Creative Writing

Week 1-2

The Nature of Writing Process

At the end of the week, students must be able to:

1. Follow throughout a sequential pattern necessary for the development of creative writing skills.
2. Stimulate their interest and responses in this creative skill for writing a number of controversial
topics or subjects.

Lesson 1
Writing is considered as a complex process that allows writers to explore thoughts and ideas.
Concretization of sentences is an important part of the writing just like laying the foundation for a
house construction. When thoughts and ideas are written down, they can always be read and
re-written, revised, edited, examined, rearranged and changed. The writer must first “think” in
the language that he or she is writing. 
The beginning writing may appear a waterloo. Much of Annie Dillard works have been about the
writing process, but she says that “Writing is a hard, conscious, terribly frustrating work!” The
writing process needs constant thought of grammar and words and the production of the writing
material. As grammar has a controlled nature, the writer can bear in mind the role of grammar in
the writing process. But there can always be flexibility in sentence combining and in expansion
or Concretization of sentences and in the paragraphing. 

Considerations according to some differences between TECHNICAL and CREATIVE WRITING

TECHNICAL WRITING CREATIVE WRITING

CONTENT Factual, straight forward Imaginative, symbolic
AUDIENCE Specific General
PURPOSE Inform, instruct, persuade Entertain, provoke, captivate
STYLE Formal, standard, academic Informal, artistic, figurative
TONE objective Subjective
VOCABULARY Specialized General, evocative
ORGANIZATION Sequential, systematic Arbitrary, artistic

ON CREATIVE PROCESS
The first thing that can come to your mind in taking creative writing is the word
‘creativity’. Have you ever thought about this word as applied to your life? How would you have
defined it of how has this word made your life and your world of writing significant? Have you
ever thought if writing is mysterious? Although anyone can learn to write better, the primordial
problem is ‘ how to start writing’ just as the song says ‘LET’S START AT THE VERY
BEGINNING, A VERY GOOD PLACE TO START’.

Good writing captivates the reader once they read as taking what beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
You as a writer should know yourself what is and what is not well written. Consider the following
excerpt from Truman Capote ( a well known American Writer), describing the character of a girl and
describing at the same time a cold winter night from his selection “The Tree of Night:”

It was winter. A string of naked bulbs, from which it seemed all warmth had been drained,
illuminated the little depot’s cold, windy platform. Earlier in the evening it had rained, and now
icicles hung along the station-house eaves like some crystal monster’s teeth. Except for a girl, the
platform was deserted. The girl wore a gray flannel suit, a raincoat, and a plaid scarf. Her hair, parted
in the middle and rolled up neatly on the sides, was rich blondish brown; and, while her face tended
to be too thin and narrow, she was, though not extraordinarily so, attractive. (Lederer & Dowis,
1995).

Creativity is always involved in writing. Writing can flourish despite external stumbling blocks.
Writing with passion can trigger more creativity on the part of the writer. It was David Ogilvy, an
advertising guru who said that “It’s not creative unless it sells.” Creativity poses a number of
challenges - the writing process and principle need defining its scope in terms of aesthetic practice.
Writing creativity is not just an expression of one’s personal thoughts or ideas but also a reflection of
constructing the production of language. and words which are always diverse and within the bounds
of imaginable convention.
When it comes to creativity, think of what and how you will deal with it. Pepe Diokno says that
writers can establish their rules for staying creative and he further explains that “creativity is a eureka
moment ~a millsecond of magic that strikes at random, like love at first sight, or a sudden rush of
blood to the head” (Phil. Star, April 2012 Issue).

Jeannie Kim in her book on “creativity” says that creativity is the “whole” you. It means being an
artist, being creative no matters what your talents or training might be. It helps one to grow and
explore the “inner” you and the world around you. (Kim, 2002).

