Lecture 01 | Creative Writing: What it is and what it isn’t?

It is very difficult to define creative writing. It is even more difficult to categorise what is creative writing and what is not? Many people believe that any formal, precise and fact-based writing does not fall under creative writing. If we agree with them, we will have to keep journalistic writing, academic writing and technical writing off the limits. Another group of people also believe that creative writing is a part of English literature, therefore you may see that many centres of creative writing around the world are considered to be part of English departments.
There is no established and agreed upon definition of creative writing. This is something which ‘always depends upon’ what is being written. I assume discussion on what is not creative writing would be more beneficial to start with. What I believe is that, firstly, any writing which is based on presentation and description of facts (like reports by NGOs, a news on TV or newspaper etc.), summary, precis is not creative writing for the reasons that in such writing you describe some charts or tables, summarise someone else’s thoughts in your own words without disturbing the pristine beauty of original writing. In other words, we can say that such writings are reproductions not creative. Secondly, traditional or conventional writings such as writing applications, writing resume or CVs and any technical report upon something’s functionality, writing instruction manual of any gadget do not fall under creative writing. For such writings, like above, are aimed at describing functions of some gadget etc.
Few people’s claim of keeping off journalistic writings (say article, column, feature, editorial, reviews etc.), academic writings (books, book chapters, research papers) and professional forms of writing from creative writing is not justifiable. Those authors want to state that only literary genres fall under creative writing. However, reviews (on cars, gadgets, films, books, theatres etc.), journalistic writing (except news), and many sorts of professional writings are also part of creative writing. In those writings, writer thinks critically, organizes his/her arguments, concludes them logically with some evidence or examples which needs homework, time to prepare, critical thinking to cite appropriate examples, evidences and connecting two or more strands together.
To conclude we may carefully say that to mention a few genres part of creative writing is not justifiable. And giving verdict on other writing genres and keeping them off limits is also not justifiable. Technical reports, data based reports (without analysis or personal opinion) and summaries are not creative writing. One blogger has aptly defined creative writing as “…..anything that falls within the bounds of conventional or traditional academic, journalistic, professional, and technical literary forms” is creative writing. Therefore, we may carefully claim and say that journalistic genres (Columns, features, articles, profiles, editorials, investigative stories etc), literary genres (fiction as well as non-fiction) and academic writings (essays, thesis etc) do fall under the category of creative writing.