries and stimulating creativity in both the writer and the audience. Check out our poetry analysis essay guide to learn more about the freedom of creativity learners can adopt while working on assignments.

Creative Essay Topics and Ideas

As you become familiar with creative writing tips, we’d like to share several amazing topic examples that might help you get out of writer’s block:

The enchanted garden tells a tale of blooms and whispers.
Lost in time, a journey through historical echoes unfolds.
Whispering winds unravel the secrets of nature.
The silent symphony explores the soul of music.
Portraits of the invisible capture the essence of emotions.
Beyond the horizon is a cosmic adventure in stardust.
Can dreams shape reality? An exploration of the power of imagination.
The forgotten key unlocks doors to the past.
Ripples in the void, an exploration of cosmic mysteries.
Echoes of eternity are stories written in the stars.
In the shadow of giants, unveils the unsung heroes.
Can words paint pictures? An exploration of the artistry of literary expression.
Whispers of the deep explore the ocean's hidden stories.
Threads of time weave lives through generations.
Do colors hold emotions? A journey of painting the canvas of feelings.
The quantum quandary navigates the world of subatomic particles.
Reflections in a mirror unmask the layers of identity.
The art of silence crafts narratives without words.
The ethereal dance explores movement beyond the visible.
Can shadows speak? Unveiling stories cast in darkness.

Examples of Creative Writing Essays

We've added a couple of brief creative writing essays examples for your reference and inspiration.

Creative Writing Example 1: Admission Essay

Creative writing example 2: narrative essay.

What Are the Types of Creative Writing Essays?

What is a creative writing essay, how to start a creative writing essay, what are some creative writing tips.

Samuel Gorbold , a seasoned professor with over 30 years of experience, guides students across disciplines such as English, psychology, political science, and many more. Together with EssayHub, he is dedicated to enhancing student understanding and success through comprehensive academic support.

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How to Write a Creative Essay: Your Fresh Guide

What Is a Creative Essay

In a world full of logic, facts, and statistics, being able to unleash your true creativity might seem like a fresh breath of air. Sometimes, all we need is to shut our minds, let our thoughts flow through, and immerse ourselves in endless imagination. To think about it, being able to let your imagination run wild yields something genuinely exceptional, an outcome that is not restricted to mundane reality which eventually opens a whole new universe of broadened horizons.

Now, imagine that you can bring together your unique thoughts onto a piece of paper and organize them in a specific format, so when one reads through it, one can easily follow your points while simultaneously being captured by your set of perspectives. Notice how there is an intersection between creativity and organization? These two do not have to be mutually exclusive. That's why in this article we intend to explain how you can put your creative thoughts into words, arrange these words into paragraphs and finally structure these paragraphs in a well-defined creative essay outline.

Now that we have your undivided attention let us briefly explain what is a creative essay and what kind of assignment it represents when you're given one. A creative essay is more than just throwing words on paper to reach a certain character limit. Such an essay assesses your ability to discover and clarify notions to your audience. In academic writing, creative essays can provide you the chance to showcase your research ability together with your vocabulary and composition skills.

Nearly all educational levels, including universities, need students to produce creative essays. When picking creative essay topics, you often have great flexibility. Your professor may give you a subject or category to specialize in, but you are allowed to choose any concept as long as it fits the specified area.

While having the flexibility to write about whatever you want is fantastic, the thought may also be somewhat intimidating. So, read on to get the key tips on how to write a creative essay, along with a step-by-step guide in the following paragraphs.

And if you ever pondered how to write in cursive , we've got you covered on that too!

Helpful Tips for Writing a Creative Essay

In case you were wondering, yes, there are some tactics for writing a creative essay that you may employ. Therefore let our college essay writer provide you with the following useful advice to make your creative essay examples more intriguing and unique:

Start Off Strong: Using an attention-grabbing introduction is a common piece of creative writing advice. One approach to achieve this is to open the narrative with a retrospect, which might throw off the timeline by bringing the audience back into the heart of the scene at the very start of the narrative.
Employ an Outline: Make an outline after you have a topic. Consider your favorite book by your favorite creator. Does it follow a clear framework? A solid start, body, and closing? Very likely, it does, and your essay needs to reflect that. Therefore, before beginning, devote some time to developing a creative writing essay outline.
Take Risks: Do it without hesitation. Often, writings that take chances and push limits end up being the most impactful. Don't be shy to experiment with different writing styles, a unique writing tone, or a subject that causes you to feel uneasy. Present your own ideas and allow them to make a statement.
Use Descriptive Language : Provide descriptive elements that show off your vocabulary to help others understand your creative essay ideas. Writing creatively is all about illuminating a scene with phrases. Employ descriptive words to evoke strong mental images in your audience. To assist your reader in visualizing the situation you're portraying, include sensory information such as vision, sound, flavor, sensation, and scent.
Use Extended Metaphors: An extended metaphor strategy is frequently used in creative writing. It could be better to use an analogy to communicate the idea by making parallels, which people find simpler to grasp than to struggle through attempting to lay out a difficult topic in a basic manner.
Edit Extensively: Few succeed on the first try. When you've finished the initial version, go back and review it to see whether your arguments are in the best sequence and if your writing truly stands to reason. In the era of technology, it's simple to cut and paste sections of your essay into where they would suit better to help your essay flow smoother. Remove everything that doesn't support your essay's main idea or topic.

How to Write a Creative Essay: Breaking Down a Creative Essay Outline

Apart from the tips above, you might need a step-by-step guide demonstrating essential writing steps. While creative essays adhere to an outline much like other types of essays, such as book review format , they use a slightly different framework known as the 3-Point Structure. This involves: The Setup -> Confrontation -> Resolution. Let's break down each component below:

Set Up: Generally stated in the introduction, the setup establishes the characters and their connection with one another. What are the predefined links between the main members? Give the readers enough information to begin making assumptions about how the narrative will evolve.
Confrontation: Written in the body, the narrative must have a Defining Moment. At this conflicting point, the calm sea becomes a violent storm. This turn of events could be foreshadowed by the plot's hints, or it might just happen out of nowhere. Your decision as the author will determine your actions. For instance, you can start implying that the storyline seems strange before returning to normal without making significant changes. Alternatively, the narrative can be moving along without incident when a significant event occurs, abruptly changing the course of the story.
Resolution: After the story's pivotal moment, the drama will have intensified and gradually subsided. There will eventually come a time when the tension picks back up and reaches a pinnacle. Now, this could either be revealed at the end of the narrative (a cliffhanger) or disclosed anywhere between the middle and the beginning. This also depends on you as the author.

Creative Essay Introduction

Establishing the scene in a creative essay opening is the first thing to be done in any storytelling. Provide a brief description of the area, the period of the day, and the history of the present situation. This opening setting is key because it establishes the atmosphere and flow of the whole storyline. Having said that, be sure to enliven the scene as much as possible to let the reader see it perfectly. Employ explicit descriptions; poetic devices, analogies, and symbols are excellent ways to change the tone of the text right away.

Creative Essay Body

The bodies are employed to advance the storyline and convey the message. But you may also employ these sections to switch up the motion and emotion. For instance, as the author, you may include the conflict immediately if the plot progresses slowly. The reader is taken aback by this, which alters the narrative’s tone and pace. Also, you might stage a phony conflict to keep your audience on edge.

Creative Essay Conclusion

Usually, the creative writers may wrap up the narrative in the end. Set up a conflict, then give the resolution to wind up the conversation. Most of the time, the ending won't lead to the story's climax, but many expert writers employ cliffhangers. Using such creative essay writing techniques, the reader might be kept in a state of suspense without revealing what happened to the characters.

Creative Essay Topics and Ideas

Before putting yourself into creative essay writing, you should pick among creative writing essays topics that you will be talking about. Here we got some fresh creative essay topics from our top college essay writer to make your choice easier:

Explain an event in your life that spiraled out of control and flipped its course.
Create a scenario that directs the end of the world.
Camouflage the concept of love in a story that is completely irrelevant.
Design in a story in which one person's beliefs or ideas helped reform the future of society.
Propose a scenario in the distant future in which technology controls all.
Describe something that you can't live without; it might be your hobby or a thing that you are dedicated to.
Express your thoughts about a topic that hurts you.
Imagine that you became invisible for one day. What would you do?
What would your reaction be if one day you woke up in someone else's body

Naturally, you can create one that is completely unique to you and the ideas that you form. These creative writing topics are here to get you started on the right path towards a brilliant story.

Creative College Essay Topics

Now that our coursework writers guided your curiosity through different creative writing tips and writing structure, you might fancy some topics for creative nonfiction essay to give you a more clear idea. Let us walk you through some inspirational creative essay titles:

'Being My True-Self in Solitude' - Describe when you were completely alone and what lessons you took from it. Here you can examine the notion of isolation and how it may inspire your creativity. You can also discuss a solo excursion you undertook, a moment when you felt abandoned, or a period when you deliberately sought solitude to contemplate and refresh.
'My Life's Soundtrack' - Talk about your favorite song or a piece of music that sums up your character or reflects your life. Your essay might examine a specific line of lyrics that speaks to your life experience. You can also describe how the beats and rhythm highlight a particular memory or challenge you overcame.
'Dear Future Me' - In this essay letter, you can converse with your future self in 10 years. First, talk about your present self, what you're grateful for, and what you wish would go differently in the future. Ask your older self questions about how things have changed over these years, and reflect upon your main aspirations.
'My Perfect Imperfections' - Recall a moment when you acknowledge your weaknesses or flaws. Appreciate the thought that imperfections are a normal and lovely aspect of human existence. You may also discuss overcoming self-doubt or a physical trait you used to detest but have come to adore.

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Example of a Creative Essay

Aldrine was already hitting his mid-30’s and the pressure from parents and peers was building up fast. While he admitted that marriage was an essential rite of passage, he was also keen not to marry an entirely incompatible partner with whom he would struggle all through adulthood. The father was already losing patience and several of his peers had been sent with threats that he would eventually be ostracized.

Did you like it? You can also buy essays online from us, and our authors will write it flawlessly and within the stipulated time frame. You can also read an article about book review format , there you will also find useful information.

Wrapping Up

As we come to an end, we hope you gained a clear insight into what is creative essay and how to write it. Some people will always find it simpler to write creative essays than others. Yet, by putting the tips above into practice, you should be in a strong position to generate work that you're happy with.

You could be left-brained, more comfortable with analytical thought processes than with eloquent language. In this case, you may embark on a journey with the help of our qualified paper writer team, who has produced a ton of creative college essay topics. We know that every creative essay is different, and each of our writers can vividly depict a scene that will astound you. Have some doubts? Buy essays online today and be assured of our promise!

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.

FAQs on Creative Essay Writing

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.

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How to Write a Creative Essay | 07 Techniques, Types & features

A creative essay is a form of writing that blends imagination with storytelling, allowing writers to express themselves in a unique and artistic way. How to Write a Creative Essay is a common question in literature;

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How to Write a Creative Essay

Understanding the essay prompt and coming up with ideas are the first steps in writing a creative essay. To keep focused and arrange your thoughts, create an outline for your essay.

Throughout the writing process, stay true to your own voice and style, and carefully edit your essay for impact and clarity.

Types of Creative Essays Source

1. personal essay.

An autobiographical piece that delves into a specific experience or subject from the writer’s life is called a personal essay. It frequently considers one’s own emotions, ideas, and revelations.

Personal essays can address a variety of topics, such as relationships or particular occurrences, as well as personal development and reflection.

By sharing their own viewpoints and experiences, writers can establish a personal connection with readers through this kind of essay writing.

A memoir is a type of autobiographical writing that concentrates on a particular time or event in the writer’s life, much like a personal essay. Memoirs, on the other hand, are usually more organized and concentrated, frequently according to a timeline.

Memoirs can give readers more in-depth understanding of the author’s life and experiences while also crafting a gripping story that is both personal and reflective.

3. Descriptive Essay

Write a descriptive and creative essay involves using vivid language and sensory elements to paint a vivid picture of a subject, subject matter, or place. The goal of descriptive essays is to create vivid imagery in the reader’s head so they can easily picture the topic of the essay.

