How to Write a Creative Essay?

What is a Creative Essay?

A creative essay is any writing assignment that allows you to brainstorm a fictional topic and develop a captivating story.

Think of it as the freestyle version of essay writing. You don’t need to worry about overwhelming guidelines, formatting styles, etc. The teacher or reader judges the essay on its merit, rather than these arbitrary rules.

In your academic life, the first essay you write is always a creative essay. Think of your early essays — before teachers started talking about MLA and APA. Those essays belong to the creative category.

For example, your high school teacher might have asked you to write an essay about your visit to the moon. You had to make up an imaginary storyline and make it sound convincing — this is creative essay writing.

Creative writing can be fictional or non-fictional. Books like Harry Potter also belong to the creative category. At the same time, an essay narrating a unique experience is also in the creative writing genre. However, the best stories combine elements of truth and fiction in a perfect blend.

Steps to Take Before Writing

So far, creative writing sounds easy, but you can struggle with this task without proper planning. Without a plan, you will spend hours in front of your laptop without making headway.

Here are the essential writing steps to harness your imaginative ability:

1. Get in a zone

Steven King said: “Write with the door closed.”

This sentence should be your guiding light whenever you are preparing to write something.

First of all, you need a distraction-free workspace to maximize your focus on the upcoming task. If your room is inconvenient for writing, head to a library or coffee shop. Alternatively, use music to generate white noise around your workspace.

Set aside every device or activity that will distract your flow and get at it!

2. Brainstorm story ideas

The ideas are somewhere floating around in your brain. You just need to channel your concentration to gather the bits of data into one solid capsule.

Since you have ‘closed the door,’ you can now focus on what you are writing. As you brainstorm, take notes of ideas that come to you. By the end of the session, a story will start to take shape.

3. Conduct research

If you have a vivid imagination, you can freestyle an essay from scratch. But sometimes, you need to fill plot-holes when writing a fictional account.

Therefore, you need to conduct research. Conducting extensive research provides you with accurate information and helps you determine if your ideas are valid.

4. Consider your readers

This prewriting step is essential because it determines your essay’s tone. If you are writing for school, use a semi-formal style. In the same vein, a piece addressed to your peers should have an informal delivery tone.

5. Create a writing plan

Depending on the volume of work, you can split the essay into subtasks. This plan should have strict deadlines and expected rewards.

Choose a time to write when your productivity levels are at peak capacity. Don’t forget to schedule breaks between tasks.

6. Create a draft

Drafting is the final part of prewriting. This outline will form your essay’s framework. Nowadays, most writers work on their outlines during brainstorming sessions. But this technique can become frustrating as you chop and change the arrangement of your ideas constantly.

Therefore, work on the outline once you have your ideas in place. And remember that the preliminary draft dictates your essay’s direction.

Once you complete the outline, you can start writing the essay.

Draft a Creative Essay Outline

Creating an outline involves the use of an essay convention commonly known as the 3-act structure. This structure will give your creative writing task a coherent flow. But if you abandon this outline, you will struggle to follow a centralized theme in your essay.

Here are the main parts that must appear in every creative essay topic.

The setup

As the name suggests, this introductory section sets a precedent for the reader by telling them what to expect in the essay. This section introduces the main characters and sets up a scene. You also need to establish a relationship between the main subjects.

The body

The body paragraph contains the main events discussed in the essay. If you are talking about human characters, you need to create an emotional connection with the reader.

At the same time, the narrative should build up to a climax (conflict) gradually. If you go straight to the point, you kill the suspense. Most times, the finale ends the body section of a creative essay.

The conclusion

Logically, the final parts of your story should contain a conflict resolution. But you can kick the excitement up a notch with a cliffhanger.

How to Choose a Topic for a Creative Essay?

Coming up with a topic often turns out to be a strenuous task. When the creative block sets in, you will brainstorm for hours in vain. In moments like this, you need to focus on stories that resonate with you.

But if this technique doesn’t work, here are some ways to choose creative essay topics.

Think about current events

Going over recent events is an effective way to generate essay writing topics. Think of the most significant event in recent times and base your story on it. You can find ideas from trending videos and news stories.

Recall a real event that you witnessed

If you can’t find any captivating narrative for your story, focus on your experiences. The best stories always come from within us. And most times, recreating the event helps us to remember the timeline.

Talk about historical events

You can also choose your topic from historical events. For example, an essay on human suffering can focus on narratives about historical figures.