Kim further adds that “creativity doesn’t mean simply artistic expression. It also includes curiosity,
adventure and dreaming big. It can help one create his/her own vision of life and let one express
his/her inner self to the outside world and this includes writing.” (Kim, 2002).

Gemino H.Abad gave the following important aspects of creativity:

1. The creative process is not a continuing development or a method but rather what we call an
“outbreak” or a “happen-stanch or a
seizure.

2. The creative process is illustrated by internal signs and one of them is the fact that you can write
anything creatively on anything at your best if you are “possessed” by words and meaning, and by
the power of the ‘language’, the power of ‘thinking’ as well as the power of imagination’.

3. There is a matter of ‘attitude’ toward one’s own work, plus the ‘ mental discipline’ to get
everything right and push one to write.

4. The language. It can be of any language in the world. You can write in a language that you are
most comfortable with.

5. The material itself ( your topic) will consist of any experience from first or third person
perspective, or whatever which could be recreated.

Q. Why is it easier to make or write your own story? Give some reasons for your answer.
6. There are three specific levels of creative writing, namely:

A. The level of telling what you write.

B. the level of showing what you write, and
C. treating instantly what you write.

7. Each writer has a “point of view” or what we call a “personal conviction”. Points of view are
obsessions, agreements, or disagreements among writers. One can write depending on the “mood” of
the writer.

8. There is the existence of an “established” writer and a “beginning” writer. The distinction lies only
on what we may call as “reputation.” For a beginning writer, the writer is in fact always beginning.
One authority to writing stated that writing for beginning writers is “forever an advent and Easter is
far off.” The metaphor applies directly.

9. For Filipino writers, the personal and sentimental is at the “core” of the Filipino psyche in writing.
This is the easiest way to seduce the writer and entertain them. The sentimental realities surround the
Filipino personalities.

10. What is important and what matters most is to believe in whatever one is writing and creating;
you have the final authority for yourself to decide honestly on what you will create or write, therefore
cultivate an imaginative and discipline mind in the field of creative writing.

The submission of your activity will be on Feb. 22, 2021 at library. Pass only the activity sheet ( long
bond paper).

Activity 1
Direction: Put a check if the following assessments are applicable to you as a beginning writer.

____1. Comfort with writing

____2. Willingness to write
____3. Willingness and ability to think about your writing

____4. Thinking of yourself as a writer

____5. Use of the writing process

____6. Understanding of the stages of the writing process

____7. Willingness to respond to and revise writing

____8. Comfort and ability with revision

____9. Complexity of writing and revision tasks you can handle

____10. Ability to compare pieces of writing

____11. Ability to reflect on writing

____12. Ability to see progress, growth, and needs in your own writing

____13. Willingness and ability to talk about your writing

ACTIVITY 2

Creative or Technical Writing? Write your answer before the number.

_______1. Teaches us how to use the library. 

_______2. Integrates the important element which is the written language and the writer’s
material like any experience which may be real. 

_______3. Deals with how to manage substantially long process of writing with particular steps
to follow. 

_______4. Form of exposition that deals with different literary style of writing. 

_______5. The process is no exactly a method or a continuing development, but rather a

happenstance or an outbreak. 

_______6. Deals with the level of telling what you write, the level of showing what you write, and
the level of creating instantly what you write. 

_______7. Deals with utilizing both the interviews and the survey as tools for the paper study. 
_______8. Deals with proper documentation of sources or references.

_______9. Cultivate imagination and creativity where the writer may be open to reality.

_______10. May deal with the personal and the sentimental as the core of writing.

_______11. May deal with writing either prose or poetry.

_______12. Substantiates writing or recognizes topics that are worthy of scholarly study.

_______13. Puts together data gathering to come up with an integrated piece of writing.

_______14. The writer has a point of view or his/ her conviction or perspective such as
emotional, Sociological, and psychological .

_______15. Applying scientific studies which provide skills for the hand rather than skills for the
mind.

_______16. Deals with the aim of ‘entertaining ‘the reader.