In creative writing, this kind of essay is frequently employed to provide the reader a deep and engaging experience.

4. Narrative Essay

A narrative essay narrates a tale, frequently from the author’s perspective. Typically, narrative essays have a beginning, middle, and end and can be either fictional or based on actual events.

These essays have the ability to captivate readers with strong characters, surprising turns of events, and intense drama.

07 Best Techniques To Write A Creative Essay

1. start with a strong introduction.

Immediately capture the interest of your audience with a compelling introduction. A compelling question, a fascinating fact, or an engaging description might pique their interest and encourage them to read on.

If you’re writing an essay about a personal experience, for instance, you may begin with a dramatic passage that establishes the tone for the entire piece.

2. Use Vivid Imagery

Use vivid imagery to help your words paint a picture. Write scenes, characters, and emotions in a way that makes them easy for readers to picture. This will make your essay more interesting and lively.

For example, you could say, “It was a sunny day,” but instead you could describe the warmth of the sun on your skin, the way it was streaming through the foliage, and the sound of birds chirping.

3. Show, Don’t Tell

Use vivid language and specific examples to illustrate what is occurring to your readers rather than just telling them what is happening. Your writing will become more captivating and lively as a result.

As an alternative to stating “she was sad,” you may characterize her slouched shoulders, moist eyes, and tremulous voice.

4. Develop Interesting Characters

Creating compelling and likable characters is crucial for both fiction and non-fiction writing. Make sure your characters propel the story along by giving them nuance and complexity.

You can accomplish this by giving a realistic and approachable description of their goals, conflicts, and motives.

5. Experiment with Structure

Don’t be scared to experiment with your essay’s structure. You can make your writing more interesting and complex by utilizing flashbacks, non-linear storylines, or various points of view.

To illustrate how it all began, you could, for instance, begin with a scenario from the middle of the narrative and then go back to the beginning.

6. Use Dialogue

Your writing will seem more authentic and your characters will come to life through dialogue. Make sure it progresses the story or reveals something significant about the characters when using it sparingly. Dialogue is another tool for evoking feelings and creating conflict between characters.

7. Revise and Edit

After writing your essay, give it a thorough editing and revision. Make sure your writing is clear and succinct, and proofread it for grammar and spelling mistakes.

This will guarantee that your essay is well-written and polished. You can also ask a friend or member of your family to read your essay and offer suggestions for improvement.

Features Of Creative Essays

Writers can express their creativity and artistic flare through creative essays. These pieces strive to enthrall readers with distinctive storytelling and emotional depth, going beyond simple facts and data. Let’s examine the salient characteristics of creative essays:

1. Creativity

Creative writings serve as a creative outlet. It is recommended of writers to think creatively and to use original concepts and words to create a gripping story.

Creativity is the key to a great creative essay, whether it is rethinking a commonplace event or delving into a magical realm.

2. Emotional Impact

The capacity of a creative essay to arouse readers’ emotions is one of its distinguishing features. Writers have the ability to evoke strong feelings in their readers by using evocative language and poignant narratives.

Any emotion—happy, sad, fearful, nostalgic—can be evoked in readers by a well-written creative essay.

3. Unique Voice

Every writer has a distinct voice, and creative essays provide them a chance to show it out. Your work has a unique personality and style that come from your voice, which makes it stand out from other writing.

Your distinct writing style gives your creative essay depth and authenticity, whether you’re writing with wit, humor, or poignancy.

How Can You Write A Creative Essay Like A Pro

11 creative essay topics, advice before writing creative essay.

To keep on track, it’s a good idea to fully understand the essay prompt before starting on your creative essay. Take some time to come up with several topics and ideas for your essay to make it stand out.

To properly arrange and structure your essay, create an outline of your ideas. To make your writing authentic, be true to your own voice and style. Lastly, carefully proofread and rewrite your essay to ensure its impact and clarity.

To sum up, the first steps in creating a creative essay are drawing the reader in with an attention-grabbing introduction and adhering to a flexible structure. Writing that is captivating and powerful can be achieved by adhering to your own voice and style.

Start a creative writing essay by grabbing attention with a strong opening, like a vivid description or an intriguing question.

The format of a creative essay can vary but typically includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Begin writing creative writing by brainstorming ideas, outlining your essay, and staying true to your unique voice and style.

A good creative writing essay is characterized by engaging storytelling, vivid imagery, and a strong emotional impact on the reader.

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What Is a Creative Essay

General tips on how to write a creative essay, creative college essay topics and ideas, how to write creative essay titles, creative writing essays tips to polish your paper, creative nonfiction essays tip from our experts.

What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Bright, colorful creative writer's desk with notebook and typewriter -- What Is Creative Writing

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

Short stories
Screenplays
Flash fiction
Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

You should also read…

How to Improve Your English Writing Skills
How to Write Dazzlingly Brilliant Essays

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

Image shows Hamlet clutching a skull, with his father's ghost in the background.

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

Image shows a painting of a group of people standing around the body of a murdered woman.

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

Image shows Romeo and Juliet about to touch their palms together.

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

Image shows a statue of the Emperor Augustus.

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

Image shows someone writing in a notebook.

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.

See also our fabulous guide explaining more about ” What is Creative Writing ”.

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How to Write a Creative Essay: Tips, Topics, and Techniques

What is a creative essay, if not the way to express yourself? Crafting such a paper is a task that allows you to communicate your opinion and tell a story. However, even using your imagination to a great extent doesn’t free you from following academic writing rules. Don’t even get us started about other components of papers. With tools like research paper title page generators available, it only proves to be a serious business.

Confused yet?

No need to be! Creativity can be worked into many different types of essays. You just have to know how to write a creative essay deftly, thus:

paying attention to your reader;
using an essay structure;
incorporating details and metaphors;
don’t be afraid to speak your mind!

Turn to our writers when in doubt or read the rest of the article for more recommendations.

🎨 Types of Creative Essays

🧩 creative essay format, 🖌️ how to write a creative essay, 📜 creative essay topics.

Where analysis ends, creativity begins!

You can include creative expression in an essay or paper you write. Yet, some pieces are designed specifically to allow you to be creative. You can choose a topic that will set your imagination free.

Here are a few types of creative essays you can embrace:

Narrative Essay :

The narrative essay is much like novel writing. This essay type can be used to discuss either real or imaginary events. The key in this type is that you have to show, not tell. For you to accomplish this, your essay will need a plot, many descriptive details, and well-written prose.

Admission Essay :

The admission essay is becoming increasingly popular. When it is well-written, it allows you to stand out among thousands of students who are vying for admission to a particular program. The admission essay is a way for you to talk about yourself and why you would make a great addition to a program. Essentially, you are advertising yourself to show that you are the best choice.

Personal Essay :

The personal essay is similar to the admission essay but less aggressive. This form of essay is used to talk about yourself and your experiences, trying to persuade the reader that a particular event or aspect of your personal life is significant in some way. Consider this form of creative writing essay a self-portrait that you paint with words.

Descriptive Essay :

You can choose any topic you wish for the descriptive essay. The key is that the central idea should be of interest to or affect the reader. Once you select one, describe it throughout your essay, stating why it is crucial to you.

Lyric Essay:

This is very much like the descriptive essay, except that it makes greater use of imagery and description.

Americanism Essay :

The Americanism essay is popular with scholarship committees. This is the “why I am proud to be an American” essay.

Reflection Essay:

The reflection essay offers you a way to provide feedback on an event or other topic with which you are not happy, or it bothers you in some way.

Victor Valley College and the University of Vermont offer some great advice on writing creative essays. Now let’s look at some techniques that will help you write creatively.

Creative essays usually follow the three-act story structure . It is a classic writing technique commonly used in storytelling, screenwriting, and drama. It divides a story into three parts: the setup , confrontation , and resolution . The three-act story structure allows for the effective development of characters and conflicts, which leads to more compelling writing.

Check out the creative essay format below.

The stage is set in this initial part of the story where the main characters, setting, and central conflict are introduced. Readers are given a glimpse into the story’s world and get to know the characters and their motivations. The setup establishes the foundation for the narrative, laying out the groundwork for the conflicts that will unfold.

Confrontation

Confrontation is where the story’s central conflict develops and the tension rises. Obstacles and complications that arise during that stage are meant to test the characters, pushing them to their limits. The confrontation is filled with rising action as the characters face increasingly difficult challenges.

The story reaches its climax, and the conflicts are brought to a head. The tension built up in the previous stage comes to its peak as the characters confront their challenges head-on. The resolution provides closure to the story, ties up loose ends, and resolves the central conflict.

The Oxford Royale Academy offers useful creative writing tips that can easily be applied to creative nonfiction.

The key is:

Creative writing is not solely about putting words on a page in a way that presents imaginative prose. You need to consider your writing in a certain way and structure it properly if you want to pull off an excellent creative essay.

Here are some tips and techniques for any creative nonfiction writing you do:

Consider the reader: As with any other form of writing, you must consider the reader above all else. You have to have a deep understanding of who your audience is so you can pique their interest and hold it throughout the paper.
Start it off right: You need to start your paper off with a bang! That means you have to have an opening to your essay or paper that will grab the attention of whoever reads it. This could be a bold phrase, the description of something that happened, or some profound or persuasive words. Your opening needs to scream, “Keep reading!”
Use the traditional creative structure: Traditionally, creative essays are divided into three acts: the setup, the confrontation, and the resolution. In the first one, you will introduce the leading players and the situation. The confrontation will allow you to shift into the main issue. The resolution is the climax, during which the issue is resolved.
Use metaphors: A metaphor is effective in any form of writing. In a creative essay writing, use an analogy to help provide the reader with a clear image. It should make them understand a concept you are explaining at a deeper level.
Provide details: Details are everything when writing creatively as they tug at the readers’ emotions. Without them, your essay can be stale and boring, providing only one fact. Detail spruces it up and makes it come alive in the readers’ minds.
Edit, edit, edit: Make sure to edit your work after you have written it. A writer rarely gets it right the first time.
Think out of the box: Finally, here it comes—the piece of advice that every successful assignment demands. Try to approach the issue from an unusual angle!

The Oxford Royale Academy also has some great information on general essay writing that is sure to help!

Now, let’s take a look at some creative writing topics you might be able to use.

The goal behind any writing assignment that calls for creativity is simple. You have to express your feelings and opinions on a particular topic so that it captivates the reader. These creative papers and essays are not dry and boring the way most of us imagine academic works.

But what should you write about? You need some creative essay ideas. Whether the topic is assigned or you choose it yourself, you’ll have to decide how to approach it. If you pick an issue yourself, the options might be overwhelming.

With that in mind:

Let’s start on a journey to find fun essay topics! You can:

Choose something you are interested in by making a list of issues or problems that matter to you.
Narrow down a broader issue.
Find inspiration from materials and records to which you have access or from your coursework.

There are plenty of topics for narrative essays and other creative writing essays on the Internet. Here are some great ideas for nonfiction writing topics to get your imagination moving:

Describing thoughts inspired by a picture.
Are art and nature vital parts of human life?
Creativity can change the world.
What is pride?
The desire to travel lives in every person.
My visit to Rio de Janeiro .
Is it a good idea to be a stay-at-home mother?
Various feelings about cheating .
Is early marriage a good or a bad thing?
The importance of the Era of Good Feelings for American history.
What will your future be in five years?
Family fitness night is a great way to unite a family.
Bachata as a music genre .
How do you understand love ?
The role of money issues in strong relationships.
What person can be a true friend?
The definition of jealousy .
Is creativity a panacea from depression?
Emotional intelligence is crucial for healthy relationships.
Postmodernist and experimental dance forms.
How I trained my dog at home.
Poetry as a way to express emotions .
What makes a strong marriage?
Photography as a professional art and creative hobby.
Problems in the neighborhood and how to deal them.
Why do Carolina dogs make great pets?
Feeling of joy and its value for people .
How emotional intelligence can help me to become a great leader.
The role of conservatism in preservation of traditional American culture.
What can a freelancer do to stay creative ?
A memorable event from my past.
Peculiarities of friendship in the age of media.
Interconnection between emotions and memories .
Is consumerism a part of American culture?
Different understanding of art.
What can do to save lakes and oceans wildlife?
Examples of the emotion of sadness in art.
The creative way to organize a workplace at home.
Emotions that paintings stir in people.
Why Dresden is a great place to travel.
How to fight the feeling of powerlessness .
Personal experience adopting a pet from Humane Society.
Is it possible for computers to have independent feeling ?

