Creative Writing
A common misconception is that creative writing frees you from the prison of analytical writing and that the rules no longer apply. As long as you are following your creative vision, then you're doing the right thing. There is a grain of truth here, but in order for your writing to be effective, it has to be well written regardless of the type of writing.
That being said, you do have a lot more flexibility when doing creative writing than you have writing an essay. The trade off is that it can be more difficult to tie your creative work into the course material in meaningful ways.
Types of Creative Writing
Creative writing can take many forms, and does not have to be easily categorizable. Despite this, we can look at a few different types of creative writing, namely fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography. So a creative writing piece could take the form of anything from a short story to a sonnet.
Creative Writing Tips
You probably won't be writing a novel as your final project. This means that you should try to make every word count. This is true when writing short stories, and especially true of poetry. Try to avoid writing summaries such as "he went to the store and bought groceries". Either leave it out entirely, or show more details.
Do not add pointless details to your work. If you are trying to convey a character's mood, describe the way that he walks or the way that he carries himself rather than saying "Bob was sad and was wearing a green shirt," which tells us that he's sad rather than showing it. The green shirt doesn't have any content attached to it.