Reimagine an existing story

After trying everything and nothing clicks, you can rehash another story. But remember: don’t plagiarize someone’s work. Use storylines from their work to generate your unique narrative.

Creative Essay Examples

As we already discussed earlier, you can come up with creative essay ideas with different brainstorming methods. Sometimes, the instructor narrows down the scope of the essay to specifics. But if you have free rein to choose your preferred suggestion, here are some creative essay titles for your essay.

• Reminisce about a significant event that changed your life forever.
• If you had the chance to live on Mars, what resources would you take on your spaceship?
• Talk about an experience that made you believe in police brutality.
• Choose a figure from the ancient Roman Empire to have a day-long with, and explain what you would ask him.
• Where were you when news of the global lockdown broke, and what was your immediate reaction?
• Think of a significant mistake you made in your life and how it has affected your understanding of the world.
• Which movie made you cry and why?
• What makes you different from everyone else?
• If you had a superpower, what would it be? Explain your reasoning.
• If you had the chance to go back in time to stop an invention, which one would it be?

How to Format a Creative Essay?

Unlike other academic writing genres, creative essay writing has no hardline rules on formatting styles.

Nonetheless, there are basic ‘recommendations’ to make your essay coherent and readable.

Here are some vital formatting suggestions when writing your essay.

Come up with an eye-catching title.

An essay’s title sets the tone for the reader. A well-written title introduces your essay’s central theme with a bang. In the same manner, a lackluster essay title sets a bad precedent in the reader’s mind. So, always spend time crafting a killer creative essay title.

Add a thesis statement.

A thesis statement is a single sentence that encapsulates the entire story. Thesis statements often come after the introduction paragraph before the main body. Although most teachers don’t specify adding thesis statements, you should always include one in every essay.

Adjust the essay’s structure.

Whenever you complete writing an essay, always check if the structure fits the outline. And if you make changes to the outline, confirm that the story follows the predetermined arrangement.

Adjust the style and flow.

When adjusting the structure of your essay, style inconsistencies often come to light. Besides, you can also format the flow for a more coherent narrative.

Creative Essay Writing Tips

We have gathered some excellent tips that will bring that ‘x-factor’ into your story. Let’s check them out.

Keep it simple

The best stories are easy to read without pausing to check the dictionary after every line. We know that feeling when you want to impress the teacher with your new vocabulary. Keep that feeling in check because it will kill your story.

Use simple words and clear sentences to express your ideas. Long sentences are difficult to follow and are massive ‘turn-offs’ to readers.

Focus on the story

Students often go down the rabbit hole of exploring multiple narratives in one story. Watch out for this common pitfall: avoid going off on tangents, and focus on the central theme.

Use smooth transitions

Transition words and linking phrases establish a relationship between paragraphs. Without them, your essay’s flow suffers. Some useful transitional expressions in creative writing include:

• By the way
• Nevertheless
• Furthermore
• However
• Although
• Therefore
• As a result
• Alternatively
• Moreover 
• Ultimately

Don’t kill the suspense early

Sometimes, students kill the suspense by putting the ‘big reveal’ too early in the story. But if the reader knows how the story ends, what is the essence of reading the rest? Therefore, try to keep the reader intrigued until as late as possible.

Review and proofread

Proofreading is the final stage of creating writing. According to Stephen King, this stage of writing is where you “reopen the door.”

Remember that you are not writing for yourself but for other people. And to that effect, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes can change the meaning of your words completely. So, invest time and effort to review every line with rapt attention.

And most importantly, don’t get married to your words.

Write My Creative Essay for Me, Please!

If you don’t know how to write a creative essay, we are here to help you. Bring your essay to us, and we will breathe life into the story.

But why entrust your essay to us?

Firstly, we have a team of expert writers with years of experience in writing creative articles. They can come up with ideas from scratch or suggest creative essay topics for you.

Secondly, our writers always deliver the best essay solutions irrespective of the time constraint. You will no longer spend sleepless nights staring at your blank laptop and worrying about deadlines. We can show you a creative essay example to get a picture of what we offer.

Furthermore, we can spice up your story and arrange the narrative. You no longer have to struggle with bland storytelling. At the same time, our creative editors will fine-tune your delivery to suit your audience. Besides, we will also proofread your essay and eliminate all errors.

Ultimately, you will get your money’s worth. Reach out to us, and we will turn your ideas into a coherent, spellbinding story.