That’s it! When it comes to creative writing, you can do it! For more help on writing essays, check out this video.

If you still feel the task is too much to handle, you can turn to a custom writing service. Share the article with those who may need our advice and happy writing!

Essays: Creative Nonfiction
Overview of Creative Nonfiction: Purdue Online Writing Lab, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University
A Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction: MasterClass
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it was fascinating….but still you need to add more..tackle more on the format of a creative essay

Thank you for your detailed comment. Our team will take it into account.

I apprepriate this article and video. That’s worthy for all teachers and learners. This article and video are very useful and effective for all learners and teachers who wants to start creative writing .

Many, many creative writing topics! Thanks so much for giving yourself the trouble to share these topics! They are a real salvation for me!

Essays About Creativity: Top 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Creativity helps us understand and solve problems in different ways. Discover our top essays about creativity examples and use our prompts for your writing.

Albert Einstein defines creativity as “seeing what others see and thinking what others have not thought.” But what makes it such a popular topic to write about? Every person has a creative view and opinion on something, but not everyone knows how to express it. Writing utilizes ideas and imagination to produce written pieces, such as essays.

Creativity reinforces not only new views but also innovation around the world. Because creativity is a broad topic to write about, you’ll need several resources to help you narrow down what you want to discuss in your essay.

5 Essay Examples

1. way to foster creativity in young children by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 2. phenomenon of creativity and success by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 3. do schools kill creativity: essay on traditional education by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 4. creativity in dreams essay by writer pete, 5. the importance of creativity in higher education by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. what is creativity, 2. how creativity affects our daily lives, 3. the impact of creativity on students, 4. the importance of creativity, 5. creativity: a product of perception, 6. types of creativity, 7. art and creativity.

“There are different ways to foster creativity in young children. They include different approaches to the problem of making children more self-reliant, more creative, and more interested in the process of receiving education, obtaining experience, achieving certain results in the sphere of self-study.”

The essay delves into the importance of promoting creativity by teaching music to young students. The author says music’s intention, rhythm, and organizational features help people understand performance, improve their mood, and educate them about the world they live in, unlike noise. Music is an important area of life, so it is important to teach it correctly and inspire children.

Since music and creativity are both vital, the author notes that music teachers must find ways to facilitate ventures to enhance their students’ creativity. The author also believes that teachers must perform their duties appropriately and focus on shaping their students’ behavior, personality, and worldview. You might be interested in these articles about art .

“Over the past few decades, creativity has evolved from a characteristic normally associated with artistic activities into a quality that is found in people of various professions. However, in the 21st century, creativity has become a rather controversial issue.”

The author discusses that while creativity dramatically contributes to the success of individuals and companies, creativity in the 21st-century workplace still has mixed reception. They mention that creativity leads to new ideas and innovations, helps solve complex problems, and makes great leaders.

However, some still see creative people as irrational, disorganized, and distracting in the workplace. This often results in companies rejecting applicants with this quality. Ultimately, the writer believes creativity is vital in all organizations today. Hiring people with this unique trait is highly beneficial and essential to achieving the company’s goals. For more inspiration, check out these essays about achievement and essays about curiosity .

“… the traditional education system has caused much controversy since the beginning of formal education because traditional education can hurt children’s ability to think creatively, innovate, and develop fascinating minds.”

The essay discusses how school rules and norms affect students’ expression of true individuality. The author mentions that today’s schools focus on students’ test performance, memorization, and compliance more than their aspirations and talents, preventing students from practicing and enhancing their creativity.

The author uses various articles, shows, and situations to elaborate on how schools kill a student’s creativity by forcing them to follow a specific curriculum as a means to succeed in life. It kills the student’s creativity as they become “robots” with the same beliefs, knowledge, and values. According to the writer, killing a child’s creativity leads to a lack of motivation and a wrong career direction.

“Creativity is enhanced whether one chooses to pay attention to it, or not. Each person has the capacity to learn much from their creative dreaming, if they would only think more creatively and openly when awake.”

The essay contains various studies to support claims about people being more creative when asleep. According to the author, the human brain processes more information when dreaming than in the waking state. While the brainstem is inactive, it responds to PGO Waves that trigger the human CMPG, which puts images into the dream to move. The author discusses two main perspectives to discuss how creative dreaming occurs.

First, creativity is enhanced when a person sleeps, not through dreaming but because the mind is free from stress, making the brain more focused on thinking and creating images. The second is that the dreaming mind gathers and processes more information than the human brain unconsciously accumulates daily. The author states that creativity helps express feelings and believes people should not take their creativity in dreams for granted.

“When students have the opportunity to be creative, they’ll have the freedom to express themselves however they want, which satisfies them and drives them to work hard.”

The essay focuses on how the role of creativity is getting slimmer as a student enters higher education. To explain the importance of creativity, the author shares their experience showing how elementary schools focus more on improving and training students’ creativity than higher education. Although rules and restrictions are essential in higher education, students should still practice creativity because it enhances their ability to think and quickly adapt to different situations.

If you want to use the latest grammar software, read our guide to using an AI grammar checker .

7 Prompts for Essays About Creativity

Creativity is an important topic that significantly affects an individual’s development. For this prompt, discuss the meaning of creativity according to experts versus the personal interpretation of creative individuals. Compare these explanations and add your opinion on these similarities and differences. You can even discuss creativity in your life and how you practice creativity in your hobbies, interests, and education.

Essays About Creativity: How creativity affects our daily lives?

There are several impacts of creativity in one’s life. It improves mental health, strengthens the immune system, and affects one’s ability to solve problems in school and real life. Sometimes, being creative helps us be more open to various perspectives to reduce our biases.

Use this prompt to write about a specific situation you experienced where creativity made you more innovative, inventive, or imaginative. Discuss these particular moments by pointing out creativity’s impact on your goal and how things would differ without creativity. You may also be interested in learning about the different types of creativity .

Creativity significantly impacts students’ enthusiasm and feeling of belongingness as they share their passion. Additionally, creativity’s effects stretch to students’ career choices and mental health.

Use this prompt to start a discussion of the pros and cons of creativity with students. Give examples where a student’s creativity leads to their success or failure. You can also share your observations as a guardian or a student.

Sometimes, when we lose touch with our creative side, our viewpoint becomes shallow. Creativity not only works for art but also broadens everyone’s perspectives in life.

For this prompt, speak about how creativity matters and prove its importance by providing a situation. Theorize or discuss how creative people and people who fail to increase their creativity respond to the case.

Perception is an underlying characteristic of creativity. It interprets what we observe, while creativity allows us to make sense of them. Use this prompt to define perception to the readers through the lens of creativity.

List your experience proving creativity is a product of perception. For example, people can have vastly different interpretations of a painting or sound depending on how they perceive it.

Essays About Creativity: Types of creativity

There are several types of creativity, some people believe creativity is a natural talent, but others say it can be cultivated. In this prompt, briefly define creativity and identify each type, such as musical, artistic, or logical.

Discuss how creativity can be taught and cultivated, and look into how some people are naturally creative. In your essay, use real-life examples; this could be someone you know who has studied a creative subject or a friend who is a naturally creative songwriter.

When people say creativity, they usually think about art because it involves imaginative and expressive actions. Art strongly indicates a person’s ongoing effort and emotional power.

To write this essay effectively, show how art relates to a person’s creativity. Briefly explain creativity and art and incorporate the factors that link these two. Note that art can be anything from contemporary dance and music to sculptures and paintings. For help with your essay, check our round-up of best essay writing apps .

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 53 stellar college essay topics to inspire you.

College Essays

feature_orange_notebook_pencil_college_essay_topics

Most colleges and universities in the United States require applicants to submit at least one essay as part of their application. But trying to figure out what college essay topics you should choose is a tricky process. There are so many potential things you could write about!

In this guide, we go over the essential qualities that make for a great college essay topic and give you 50+ college essay topics you can use for your own statement . In addition, we provide you with helpful tips for turning your college essay topic into a stellar college essay.

What Qualities Make for a Good College Essay Topic?

Regardless of what you write about in your personal statement for college , there are key features that will always make for a stand-out college essay topic.

#1: It’s Specific

First off, good college essay topics are extremely specific : you should know all the pertinent facts that have to do with the topic and be able to see how the entire essay comes together.

Specificity is essential because it’ll not only make your essay stand out from other statements, but it'll also recreate the experience for admissions officers through its realism, detail, and raw power. You want to tell a story after all, and specificity is the way to do so. Nobody wants to read a vague, bland, or boring story — not even admissions officers!

For example, an OK topic would be your experience volunteering at a cat shelter over the summer. But a better, more specific college essay topic would be how you deeply connected with an elderly cat there named Marty, and how your bond with him made you realize that you want to work with animals in the future.

Remember that specificity in your topic is what will make your essay unique and memorable . It truly is the key to making a strong statement (pun intended)!

#2: It Shows Who You Are

In addition to being specific, good college essay topics reveal to admissions officers who you are: your passions and interests, what is important to you, your best (or possibly even worst) qualities, what drives you, and so on.

The personal statement is critical because it gives schools more insight into who you are as a person and not just who you are as a student in terms of grades and classes.

By coming up with a real, honest topic, you’ll leave an unforgettable mark on admissions officers.

#3: It’s Meaningful to You

The very best college essay topics are those that hold deep meaning to their writers and have truly influenced them in some significant way.

For instance, maybe you plan to write about the first time you played Skyrim to explain how this video game revealed to you the potentially limitless worlds you could create, thereby furthering your interest in game design.

Even if the topic seems trivial, it’s OK to use it — just as long as you can effectively go into detail about why this experience or idea had such an impact on you .

Don’t give in to the temptation to choose a topic that sounds impressive but doesn’t actually hold any deep meaning for you. Admissions officers will see right through this!

Similarly, don’t try to exaggerate some event or experience from your life if it’s not all that important to you or didn’t have a substantial influence on your sense of self.

#4: It’s Unique

College essay topics that are unique are also typically the most memorable, and if there’s anything you want to be during the college application process, it’s that! Admissions officers have to sift through thousands of applications, and the essay is one of the only parts that allows them to really get a sense of who you are and what you value in life.

If your essay is trite or boring, it won’t leave much of an impression , and your application will likely get immediately tossed to the side with little chance of seeing admission.

But if your essay topic is very original and different, you’re more likely to earn that coveted second glance at your application.

What does being unique mean exactly, though? Many students assume that they must choose an extremely rare or crazy experience to talk about in their essays —but that's not necessarily what I mean by "unique." Good college essay topics can be unusual and different, yes, but they can also be unique takes on more mundane or common activities and experiences .

For instance, say you want to write an essay about the first time you went snowboarding. Instead of just describing the details of the experience and how you felt during it, you could juxtapose your emotions with a creative and humorous perspective from the snowboard itself. Or you could compare your first attempt at snowboarding with your most recent experience in a snowboarding competition. The possibilities are endless!

#5: It Clearly Answers the Question

Finally, good college essay topics will clearly and fully answer the question(s) in the prompt.

You might fail to directly answer a prompt by misinterpreting what it’s asking you to do, or by answering only part of it (e.g., answering just one out of three questions).

Therefore, make sure you take the time to come up with an essay topic that is in direct response to every question in the prompt .

Take this Coalition Application prompt as an example:

What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What's the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?

For this prompt, you’d need to answer all three questions (though it’s totally fine to focus more on one or two of them) to write a compelling and appropriate essay.

This is why we recommend reading and rereading the essay prompt ; you should know exactly what it’s asking you to do, well before you start brainstorming possible college application essay topics.

53 College Essay Topics to Get Your Brain Moving

In this section, we give you a list of 53 examples of college essay topics. Use these as jumping-off points to help you get started on your college essay and to ensure that you’re on track to coming up with a relevant and effective topic.

