Improve Your Creative Writing: Why & How

Express yourself beautifully in your texts and emails. Watch to learn how to become the person who everyone notices can say just the right words in just the right ways. By practicing creative writing of different types, you will develop the skill of elegant expression. In this class, we’ll talk about why this is an important and beneficial skill to have, what you will need to improve your abilities in this area, and then I’ll tell you exactly what you can do to start improving. Today’s world is filled with people merely consuming content and saying the same things. Instead, why not use your words effectively to express your unique, personal experience of the world? Watch all of my writing lessons with this playlist: Get extra help at my website: In this video: 00:00 Become a better creative writer 00:49 1. Make a commitment 02:40 2. Why bother? 03:25 3. Keep a diary 05:35 4. Why do creative writing? 07:28 5. How do I start writing? 13:09 6. Draw on your own experience TRANSCRIPT Have you ever noticed how there are some people who always express themselves beautifully in their texts, their WhatsApps, their emails? They put thought into each one, and each one you kind of look forward to getting. Maybe they choose their emojis very carefully, maybe they choose their... Just what they write and it hits the right note. Well, that’s because they’ve spent time thinking about how they write. And what I’m going to be doing today is sharing some ideas with you about how you can start nurturing your own writing. Sound good? Cool. Let’s carry on. In case you don’t know me, my name’s Benjamin. I’m one of the teachers from engVid. Okay, so if you really want to get good at something, you need to practice. Yep, I’ve said that before. So, if you want to get good at writing, the main thing you’re going to need to do is set aside some daily time for writing. Now, according to your sort of commitments and schedule, you will know when the best time is. Maybe you’re more productive in the morning, maybe there are less distractions late at night. One famous writer, Burleigh Doherty, used to put her children to bed and then put a fire... Put a log on the fire, and she would write until the log had burnt all the way down. So, that was her daily practice. It was in the evening when there were no distractions. And in today’s age, there are a lot of distractions. Our phone is a constant source of distraction, messaging us, and there’s always something to look at and do on your phone. Well, if you’re going to develop your writing practice, you’re going to need to put your phone down at times to concentrate on it. So, find a time that works for you and stick to it. Like, I’ve tried this before, okay, and it’s not easy because you always have a million things that you need to do that will always be an urgent to-do list. But that’s not going away, yeah? That will be with us until the day we die. There’s always going to be things to do. What you need to do is be able to prioritize and switch off some of those needs and demands on our time so that you make the time for your writing. “Why would you bother doing that?“ I hear you ask. Well, I’m not guaranteeing that you’re going to be like J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter and be a blockbuster bestseller, okay? There are no guarantees that anything will get published. You have to want to develop your writing because you want to do it, yeah, for the simple pleasure of being able to communicate articulately, concisely exactly what you want to be able to write, let alone requirements for good use of English at work and at exam level. So, there’s two types of writing, really. There’s reflection, sort of diary writing, and creative writing, and I’m going to look at both. So, I was reading a quote earlier today by... Who was it? Oscar Wilde, that was it. And he said, “I always take my diary on a train with me because if I get bored...“ I’m paraphrasing now. “If I get bored, I want to have something sensational to read about.“ So, a diary can provide a record that will last a long, long, long, long time. Yep. You might find that your children read your diary in many years down the line. And the process of writing a diary, so at the end of the day, writing down what’s happened, and your thoughts, and anything else you want to put in there can be therapeutic. Yep. You’re getting stuff off your chest. Yep. Any kind of worries and things, you can write down, and by writing them down, it seems to lessen that stress. You might find that you sleep better. So, it’s not actually that good for us to be looking at blue screens before we go to sleep, but if you can get into the habit of writing a diary, it’s not always practical. You might find that you sleep better. […]