Creative Writing Tips and Techniques | Writers' Treasure

An Introduction to Creative WritingAn Introduction to Creative Writing

May 3, 2010| Idrees Patel| 2:14 PM

What is creative writing? Is there a correct definition anywhere? That is what I hoped to find when I Googled the term “creative writing” a while back. But the answers were disappointing for me as a pure beginner, and puzzling. Here’s what is written as a definition for creative writing in Wikipedia:

“Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems. Writing for the screen and stage, screenwriting and playwriting respectively, typically have their own programs of study, but fit under the creative writing category as well.

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Welcome to Writers’ TreasureWelcome to Writers’ Treasure

May 1, 2010| Idrees Patel| 10:26 PM

Hello there, and welcome to Writers’ Treasure. Writers’ Treasure is a blog for creative writing tips and techniques. Tomorrow the series Creative Writing 101 will be started. It is:

A beginner’s guide to creative writing
This blog’s flagship or cornerstone content
A series on how to get better writing fiction, poetry, non-fiction, etc.

Hope you’ll be along for the ride. In the meantime, head here to know more about me, Idrees Patel, a 13 year old blogger.

Update 2013: It sure has been a great ride! I’ve had a lot of fun writing articles, series and more. Make sure you visit Creative Writing 101 and Writing Tips: How to Write Better. The Archives are full of gems. And the homepage contains the most recent, fresh articles. Stay tuned for more truly awesome stuff.

I am changing my domain nameI am changing my domain name

April 30, 2010| Idrees Patel| 12:29 PM

…and the focus of this blog. Previously it was just a fiction writing blog, with web talk and general natter added. Now I have expanded it to a creative writing tips and techniques blog. Conscise writing, grammar and style, technical writing etc will also be discussed here.

Previously the domain name of this blog was schoolboyauthor.wordpress.com. Now I have imported all of its posts here (with a few exceptions) and deleted that blog. The new domain shall be WritersTreasure.com. I have decided to use self-hosted WordPress.org blogging software. I will also change the design, because the previous one wasn’t at all satisfactory.

Hopefully, this will all be for the better, and this blog will get more traffic than the old one ever did (because I didn’t do any marketing even though my content was very strong – this debunks the myth ‘build it and they will come.’)

Stay tuned for more posts, and the start of the series, Creative Writing 101. In the meantime, you can visit the Writing Compelling Opening Chapters in Fiction series. Even though that was written five months ago, it still contains some very evergreen information.

Compelling Opening Chapters Written — Then What?Compelling Opening Chapters Written — Then What?

December 11, 2009| Idrees Patel| 9:20 PM

Today we’re wrapping up the series on Writing Compelling Opening Chapters. So far, we know:

Now of course all we need to have is a stunning plot, superb characters, real conflict, solid architecture, mind-blowing theme and all that.

Yes… sounds hard right?
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Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Compelling Opening ChapterDos and Don’ts of Writing a Compelling Opening Chapter

December 9, 2009| Idrees Patel| 9:41 PM

Now we’ve learned why we should write a compelling opening chapter, my best way of beginning a compelling opening chapter, and what should be told and shown in the compelling opening chapter. Today, let’s learn the Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Compelling Opening Chapter.

All too often, writers have great content, but fail to perfect their craft, by putting a load of trash in the opening chapter. This is a sign to editors that you can write well, but you need to write tighter. How? Today we’ll look into that.

First, let’s imagine that you are an editor for a moment. A typical over-loaded, irritable editor. Two manuscripts have reached to you, along with many others. Somehow, you read these two first. You start reading the opening chapter of the first manuscript. Ten minutes later, you put it down with a cold rejection letter for the writer. Why? Because you weren’t impressed by the story. And that was because of various matters…
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What Should Be Told and Shown in the Opening Chapter?What Should Be Told and Shown in the Opening Chapter?

December 1, 2009| Idrees Patel| 10:16 PM

An ideal first chapter tells the reader only what’s necessary. After all you can’t finish a story in a chapter can’t you? (Well you can with short stories… but that’s another story.) You must tell the reader the main parts, not the subsidiary parts. The things which are important must be in the front in the opening chapter. Very visible. The subsidiary parts should have the backseat.

Now, you may ask, “what the heck are the main and subsidiary parts? Didn’t we learn all things are important as architecture for a novel?”

Yes, we did learn it. But there are some things called subplots. These things are important – they add depth and reality to a story – but for that reason, they must be given secondary importance. Plots come first, subplots come second. All the loose ends come third.

Which leads to the question… “so what exactly are the main parts? What exactly should be told and shown in the opening chapter?”
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