All college application essay topics below are categorized by essay prompt type. We’ve identified six general types of college essay prompts:

Why This College?

Change and personal growth, passions, interests, and goals, overcoming a challenge, diversity and community, solving a problem.

Note that these prompt types could overlap with one another, so you’re not necessarily limited to just one college essay topic in a single personal statement.

How a particular major or program will help you achieve your academic or professional goals
A memorable and positive interaction you had with a professor or student at the school
Something good that happened to you while visiting the campus or while on a campus tour
A certain class you want to take or a certain professor you’re excited to work with
Some piece of on-campus equipment or facility that you’re looking forward to using
Your plans to start a club at the school, possibly to raise awareness of a major issue
A study abroad or other unique program that you can’t wait to participate in
How and where you plan to volunteer in the community around the school
An incredible teacher you studied under and the positive impact they had on you
How you went from really liking something, such as a particular movie star or TV show, to not liking it at all (or vice versa)
How yours or someone else’s (change in) socioeconomic status made you more aware of poverty
A time someone said something to you that made you realize you were wrong
How your opinion on a controversial topic, such as gay marriage or DACA, has shifted over time
A documentary that made you aware of a particular social, economic, or political issue going on in the country or world
Advice you would give to your younger self about friendship, motivation, school, etc.
The steps you took in order to kick a bad or self-sabotaging habit
A juxtaposition of the first and most recent time you did something, such as dance onstage
A book you read that you credit with sparking your love of literature and/or writing
A school assignment or project that introduced you to your chosen major
A glimpse of your everyday routine and how your biggest hobby or interest fits into it
The career and (positive) impact you envision yourself having as a college graduate
A teacher or mentor who encouraged you to pursue a specific interest you had
How moving around a lot helped you develop a love of international exchange or learning languages
A special skill or talent you’ve had since you were young and that relates to your chosen major in some way, such as designing buildings with LEGO bricks
Where you see yourself in 10 or 20 years
Your biggest accomplishment so far relating to your passion (e.g., winning a gold medal for your invention at a national science competition)
A time you lost a game or competition that was really important to you
How you dealt with the loss or death of someone close to you
A time you did poorly in a class that you expected to do well in
How moving to a new school impacted your self-esteem and social life
A chronic illness you battled or are still battling
Your healing process after having your heart broken for the first time
A time you caved under peer pressure and the steps you took so that it won't happen again
How you almost gave up on learning a foreign language but stuck with it
Why you decided to become a vegetarian or vegan, and how you navigate living with a meat-eating family
What you did to overcome a particular anxiety or phobia you had (e.g., stage fright)
A history of a failed experiment you did over and over, and how you finally found a way to make it work successfully
Someone within your community whom you aspire to emulate
A family tradition you used to be embarrassed about but are now proud of
Your experience with learning English upon moving to the United States
A close friend in the LGBTQ+ community who supported you when you came out
A time you were discriminated against, how you reacted, and what you would do differently if faced with the same situation again
How you navigate your identity as a multiracial, multiethnic, and/or multilingual person
A project or volunteer effort you led to help or improve your community
A particular celebrity or role model who inspired you to come out as LGBTQ+
Your biggest challenge (and how you plan to tackle it) as a female in a male-dominated field
How you used to discriminate against your own community, and what made you change your mind and eventually take pride in who you are and/or where you come from
A program you implemented at your school in response to a known problem, such as a lack of recycling cans in the cafeteria
A time you stepped in to mediate an argument or fight between two people
An app or other tool you developed to make people’s lives easier in some way
A time you proposed a solution that worked to an ongoing problem at school, an internship, or a part-time job
The steps you took to identify and fix an error in coding for a website or program
An important social or political issue that you would fix if you had the means

How to Build a College Essay in 6 Easy Steps

Once you’ve decided on a college essay topic you want to use, it’s time to buckle down and start fleshing out your essay. These six steps will help you transform a simple college essay topic into a full-fledged personal statement.

Step 1: Write Down All the Details

Once you’ve chosen a general topic to write about, get out a piece of paper and get to work on creating a list of all the key details you could include in your essay . These could be things such as the following:

Emotions you felt at the time
Names, places, and/or numbers
Dialogue, or what you or someone else said
A specific anecdote, example, or experience
Descriptions of how things looked, felt, or seemed

If you can only come up with a few details, then it’s probably best to revisit the list of college essay topics above and choose a different one that you can write more extensively on.

Good college essay topics are typically those that:

You remember well (so nothing that happened when you were really young)
You're excited to write about
You're not embarrassed or uncomfortable to share with others
You believe will make you positively stand out from other applicants

Step 2: Figure Out Your Focus and Approach

Once you have all your major details laid out, start to figure out how you could arrange them in a way that makes sense and will be most effective.

It’s important here to really narrow your focus: you don’t need to (and shouldn’t!) discuss every single aspect of your trip to visit family in Indonesia when you were 16. Rather, zero in on a particular anecdote or experience and explain why and how it impacted you.

Alternatively, you could write about multiple experiences while weaving them together with a clear, meaningful theme or concept , such as how your math teacher helped you overcome your struggle with geometry over the course of an entire school year. In this case, you could mention a few specific times she tutored you and most strongly supported you in your studies.

There’s no one right way to approach your college essay, so play around to see what approaches might work well for the topic you’ve chosen.

If you’re really unsure about how to approach your essay, think about what part of your topic was or is most meaningful and memorable to you, and go from there.

Step 3: Structure Your Narrative

Beginning: Don’t just spout off a ton of background information here—you want to hook your reader, so try to start in the middle of the action , such as with a meaningful conversation you had or a strong emotion you felt. It could also be a single anecdote if you plan to center your essay around a specific theme or idea.
Middle: Here’s where you start to flesh out what you’ve established in the opening. Provide more details about the experience (if a single anecdote) or delve into the various times your theme or idea became most important to you. Use imagery and sensory details to put the reader in your shoes.
End: It’s time to bring it all together. Finish describing the anecdote or theme your essay centers around and explain how it relates to you now , what you’ve learned or gained from it, and how it has influenced your goals.

Step 4: Write a Rough Draft

By now you should have all your major details and an outline for your essay written down; these two things will make it easy for you to convert your notes into a rough draft.

At this stage of the writing process, don’t worry too much about vocabulary or grammar and just focus on getting out all your ideas so that they form the general shape of an essay . It’s OK if you’re a little over the essay's word limit — as you edit, you’ll most likely make some cuts to irrelevant and ineffective parts anyway.

If at any point you get stuck and have no idea what to write, revisit steps 1-3 to see whether there are any important details or ideas you might be omitting or not elaborating on enough to get your overall point across to admissions officers.

Step 5: Edit, Revise, and Proofread

Sections that are too wordy and don’t say anything important
Irrelevant details that don’t enhance your essay or the point you're trying to make
Parts that seem to drag or that feel incredibly boring or redundant
Areas that are vague and unclear and would benefit from more detail
Phrases or sections that are awkwardly placed and should be moved around
Areas that feel unconvincing, inauthentic, or exaggerated

Start paying closer attention to your word choice/vocabulary and grammar at this time, too. It’s perfectly normal to edit and revise your college essay several times before asking for feedback, so keep working with it until you feel it’s pretty close to its final iteration.

This step will likely take the longest amount of time — at least several weeks, if not months — so really put effort into fixing up your essay. Once you’re satisfied, do a final proofread to ensure that it’s technically correct.

Step 6: Get Feedback and Tweak as Needed

After you’ve overhauled your rough draft and made it into a near-final draft, give your essay to somebody you trust , such as a teacher or parent, and have them look it over for technical errors and offer you feedback on its content and overall structure.

Use this feedback to make any last-minute changes or edits. If necessary, repeat steps 5 and 6. You want to be extra sure that your essay is perfect before you submit it to colleges!

Recap: From College Essay Topics to Great College Essays

Many different kinds of college application essay topics can get you into a great college. But this doesn’t make it any easier to choose the best topic for you .

In general, the best college essay topics have the following qualities :

They’re specific
They show who you are
They’re meaningful to you
They’re unique
They clearly answer the question

If you ever need help coming up with an idea of what to write for your essay, just refer to the list of 53 examples of college essay topics above to get your brain juices flowing.

Once you’ve got an essay topic picked out, follow these six steps for turning your topic into an unforgettable personal statement :

Write down all the details
Figure out your focus and approach
Structure your narrative
Write a rough draft
Edit, revise, and proofread
Get feedback and tweak as needed

And with that, I wish you the best of luck on your college essays!

What’s Next?

Writing a college essay is no simple task. Get expert college essay tips with our guides on how to come up with great college essay ideas and how to write a college essay, step by step .

You can also check out this huge list of college essay prompts to get a feel for what types of questions you'll be expected to answer on your applications.

Want to see examples of college essays that absolutely rocked? You're in luck because we've got a collection of 100+ real college essay examples right here on our blog!

Want to write the perfect college application essay? We can help. Your dedicated PrepScholar Admissions counselor will help you craft your perfect college essay, from the ground up. We learn your background and interests, brainstorm essay topics, and walk you through the essay drafting process, step-by-step. At the end, you'll have a unique essay to proudly submit to colleges. Don't leave your college application to chance. Find out more about PrepScholar Admissions now:

Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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100 Creative Essay Topics

An amazing number of writers look for the best creative writing prompts on a daily basis. These could be college students who were asked to write a fictional or narrative essay, published authors looking for their next big idea, or young people who want to explore something inspiring in their future work. Creativity is everything, and the success of any venture depends on the topic you’ve chosen. In 2020, many popular prompts have lost their novelty.

Usual stories about the journey that turned into disaster when you got lost and your things were all stolen, a secretary falling in love with her boss, a ghost-hunting adventure — this is no longer as interesting topic as it was ten years ago. Now, people look for newer and fresher ideas, but the logical question occurs: where to find them? Regardless of why you need creative prompts, we’re prepared to share some of them!

In Search of Creative Essay Topic: Best Tips

Let’s imagine that you’re writing a creative story or an essay. All you need is to trigger your inspiration, but what if today, your fantasy decided to take a break? No worries: there are some tips that could be useful if you’re stuck with picking topics:

Brainstorm with your friends or family. Thinking by yourself could be great, but if it doesn’t work, use someone else’s input. Meet up with friends or classmates and bounce topic ideas back and forth between each other. Maybe one of them will offer stunning creative writing ideas you could use.
Play a game. Close your eyes. Walk somewhere carefully, turn around a couple of times, then open your eyes and look around. Choose the first thing or person and create topic or essay idea around it. Beginners could face some difficulties at first, but the main thing is practice! After several awkward stories, your skill level will increase.
Look through online lists. There are many cool topics you could find online. People have developed lists specifically to satisfy writers’ needs, so check some of them out in our list just below.

100 Unique Creative Essay Prompts

We prepared 100 different topic examples for your future essay. Read through them all or sort them by category — maybe you’ll find something truly inspiring.

Extended Creative Essay Topics on Social Issues

Small tragedies are everywhere, wherever we look. A woman who smiles tiredly could be barely holding back her tears. A running girl is trying to make it home in time to protect her brother from their drunk uncle. Here are some similar ideas.

Addiction : Daughter took her mother to live with her, but it turned out that the woman has serious psychological issues. She’s addicted to alcohol and she keeps bringing rubbish from streets into her room. The story of love and pain ensue.
Euthanasia : Person is dying slowly and they ask their nurse for euthanasia. The laws forbid it, though, and the nurse is getting more and more torn about letting the patient suffer or following the law.
World Chaos : Due to the deadly virus that spread all over the planet, no medicine is available. Character struggles with accepting the idea of this new world and its cruel rules.
Bullying : The bullied girl gets fed up with the world around her, so she takes actions to ensure that nothing and no one can ever hurt her again.
Kindness : The lonely woman has more money than she could ever spend. She decides that doing kind things is the only validation she can find, so she starts trying to make all people she meets happy.
Gossip : Two young men dream about taking part in a reality show, but when it happens, they understand how many ugly lies are beneath it.
Stalking : Man is being stalked by a woman, but no one takes him seriously… until it is too late.
Indifference : A bird is lying in a puddle, dying, as people pass by with no care. Then, a girl notices it, and she takes it home to nurse it back to health.
Discrimination : Young girl thinks she is aromantic and asexual, but her family and friends are all convinced that she just hasn’t found the right person yet.
Harassment : Old but enthusiastic employee starts a new job, and he doesn’t understand why his boss hates him & tries to humiliate him at every turn… until he suddenly remembers about their shared past.

Creative Fantasy Essay Ideas

Some of the best creative writing assignments fall into fantasy category.

World Peace : Something happened that resulted in peace all over the world. People are happy, animals are healthy, and there is no anger or hatred left. But something is not right, and slowly, unexpected problems begin to emerge.
Prophesies : A woman named Julia desperately wants to become the president. She learns of the prophecy claiming that her country will be saved by the woman, but the problem is, the prophecy woman’s name is Hannah. Determined to make herself fit, Julia officially changes her name.
Reincarnation : Two people in love keep being reborn. One of them remembers everything, but another one remains ignorant.
Soulmates : People dream about their soulmates even before they meet them. Character A meets Character B, but while A is happy, B prefers to ignore him.
World End : Terrible monsters are crawling all over the planet. The man not interested in survival survives, but when he is saddled with an orphaned child, his life suddenly gains new meaning.
Time of Death : People know how soon they’ll die from the moment of their birth. Some of them accept it; others fight it.
Secrets Exposed : Woman can tell people’s secrets just by looking at them. Sometimes it’s a blessing; other times, it is a curse.
Divine Punishment: Psychopath loses one of his senses every time he acts on his dark impulses.
Forever and Ever : Character lives forever. At first, it was exciting, but now it is weighing heavily on them.
Predictions : Whatever prediction this person makes, it comes true. Can they resist such terrible power?

Fiction Topics

How about creative writing topics in the genre of monster hunting or dark romance? Many writers find it fascinating because of the challenge involved. Here are some good prompts.

Serial Killer : After hunting numerous victims down, a killer is stopped short by a red-haired girl he sees. He begins to stalk her, and in this process, he falls in love.
Beloved Pet : Imagine you’re a pet living in the family who loves and coddles you. How does that feel?
Unhealthy Relationship : Two narcissists hurt each other, and yet they can’t live without each other.
Complex Relationship : Character A destroyed the life of Character B’s parents. Years later, they fall in love.
Age Difference : Being in love with someone older hurts.
Social Difference : He is rich, she is not. He’s ready to ignore the difference, but she isn’t.
Taboo : An orphaned boy is adopted by new doting guardian, yet the feelings he develops for them are far from appropriate.
Abduction : Two girls are abducted during New Year. They don’t know why they were taken, but gradually, they realize that they have a chance to start the whole new life.
Unexpected Bonding : Two students are stuck in detention for fighting each other. But feelings start growing before they know it.
Beauty : She was the definition of beauty, yet the more she loved, the more her beauty was destroyed.
Toys : Child is sure her toys are dancing at night.
In a Movie : Boy falls into the universe of his favorite movie.
Rocks : You’re the rock that existed for centuries. What do you see?
Speaking with animals: The day you started understanding your pet.
Love Hurts: It causes physical pain.

Creative Journal Prompts for Essays

Basing your ideas on notes in journals is both creative and realistic.

Character lost in the forest is trying to survive by writing.
A journal is found on an empty island.
From first love to disillusionment.
Watching seasons change.
Saving up for an expensive purchase.
An imagined year of life day by day.
Message to your future self.
Description of nightmares.
Every message sent to you on Facebook.
Observing your love interest.
Describing every hobby you ever had.
Finding yourself in the past & writing about it.
5 awkward speeches.
Watching your child grow.
List what you’d buy if you had a million dollars.

Creative Humor Essays Topics

If you have great humor, take a look at these fun creative writing prompts.

Write a tragedy made of random sentences from your online messages.
Meeting your real muse: awkwardness ensues.
Hiding your golden finger from everyone to avoid turning them into gold.
Love letter for the first person you see.
Meeting TV character.
Interview that goes very wrong.
The most shameful moment from your life.
Stealing a painting & finding out it’s a copy.
Being accidentally turned into a Barbie.
Write short story where every word starts with the same letter.

Creative Essays Topics About Death

Death is painful, but it gives birth to many ideas for creative writing. Your essay will be engaging with these topics:

Losing the loved one never gets easier.
Keeping ashes of the deceased beloved close.
Characters realize they are doomed to die every day.
Character is preparing to commit suicide and is saying goodbye to family.
A bloodthirsty creatures entices people to kill themselves.
Speech on the grandfather’s funeral.
Living in an empty apartment where happy voices of a family can still be heard.
Every loss feels like dying: family, friends, pets.
Character embraces death and cries happy tears upon being reunited with people they loved.
Character gets tired of living and tries to die & discovers they are immortal.

Health and Medicine

Healthcare could be a category with lots of creative writing prompts for adults. Nail your essay with one of this topics.

OCD woman tries to make sense of her life.
Man with amnesia starts each day as a new life.
A ghost haunts the hospital for a decade and observes what they see.
Each time this girl recovers from panic attack, she feels like she was reborn.
Create unique disease for your character & describe their life.
Narrator reflects whether it’s better to live with pain or not live at all.
A surgeon describes her surgeries & acknowledges she needs nothing else.
A paranoid patient is convinced he’s dying and refuses to listen to doctors.
The blind person seeing colors for the first time.
Person fears being kidnapped & looks for poison just in case.

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Creative Essays Ideas About Dreams

Our dreams are a mix of reality and fantasy. These writing prompts for creative writing reflect it.

Mother dreams of reuniting with her missing child. Years later, her dreams is realized.
What you dreamed about yesterday will come true tomorrow.
Contacting people through dreams.
As soon as you have a dream, you know the opposite will happen in reality.
A killer learned how to kill people via dreams.
A person’s biggest dream is about realizing what their dream is.
Having dreams costs money. Who will agree to have them?
Only people who share dreams are allowed to get married.
Life is fair: happy people only have nightmares while unhappy people have happy dreams.
Cure against dreams: who would take it?

Creative Education Topics

A million creative writing essays topics could be based on education.

Story of how time in college was the happiest in one’s life.
A bully falling in love with their victim and trying to earn their forgiveness.
What character sacrificed in order to afford tuition.
After all she has been through, she finally got into the university of her dreams… and she hates it.
A heartbreaking choice between working & studying.
A teacher saying to a successful student: “I haven’t graduated with honors, so you won’t either.”
School and I: it was hatred from the first sight.
The time I fell asleep during my lesson.
Having a crush on your teacher & coming to realize why it’s wrong.
You are the director at made-up university: how would it look like?

Have Fun Writing With Creative College Essay Topics

If you’re having a bad day and cannot summon even a spark of creativity, we’re here to help you! Use an idea we offered above — just give it a good title. If you like it, then it is all that matters — you’ve already crossed half of the way toward absolute success. In case having a prompt is not enough and you still feel no inspiration, you could always leave it to us.

We have amazing specialists whose creativity knows no boundaries: they could write a short fictional story, craft a quirky essay, or develop some personalized creative prompts for you. Share your request with us, supply us with all details, and we’ll make sure to fulfill every one of them. There is nothing wrong with asking for help, and we are always happy to provide it.

Can’t come up with a topic for you paper? We’ve prepared a collection of essay topics for you

Want to write a winning essay but lack experience? Browse our free essay samples

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How to Write the “Creative Side” UC Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Creativity in a non-creative pursuit, innovation in context, avoiding a cliche essay.

The second University of California system essay prompt asks:

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

A lot of students can be scared away from this prompt. Many people, when seeing the word “creative,” automatically think of something artistic, such as theater, visual arts, or music. If those pursuits don’t apply to you, you may be intimidated by this prompt.

However, almost everyone should be able to write a response to this essay prompt, because everyone has something about them that is unique and interesting – something they do or think that makes them different from everyone around them. This prompt gives you the opportunity to talk about what makes you unique in a completely random context.

One of the most powerful ways to approach this essay is to write about how you’ve used creativity in a non-creative pursuit. This is an opportunity to think a little outside the box with how you define creativity.

You can write about a creative pursuit as something that you find yourself getting lost in. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an artistic pursuit; it can be any subject you enjoy, such as economics, science, or physics. Writing about getting into a creative flow when you’re doing something you love can make for a powerful narrative essay. You can also examine creativity in the context of problem-solving, taking the reader through how your brain works.

In writing a college essay, you are usually telling an admissions officer some combination of three things: what matters to you, how you think about the world, and how you approach situations, both mentally and emotionally. This essay prompt is a great way to open up about how your mind works.

Something about this prompt that often trips people up is the phrase “innovative thinking.” What exactly are they asking for? The best way to define this is innovation in the specific context in which you’re operating.

Nobody’s expecting you to have come up with a new economics theorem or engineering postulate. Rather, this essay asks how you might approach a problem or idea differently than the people around you. You don’t need to be innovative on a global scale. You can absolutely be innovative in the context of a class, a club, or your family, to name a few examples.

Talking about family is actually an underrated response to this prompt. If you have a difference in mindset from your parents, siblings, or extended family, that can become a great essay. If you decide to write about this, make sure you’re drawing the contrast between what you’d consider a conventional approach compared to an unconventional approach.

Another powerful version of this essay is one that subverts the expectations of the admissions officers. They expect to read about creativity in a positive context: an innovative idea leads to a positive outcome, such as a sports team working better together or a family changing their behavior. But a very powerful essay can also come from writing about an experience where you took a creative approach and it didn’t work out.

This is a great way to avoid a cliche essay. Consider the story you’re telling in your essay. Pretend you’re describing it to someone, and that when you’re 80% through, they ask, “What happens next?” Whatever the expected answer is, write the opposite. Writing about a creative approach that failed breaks the cliche and makes for a compelling read.

Where to Get Your UC “Creative Side” Essay Edited

Do you want feedback on your UC “Creative Side” essay? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

Finally, if you want more information on how to write responses for the other UC essays, consider reading this breakdown of each personal insight question on CollegeVine’s blog !

How to Write an Essay

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Essay Writing Fundamentals

How to prepare to write an essay, how to edit an essay, how to share and publish your essays, how to get essay writing help, how to find essay writing inspiration, resources for teaching essay writing.

Essays, short prose compositions on a particular theme or topic, are the bread and butter of academic life. You write them in class, for homework, and on standardized tests to show what you know. Unlike other kinds of academic writing (like the research paper) and creative writing (like short stories and poems), essays allow you to develop your original thoughts on a prompt or question. Essays come in many varieties: they can be expository (fleshing out an idea or claim), descriptive, (explaining a person, place, or thing), narrative (relating a personal experience), or persuasive (attempting to win over a reader). This guide is a collection of dozens of links about academic essay writing that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your essay writing.

Essays are different from other forms of writing; in turn, there are different kinds of essays. This section contains general resources for getting to know the essay and its variants. These resources introduce and define the essay as a genre, and will teach you what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab

One of the most trusted academic writing sites, Purdue OWL provides a concise introduction to the four most common types of academic essays.

"The Essay: History and Definition" (ThoughtCo)

This snappy article from ThoughtCo talks about the origins of the essay and different kinds of essays you might be asked to write.

"What Is An Essay?" Video Lecture (Coursera)

The University of California at Irvine's free video lecture, available on Coursera, tells you everything you need to know about the essay.

Wikipedia Article on the "Essay"

Wikipedia's article on the essay is comprehensive, providing both English-language and global perspectives on the essay form. Learn about the essay's history, forms, and styles.

"Understanding College and Academic Writing" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This list of common academic writing assignments (including types of essay prompts) will help you know what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Before you start writing your essay, you need to figure out who you're writing for (audience), what you're writing about (topic/theme), and what you're going to say (argument and thesis). This section contains links to handouts, chapters, videos and more to help you prepare to write an essay.

How to Identify Your Audience

"Audience" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This handout provides questions you can ask yourself to determine the audience for an academic writing assignment. It also suggests strategies for fitting your paper to your intended audience.

"Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Content" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

This extensive book chapter from Writing for Success , available online through Minnesota Libraries Publishing, is followed by exercises to try out your new pre-writing skills.

"Determining Audience" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This guide from a community college's writing center shows you how to know your audience, and how to incorporate that knowledge in your thesis statement.

"Know Your Audience" ( Paper Rater Blog)

This short blog post uses examples to show how implied audiences for essays differ. It reminds you to think of your instructor as an observer, who will know only the information you pass along.

How to Choose a Theme or Topic

"Research Tutorial: Developing Your Topic" (YouTube)

Take a look at this short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to understand the basics of developing a writing topic.

"How to Choose a Paper Topic" (WikiHow)

This simple, step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through choosing a paper topic. It starts with a detailed description of brainstorming and ends with strategies to refine your broad topic.

"How to Read an Assignment: Moving From Assignment to Topic" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Did your teacher give you a prompt or other instructions? This guide helps you understand the relationship between an essay assignment and your essay's topic.

"Guidelines for Choosing a Topic" (CliffsNotes)

This study guide from CliffsNotes both discusses how to choose a topic and makes a useful distinction between "topic" and "thesis."

How to Come Up with an Argument

"Argument" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

Not sure what "argument" means in the context of academic writing? This page from the University of North Carolina is a good place to start.

"The Essay Guide: Finding an Argument" (Study Hub)

This handout explains why it's important to have an argument when beginning your essay, and provides tools to help you choose a viable argument.

"Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument" (University of Iowa)

This page from the University of Iowa's Writing Center contains exercises through which you can develop and refine your argument and thesis statement.

"Developing a Thesis" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page from Harvard's Writing Center collates some helpful dos and don'ts of argumentative writing, from steps in constructing a thesis to avoiding vague and confrontational thesis statements.

"Suggestions for Developing Argumentative Essays" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

This page offers concrete suggestions for each stage of the essay writing process, from topic selection to drafting and editing.

How to Outline your Essay

"Outlines" (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via YouTube)

This short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how to group your ideas into paragraphs or sections to begin the outlining process.

"Essay Outline" (Univ. of Washington Tacoma)

This two-page handout by a university professor simply defines the parts of an essay and then organizes them into an example outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL gives examples of diverse outline strategies on this page, including the alphanumeric, full sentence, and decimal styles.

"Outlining" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Once you have an argument, according to this handout, there are only three steps in the outline process: generalizing, ordering, and putting it all together. Then you're ready to write!

"Writing Essays" (Plymouth Univ.)

This packet, part of Plymouth University's Learning Development series, contains descriptions and diagrams relating to the outlining process.

"How to Write A Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure" (Criticalthinkingtutorials.com via YouTube)

This longer video tutorial gives an overview of how to structure your essay in order to support your argument or thesis. It is part of a longer course on academic writing hosted on Udemy.

Now that you've chosen and refined your topic and created an outline, use these resources to complete the writing process. Most essays contain introductions (which articulate your thesis statement), body paragraphs, and conclusions. Transitions facilitate the flow from one paragraph to the next so that support for your thesis builds throughout the essay. Sources and citations show where you got the evidence to support your thesis, which ensures that you avoid plagiarism.

How to Write an Introduction

"Introductions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page identifies the role of the introduction in any successful paper, suggests strategies for writing introductions, and warns against less effective introductions.

"How to Write A Good Introduction" (Michigan State Writing Center)

Beginning with the most common missteps in writing introductions, this guide condenses the essentials of introduction composition into seven points.

"The Introductory Paragraph" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming focuses on ways to grab your reader's attention at the beginning of your essay.

"Introductions and Conclusions" (Univ. of Toronto)

This guide from the University of Toronto gives advice that applies to writing both introductions and conclusions, including dos and don'ts.

"How to Write Better Essays: No One Does Introductions Properly" ( The Guardian )

This news article interviews UK professors on student essay writing; they point to introductions as the area that needs the most improvement.

How to Write a Thesis Statement

"Writing an Effective Thesis Statement" (YouTube)

This short, simple video tutorial from a college composition instructor at Tulsa Community College explains what a thesis statement is and what it does.

"Thesis Statement: Four Steps to a Great Essay" (YouTube)

This fantastic tutorial walks you through drafting a thesis, using an essay prompt on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through coming up with, writing, and editing a thesis statement. It invites you think of your statement as a "working thesis" that can change.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (Univ. of Indiana Bloomington)

Ask yourself the questions on this page, part of Indiana Bloomington's Writing Tutorial Services, when you're writing and refining your thesis statement.

"Writing Tips: Thesis Statements" (Univ. of Illinois Center for Writing Studies)

This page gives plentiful examples of good to great thesis statements, and offers questions to ask yourself when formulating a thesis statement.

How to Write Body Paragraphs

"Body Paragraph" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course introduces you to the components of a body paragraph. These include the topic sentence, information, evidence, and analysis.

"Strong Body Paragraphs" (Washington Univ.)

This handout from Washington's Writing and Research Center offers in-depth descriptions of the parts of a successful body paragraph.

"Guide to Paragraph Structure" (Deakin Univ.)

This handout is notable for color-coding example body paragraphs to help you identify the functions various sentences perform.

"Writing Body Paragraphs" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

The exercises in this section of Writing for Success will help you practice writing good body paragraphs. It includes guidance on selecting primary support for your thesis.

"The Writing Process—Body Paragraphs" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

The information and exercises on this page will familiarize you with outlining and writing body paragraphs, and includes links to more information on topic sentences and transitions.

"The Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post discusses body paragraphs in the context of one of the most common academic essay types in secondary schools.

How to Use Transitions

"Transitions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains what a transition is, and how to know if you need to improve your transitions.

"Using Transitions Effectively" (Washington Univ.)

This handout defines transitions, offers tips for using them, and contains a useful list of common transitional words and phrases grouped by function.

"Transitions" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This page compares paragraphs without transitions to paragraphs with transitions, and in doing so shows how important these connective words and phrases are.

"Transitions in Academic Essays" (Scribbr)

This page lists four techniques that will help you make sure your reader follows your train of thought, including grouping similar information and using transition words.

"Transitions" (El Paso Community College)

This handout shows example transitions within paragraphs for context, and explains how transitions improve your essay's flow and voice.

"Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post, another from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, talks about transitions and other strategies to improve your essay's overall flow.

"Transition Words" (smartwords.org)

This handy word bank will help you find transition words when you're feeling stuck. It's grouped by the transition's function, whether that is to show agreement, opposition, condition, or consequence.

How to Write a Conclusion

"Parts of An Essay: Conclusions" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course explains how to conclude an academic essay. It suggests thinking about the "3Rs": return to hook, restate your thesis, and relate to the reader.

"Essay Conclusions" (Univ. of Maryland University College)

This overview of the academic essay conclusion contains helpful examples and links to further resources for writing good conclusions.

"How to End An Essay" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) by an English Ph.D. walks you through writing a conclusion, from brainstorming to ending with a flourish.

"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page collates useful strategies for writing an effective conclusion, and reminds you to "close the discussion without closing it off" to further conversation.

How to Include Sources and Citations

"Research and Citation Resources" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL streamlines information about the three most common referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, and APA) and provides examples of how to cite different resources in each system.

EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator

This online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. Be sure to select your resource type before clicking the "cite it" button.

CitationMachine

Like EasyBib, this online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style.

Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of MLA referencing rules. Order through the link above, or check to see if your library has a copy.

Chicago Manual of Style

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of Chicago referencing rules. You can take a look at the table of contents, then choose to subscribe or start a free trial.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

"What is Plagiarism?" (plagiarism.org)

This nonprofit website contains numerous resources for identifying and avoiding plagiarism, and reminds you that even common activities like copying images from another website to your own site may constitute plagiarism.

"Plagiarism" (University of Oxford)

This interactive page from the University of Oxford helps you check for plagiarism in your work, making it clear how to avoid citing another person's work without full acknowledgement.

"Avoiding Plagiarism" (MIT Comparative Media Studies)

This quick guide explains what plagiarism is, what its consequences are, and how to avoid it. It starts by defining three words—quotation, paraphrase, and summary—that all constitute citation.

"Harvard Guide to Using Sources" (Harvard Extension School)

This comprehensive website from Harvard brings together articles, videos, and handouts about referencing, citation, and plagiarism.

Grammarly contains tons of helpful grammar and writing resources, including a free tool to automatically scan your essay to check for close affinities to published work.

Noplag is another popular online tool that automatically scans your essay to check for signs of plagiarism. Simply copy and paste your essay into the box and click "start checking."

Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit (improve content), proofread (check for spelling and grammar mistakes), and finalize your work until you're ready to hand it in. This section brings together tips and resources for navigating the editing process.

"Writing a First Draft" (Academic Help)

This is an introduction to the drafting process from the site Academic Help, with tips for getting your ideas on paper before editing begins.

"Editing and Proofreading" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page provides general strategies for revising your writing. They've intentionally left seven errors in the handout, to give you practice in spotting them.

"How to Proofread Effectively" (ThoughtCo)

This article from ThoughtCo, along with those linked at the bottom, help describe common mistakes to check for when proofreading.

"7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful" (SmartBlogger)

This blog post emphasizes the importance of powerful, concise language, and reminds you that even your personal writing heroes create clunky first drafts.

"Editing Tips for Effective Writing" (Univ. of Pennsylvania)

On this page from Penn's International Relations department, you'll find tips for effective prose, errors to watch out for, and reminders about formatting.

"Editing the Essay" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This article, the first of two parts, gives you applicable strategies for the editing process. It suggests reading your essay aloud, removing any jargon, and being unafraid to remove even "dazzling" sentences that don't belong.

"Guide to Editing and Proofreading" (Oxford Learning Institute)

This handout from Oxford covers the basics of editing and proofreading, and reminds you that neither task should be rushed.

In addition to plagiarism-checkers, Grammarly has a plug-in for your web browser that checks your writing for common mistakes.

After you've prepared, written, and edited your essay, you might want to share it outside the classroom. This section alerts you to print and web opportunities to share your essays with the wider world, from online writing communities and blogs to published journals geared toward young writers.

Sharing Your Essays Online

Go Teen Writers

Go Teen Writers is an online community for writers aged 13 - 19. It was founded by Stephanie Morrill, an author of contemporary young adult novels.

Tumblr is a blogging website where you can share your writing and interact with other writers online. It's easy to add photos, links, audio, and video components.

Writersky provides an online platform for publishing and reading other youth writers' work. Its current content is mostly devoted to fiction.

Publishing Your Essays Online

This teen literary journal publishes in print, on the web, and (more frequently), on a blog. It is committed to ensuring that "teens see their authentic experience reflected on its pages."

The Matador Review

This youth writing platform celebrates "alternative," unconventional writing. The link above will take you directly to the site's "submissions" page.

Teen Ink has a website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine promoting the work of young writers.

The largest online reading platform, Wattpad enables you to publish your work and read others' work. Its inline commenting feature allows you to share thoughts as you read along.

Publishing Your Essays in Print

Canvas Teen Literary Journal

This quarterly literary magazine is published for young writers by young writers. They accept many kinds of writing, including essays.

The Claremont Review

This biannual international magazine, first published in 1992, publishes poetry, essays, and short stories from writers aged 13 - 19.

Skipping Stones

This young writers magazine, founded in 1988, celebrates themes relating to ecological and cultural diversity. It publishes poems, photos, articles, and stories.

The Telling Room

This nonprofit writing center based in Maine publishes children's work on their website and in book form. The link above directs you to the site's submissions page.

Essay Contests

Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards

This prestigious international writing contest for students in grades 7 - 12 has been committed to "supporting the future of creativity since 1923."

Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest

An annual essay contest on the theme of journalism and media, the Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest awards scholarships up to $1,000.

National YoungArts Foundation

Here, you'll find information on a government-sponsored writing competition for writers aged 15 - 18. The foundation welcomes submissions of creative nonfiction, novels, scripts, poetry, short story and spoken word.

Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest

With prompts on a different literary work each year, this competition from Signet Classics awards college scholarships up to $1,000.

"The Ultimate Guide to High School Essay Contests" (CollegeVine)

See this handy guide from CollegeVine for a list of more competitions you can enter with your academic essay, from the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards to the National High School Essay Contest by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Whether you're struggling to write academic essays or you think you're a pro, there are workshops and online tools that can help you become an even better writer. Even the most seasoned writers encounter writer's block, so be proactive and look through our curated list of resources to combat this common frustration.

Online Essay-writing Classes and Workshops

"Getting Started with Essay Writing" (Coursera)

Coursera offers lots of free, high-quality online classes taught by college professors. Here's one example, taught by instructors from the University of California Irvine.

"Writing and English" (Brightstorm)

Brightstorm's free video lectures are easy to navigate by topic. This unit on the parts of an essay features content on the essay hook, thesis, supporting evidence, and more.

"How to Write an Essay" (EdX)

EdX is another open online university course website with several two- to five-week courses on the essay. This one is geared toward English language learners.

Writer's Digest University

This renowned writers' website offers online workshops and interactive tutorials. The courses offered cover everything from how to get started through how to get published.

Writing.com

Signing up for this online writer's community gives you access to helpful resources as well as an international community of writers.

How to Overcome Writer's Block

"Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue OWL offers a list of signs you might have writer's block, along with ways to overcome it. Consider trying out some "invention strategies" or ways to curb writing anxiety.

"Overcoming Writer's Block: Three Tips" ( The Guardian )

These tips, geared toward academic writing specifically, are practical and effective. The authors advocate setting realistic goals, creating dedicated writing time, and participating in social writing.

"Writing Tips: Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block" (Univ. of Illinois)

This page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Center for Writing Studies acquaints you with strategies that do and do not work to overcome writer's block.

"Writer's Block" (Univ. of Toronto)

Ask yourself the questions on this page; if the answer is "yes," try out some of the article's strategies. Each question is accompanied by at least two possible solutions.

If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.

Essay Writing Prompts

"50 Argumentative Essay Topics" (ThoughtCo)

Take a look at this list and the others ThoughtCo has curated for different kinds of essays. As the author notes, "a number of these topics are controversial and that's the point."

"401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing" ( New York Times )

This list (and the linked lists to persuasive and narrative writing prompts), besides being impressive in length, is put together by actual high school English teachers.

"SAT Sample Essay Prompts" (College Board)

If you're a student in the U.S., your classroom essay prompts are likely modeled on the prompts in U.S. college entrance exams. Take a look at these official examples from the SAT.

"Popular College Application Essay Topics" (Princeton Review)

This page from the Princeton Review dissects recent Common Application essay topics and discusses strategies for answering them.

Example Student Essays

"501 Writing Prompts" (DePaul Univ.)

This nearly 200-page packet, compiled by the LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team, is stuffed with writing prompts, example essays, and commentary.

"Topics in English" (Kibin)

Kibin is a for-pay essay help website, but its example essays (organized by topic) are available for free. You'll find essays on everything from A Christmas Carol to perseverance.

"Student Writing Models" (Thoughtful Learning)

Thoughtful Learning, a website that offers a variety of teaching materials, provides sample student essays on various topics and organizes them by grade level.

"Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

In this blog post by a former professor of English and rhetoric, ThoughtCo brings together examples of five-paragraph essays and commentary on the form.

The Best Essay Writing Collections

The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates (Amazon)

This collection of American essays spanning the twentieth century was compiled by award winning author and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates.

The Best American Essays 2017 by Leslie Jamison (Amazon)

Leslie Jamison, the celebrated author of essay collection The Empathy Exams , collects recent, high-profile essays into a single volume.

The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (Amazon)

Documentary writer Phillip Lopate curates this historical overview of the personal essay's development, from the classical era to the present.

The White Album by Joan Didion (Amazon)

This seminal essay collection was authored by one of the most acclaimed personal essayists of all time, American journalist Joan Didion.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Amazon)

Read this famous essay collection by David Foster Wallace, who is known for his experimentation with the essay form. He pushed the boundaries of personal essay, reportage, and political polemic.

"50 Successful Harvard Application Essays" (Staff of the The Harvard Crimson )

If you're looking for examples of exceptional college application essays, this volume from Harvard's daily student newspaper is one of the best collections on the market.

Are you an instructor looking for the best resources for teaching essay writing? This section contains resources for developing in-class activities and student homework assignments. You'll find content from both well-known university writing centers and online writing labs.

Essay Writing Classroom Activities for Students

"In-class Writing Exercises" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page lists exercises related to brainstorming, organizing, drafting, and revising. It also contains suggestions for how to implement the suggested exercises.

"Teaching with Writing" (Univ. of Minnesota Center for Writing)

Instructions and encouragement for using "freewriting," one-minute papers, logbooks, and other write-to-learn activities in the classroom can be found here.

"Writing Worksheets" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

Berkeley offers this bank of writing worksheets to use in class. They are nested under headings for "Prewriting," "Revision," "Research Papers" and more.

"Using Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism" (DePaul University)

Use these activities and worksheets from DePaul's Teaching Commons when instructing students on proper academic citation practices.

Essay Writing Homework Activities for Students

"Grammar and Punctuation Exercises" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

These five interactive online activities allow students to practice editing and proofreading. They'll hone their skills in correcting comma splices and run-ons, identifying fragments, using correct pronoun agreement, and comma usage.

"Student Interactives" (Read Write Think)

Read Write Think hosts interactive tools, games, and videos for developing writing skills. They can practice organizing and summarizing, writing poetry, and developing lines of inquiry and analysis.

This free website offers writing and grammar activities for all grade levels. The lessons are designed to be used both for large classes and smaller groups.

"Writing Activities and Lessons for Every Grade" (Education World)

Education World's page on writing activities and lessons links you to more free, online resources for learning how to "W.R.I.T.E.": write, revise, inform, think, and edit.

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The Creative Thinking Curriculum Development Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

Introduction

The educator needs to provide an open class-oriented school activity that allows children to fully express themselves and show their abilities and skills. The desired effect of inclusiveness and comfort can be achieved by providing a safe learning environment in which all students can communicate normally. This will promote understanding and respect for all students with special needs. Children will be able to develop their self-esteem and self-confidence, which will contribute to their self-regulation and problem-solving skills. When developing a curriculum for students, it is crucial to consider each person’s particular needs and provide them with appropriate conditions (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2017). This can be done through the provision of a range of activities and materials that can help guide the learning process. In addition, classes that can reveal the emotional side of students and contribute to their self-expression are also a necessary part of training. These types of activities can be beneficial for children with intellectual disabilities. At the same time, an essential mandatory element for facilitating the student life of children with special needs is to provide the right curriculum that is suitable for different students.

How Arts-Based Centers Nurture Children’s Creative Expression

Art can be a pretty powerful tool to encourage student self-expression. For children with special needs, it can provide the necessary opportunities for self-expression and development (Wilson et al., 2020). Some of the teaching methods may not be available for formation in this class since it is necessary to consider students’ specific needs. By designing an arts curriculum that accommodates student diversity, educators can provide a safe and inclusive environment that promotes creativity, self-expression, and emotional regulation.

In the special education classroom, children with special needs may spend a significant amount of time engaging in highly focused tasks that are designed to meet their unique learning needs. These tasks may be necessary for their academic and cognitive development and play a prominent role in shaping them as individuals (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2017). Being open and process-oriented when learning an art can provide a respite from narrowly focused tasks, allowing children to participate in more informal and enjoyable activities. Thus, their nervous system will not succumb to a high load, and they will be able to relax more while maintaining their emotional well-being.

In addition, by preparing and adapting the arts curriculum for children with different needs, the teacher can provide opportunities for students to develop their skills in a more comfortable environment. Art activities can be collaborative and can provide opportunities for children to work together and share their ideas and feelings (Aljabreen, 2020). Educators can promote socialization and help children with special needs build relationships with peers by creating a safe and inclusive environment that encourages communication and collaboration.

How Teachers Must Adapt Arts-Based Centers for Different Age Levels

For the correct educational process with children with special needs, it is crucial not only to create a training program but also to select suitable tasks. A framework using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can provide educators with guidelines for creating an educational program suitable for all groups of learners (Orndorf et al., 2022). Some examples of the principles of this strategy can be adapted to the needs of all students. Such assignments and adaptations can be incorporated into art class programs to develop children’s creativity and artistic abilities. For the means of self-expression, various tools can be used with which the student can convey their feelings and thoughts.

Emotional and intellectual challenges

Children with intellectual and emotional developmental problems can significantly benefit from artistic pursuits. Such a pastime will help develop their creative abilities, thereby improving their creative abilities and imagination. For such a group of children, one of the examples of activities could be to implement a collage of feelings. In this type of activity, the child should be offered various materials such as tissue paper, scissors, glue, or magazines. Students can use these materials in order to collect any images that will reflect the emotions that the child is currently experiencing (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2017). Thus, students will be able to develop their ability to perceive and express emotions by developing this area. At the same time, the color palette is an essential element in this exercise since, first of all, with their help, children will express their feelings, such as fear, misunderstanding, confusion, or satisfaction.

Visual impairments

Children with visual impairments may benefit from activities based on sensory and tactile principles of interaction. In this context, the appropriate activity to implement might be to create a painting with texture. For this activity, the child will need to provide various materials such as canvas, paper, sandpaper, cotton balls, figured fabrics, and paints (Ferguson et al., 2019). In the course of completing this task on creativity, the child will be able to create a picture that can be perceived not only visually but also by touch. In this way, it can significantly expand the potential abilities of the child to perceive and create anything. Depending on the student’s assistance, the assignment can be adapted with the addition of auditory cues or assistance with material placement.

Hearing impairments

Hearing-impaired children can be effectively engaged in activities that focus on tactile and visual cues. A suitable example of an exercise for this group of students would be creating a fine art magazine. The child may be provided with various materials for this, such as an album or notebook and colored pencils or paints with which the student can recreate what they saw or any other image (Saha-Gupta et al., 2019). In addition, they will be able to create a journal that will display what they feel and what they think with the help of visual images. As an additional feature, this task can help children develop a creative approach to tasks. The exercise can be modified depending on precisely what needs the child is experiencing. An example of this would be the use of sign language in the process of drawing or developing fine motor skills.

Orthopedic impairments

Children with orthopedic disorders will be suited to tasks adapted to the level of physical activity that students can handle. One of the activities for children from this group can be wall painting (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2017). To imitate a wall, the student may be given a large canvas as well as paints, stickers, and felt-tip pens. These children can then work together with other students to create a common idea for the big picture. Such an exercise will be helpful and can be adapted depending on the specific level of mobility of the student.

When creating a curriculum, an important consideration will be the use of appropriate language and terminology. Educators must understand the unique needs of all students and adapt to them by choosing appropriate ways to communicate the principles of learning. They should focus on the strengths of children with disabilities in order to design assignments in such a way that students can discover their talents. This will help them develop in those aspects that will be of interest to them. In this way, the stigmatization and marginalization of such a group of students can be avoided. The ongoing development of educators as professionals can also be a vital aspect of helping them fulfill their responsibilities in child development.

Aljabreen, H. (2020). Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia: A comparative analysis of alternative models of early childhood education . International Journal of Early Childhood , 52 , 337-353. Web.

Ferguson, B. T., McKenzie, J., Dalton, E. M., & Lyner-Cleophas, M. (2019). Inclusion, universal design and universal design for learning in higher education: South Africa and the United States . African journal of disability , 8 (1), 1-7. Web.

Isenberg, J. P., & Jalongo, M. R. (2017). Creative thinking and arts-based learning , 7th ed . Pearson Education (US). Web.

Orndorf, H. C., Waterman, M., Lange, D., Kavin, D., Johnston, S. C., & Jenkins, K. P. (2022). Opening the Pathway: An Example of Universal Design for Learning as a Guide to Inclusive Teaching Practices . CBE—Life Sciences Education , 21 (2), ar28. Web.

Saha-Gupta, N., Song, H., & Todd, R. L. (2019). Universal design for learning (UDL) as facilitating access to higher education . Journal of Education and Social Development , 3 (2), 5-9. Web.

Wilson, C., Sitbon, L., Ploderer, B., Opie, J., & Brereton, M. (2020). Self-expression by design: Co-designing the expressiball with minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum . In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). Web.

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Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, May 30). The Creative Thinking Curriculum Development. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-creative-thinking-curriculum-development/

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Bibliography

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How to Travel and Write an Essay

T raveling to new places and having new experiences can provide wonderful inspiration for writing essays. Immersing yourself in different cultures, interacting with new people, and exploring unfamiliar terrain engages your creative mind. Using your travel adventures as essay topics allows you to share your insightful reflections. Reading reviews of essay writing services can give you ideas on engaging writing styles and techniques to make your travel essay compelling. Here are some tips for traveling and gathering material to write a compelling essay.

Pick a Focused Travel Goal

Rather than trying to do everything, pick a particular aspect of travel on which to focus your essay. This could involve food, architecture, nature, art, history, or interacting with locals. Choosing a specific emphasis will help shape your travels and give your essay direction. For example, if you want to write about regional cuisine, plan your itinerary around visiting iconic restaurants and food markets. Or if exploring national parks is your priority, design your trip to hike various trails and take in diverse landscapes. Picking a travel concentration spotlights what matters most for your essay topic.

Keep Detailed Notes and Media

Be sure to keep notes about your travel experiences, as memory alone is unreliable. Use your phone or a notebook to write descriptions of key places and events. Capture telling details, snippets of overheard conversations, interesting quotes from people you meet, and your personal reactions. In addition, take ample photos and videos to add visual elements and jog your memory later when writing your essay. Gathering detailed sensory information, verbatim conversations, and media will enable you to vividly convey your travels.

Get Off the Beaten Path

While tourist hotspots yield common experiences many travelers share, explore lesser-known areas for fresh essay material. Wandering side streets and alleys or chatting with shop owners away from crowds provides unique perspectives. Hiking secluded trails showcases wilderness most never experience. Seeking out locals’ haunts and hidden gems exposes you to rare sights, sounds, and people unlikely to appear in standard travelogues. Venturing off the predictable beaten path unveils captivating topics to distinguish your essay.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Challenge yourself on your travels by trying things outside your comfort zone, which will give you intriguing insights to inform your writing. Sample exotic cuisine with ingredients you can’t identify. Learn basic phrases in the native language. Navigate public transportation on your own. Talk to strangers from very different backgrounds. Accept an invitation to an unusual cultural event. Pushing past familiar habits and fears boosts opportunities for uncommon experiences, stimulating reflections to share in your essay. Facing uncertainty and discomfort allows you to access a fuller, richer range of travel moments.

Reflect on Your Interior Journey

While cataloguing external places and events, also focus inward on your inner terrain. Note how travel affects you emotionally and psychologically along with the physical destinations and activities. Record when you feel wonder, irritation, joy, sadness, connection, isolation. Analyze what triggers these responses. Ponder how unfamiliar surroundings surface unanticipated reactions, or how you apply filters and assumptions unconsciously. Consider if this self-discovery challenges or reinforces your worldviews. Examining your interior shifts alongside exterior impressions provides deeper insight. Reading an Academized review reinforced the importance of weaving together outer and inner dimensions to craft a multi-layered essay.

Find Themes and Connections

As you travel and gather essay material, look for overarching themes that emerge. Do certain ideas or patterns recur as you journey? Do you keep learning similar lessons? Find common threads to tie together diverse experiences for a unified essay focusing on key themes. Or spotlight thought-provoking contrasts revealed through your travels. Additionally, consider connections between your voyage and broader context. How do your observations reflect historical, social or cultural phenomena? Can you compare and link your individual trip to larger collective issues? Identifying meaningful themes and links helps shape a compelling, impactful essay.

Craft a Strong Essay Structure

Once you return from travels filled with observations, memories, artifacts and inspiration, it’s time to organize everything into a structured essay. First, revisit all your travel documentation and media, inventorying the best highlights to develop your central idea. Craft an introduction hooking readers’ interest while overviewing essay themes. Use each subheading to structure key travel experiences into engaging sections reinforced with vivid details, quotes, and examples. Analyze how these experiences interrelate and what insights they reveal associated with your themes. End with a powerful conclusion synthesizing main points and their significance. Edit carefully to refine language, verify facts, streamline structure while intensifying descriptions. Follow this process to translate your travel discoveries into an engaging, insightful essay.

Adding organization through focused subheadings provides natural breaks allowing readers’ eyes to rest while you emphasize key sections. Incorporating variable sentence types creates welcome rhythm and pacing variation. Contrasting longer complex sentences with shorter punchy ones, and trading sentences brimming with adjectives for straightforward construction alternates language patterns to maintain reader interest. Using low perplexity sentences when suitable enhances comprehension. Integrating these creative writing techniques keeps your travel essay lively, clear and compelling from start to finish.

So captivate readers with an essay unveiling your travel adventures and realizations. Immerse in cultural curiosities, venture off script, expand beyond your comfort zone and analyze what you uncover. Then organize intriguing experiences into an engaging essay emphasizing unforgettable impressions that reveal broader insights. With planning and attention, your travels can form the basis for a memorable, meaningful essay.

The post How to Travel and Write an Essay appeared first on Sunny Sweet Days .

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COMMENTS

Creative Essay Writing Tips (With Examples)
Essay creative writing is not always seen as fun by most students, but the realm of creative essays can offer an enjoyable twist. The inherent freedom in choosing a topic and expressing your thoughts makes this type of paper a creative playground. Engaging in composing a creative essay provides an opportunity to flex your creative muscles.
Creative Essay Full Guide: 10 Example Topics & Tips
Writing creative essays is not that easy, but practice makes perfect. There are a few tips that can guide you to improve the quality of your writing. One of them is to keep on writing. The more you write, the better you will become. You will be able to develop your own style as an author and can experiment with new ideas that you want to share ...
Creative Essay: Topics, Examples, Tips, Outline
How to Write a Creative Essay: Breaking Down a Creative Essay Outline. Apart from the tips above, you might need a step-by-step guide demonstrating essential writing steps. While creative essays adhere to an outline much like other types of essays, such as book review format, they use a slightly different framework known as the 3-Point ...
How to Write a Creative Essay
Write a descriptive and creative essay involves using vivid language and sensory elements to paint a vivid picture of a subject, subject matter, or place. The goal of descriptive essays is to create vivid imagery in the reader's head so they can easily picture the topic of the essay.
Creative Essay: Ultimate Guide on How to Write and Format
A creative essay is a type of writing where students express their imagination and artistic style. It involves creative storytelling techniques, not just stating mere facts. The aim is to engage the reader, often exploring emotions, personal experiences, or fictional narratives. Creative writing can be found in various types of papers ...
What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)
Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries. It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.
How to Write a Creative Essay: Step by Step Guide
Examples. Example 1: Introduction to a Narrative Essay. Growing up near the sea, I always enjoyed going for an early evening walk down by the shore. It was not a beach, nor was it particularly warm, but it was quiet and secluded, with its craggy rocks lending the place a wild sort of air.
7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays
1. Think about your reader. Chances are your teacher or examiner will have a lot to read - so keep them interested. 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.
How to Write a Creative Essay: Tips, Topics, and Techniques
A metaphor is effective in any form of writing. In a creative essay writing, use an analogy to help provide the reader with a clear image. It should make them understand a concept you are explaining at a deeper level. Details are everything when writing creatively as they tug at the readers' emotions.
Essays About Creativity: Top 5 Examples And 7 Prompts
5 Essay Examples 1. Way To Foster Creativity In Young Children by Anonymous on IvyPanda.Com "There are different ways to foster creativity in young children. They include different approaches to the problem of making children more self-reliant, more creative, and more interested in the process of receiving education, obtaining experience, achieving certain results in the sphere of self-study."
Generate Topic Ideas For an Essay or Paper
Creative momentum is important: the first ten in a string of related ideas might be garbage, but the eleventh could be pure gold. ... How to write an essay outline | Guidelines & examples An essay outline involves writing a quick summary for each point covered in each paragraph, showing how your argument will unfold.
53 Stellar College Essay Topics to Inspire You
Once you've chosen a general topic to write about, get out a piece of paper and get to work on creating a list of all the key details you could include in your essay. These could be things such as the following: Emotions you felt at the time. Names, places, and/or numbers. Dialogue, or what you or someone else said.
How to Write a College Essay
A clear, creative writing style; Evidence of self-reflection and insight; To achieve this, it's crucial to give yourself enough time for brainstorming, writing, revision, and feedback. In this comprehensive guide, we walk you through every step in the process of writing a college admissions essay.
100 Creative Essay Topics For All Kinds of Writers
Creative Essays Ideas About Dreams. Our dreams are a mix of reality and fantasy. These writing prompts for creative writing reflect it. Mother dreams of reuniting with her missing child. Years later, her dreams is realized. What you dreamed about yesterday will come true tomorrow. Contacting people through dreams.
PDF Strategies for Essay Writing
Harvard College Writing Center 5 Asking Analytical Questions When you write an essay for a course you are taking, you are being asked not only to create a product (the essay) but, more importantly, to go through a process of thinking more deeply about a question or problem related to the course. By writing about a
How to Write the "Creative Side" UC Essay
Avoiding a Cliche Essay. The second University of California system essay prompt asks: Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. A lot of students can be scared away from this prompt.
How to Write an Essay
How to Find Essay Writing Inspiration. If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.
Example of a Great Essay
An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates. In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills. Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence ...
31 Brilliant Creative Essay Prompts » JournalBuddies.com
Hopefully, these creative essay prompts will spur your creativity and spark your imagination, and, above all, may these ideas help you write a wonderfully awesome creative essay. Write a creative essay about the plot from a movie you saw just before sleeping is coming to life. A stranger gives you an ominous-looking journal.
The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay
The essay writing process consists of three main stages: Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline. Writing: Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion. Revision: Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling ...
The Creative Thinking Curriculum Development Essay
Such a pastime will help develop their creative abilities, thereby improving their creative abilities and imagination. For such a group of children, one of the examples of activities could be to implement a collage of feelings. In this type of activity, the child should be offered various materials such as tissue paper, scissors, glue, or ...
How to Travel and Write an Essay
Here are some tips for traveling and gathering material to write a compelling essay. Pick a Focused Travel Goal. Rather than trying to do everything, pick a particular aspect of travel on which to ...
How to Write a Narrative Essay
In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay, along with the descriptive essay, allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing. Narrative essays test your ability to express your experiences in a creative and compelling way, and to follow an appropriate narrative structure.

How to Write a Creative Essay: Useful Tips and Examples

What Is a Creative Essay

Creative Writing Essay Outline Explained From A to Z

Creative Essay Introduction

Creative Essay Body

Creative Essay Conclusion

Creative Writing Tips

Types of Creative Writing Essays

How to Start a Creative Writing Essay

Creative Essay Formats

Creative Essay Topics and Ideas

Examples of Creative Writing Essays

Creative Writing Example 1: Admission Essay

What Are the Types of Creative Writing Essays?

How to Write a Creative Essay: Your Fresh Guide

What Is a Creative Essay

Helpful Tips for Writing a Creative Essay

How to Write a Creative Essay: Breaking Down a Creative Essay Outline

Creative Essay Introduction

Creative Essay Body

Creative Essay Conclusion

Creative Essay Topics and Ideas

Creative College Essay Topics

Need Some Creative Writing Help?

Example of a Creative Essay

Wrapping Up

Are You Short on Creative Writing Topics?

FAQs on Creative Essay Writing

What Are the 7 Types of Creative Writing?

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3. Descriptive Essay

4. Narrative Essay

07 Best Techniques To Write A Creative Essay

2. Use Vivid Imagery

3. Show, Don’t Tell

4. Develop Interesting Characters

5. Experiment with Structure

6. Use Dialogue

7. Revise and Edit

Features Of Creative Essays

1. Creativity

2. Emotional Impact

3. Unique Voice

How Can You Write A Creative Essay Like A Pro

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Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Novels (The Long Journey)

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

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Conciseness

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