What Is Creative Writing

English 126: Creative Writing
2013
Instructor: K. Sherlock
WHAT IS CREATIVE WRITING?

"Creative" Writing
Over the course of our education, were inculcated to notion that all writing must be in a rhetorically neutral,
expository style that helps to clarify our meaning. This is why expository prose (a.k.a., exposition) is called
expository: it seeks to expose our meaning through a use of direct statements relying on straightforward
vocabulary and logical syntax.
Belles lettres, the original French term used to classify a written work as creative writing, translates literally
into beautiful letters and included anything that was composed primarily for its artistic merit. The importance
of this to creative writers should be self-evident: your primary responsibility is to the use of language to create
something of beauty, rather than to communicate facts and expose meaning directly. A beautiful style of
language, including the nuancedoften metaphoricaluse of words, is essential to becoming a creative writer.
Beauty or Truth?
Dont take this to mean that you should write only about beautiful things, or that only beautiful words can be
used, which frequently leads to sentimentality and clich. Furthermore, there is room for interpretation about
what beautiful language in creative writing actually is. The Romantic period in literature is renowned for a
florid style of narration, connecting the lavish detail of the natural world to the complex emotions of the authors
internal world. In the twentieth century, some authors have championed a very matter-of-fact narrative style,
which unskilled writers sometimes misinterpret to mean write the same way you talk. This is the very essence
of prosaic language use, and it was never the intention for plainspoken authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Raymond Carver, and Ernest Hemingway. In their narrative minimalism, these authors may have pioneered an
ostensibly stoic and emotionally reserved voice, but they also developed a beautiful literary style through the
use of active verbs and subtle imagery. Even J.D. Salingers first-person narrator, Holden Caulfield, didnt
narrate Catcher In the Rye in a prosaic style, regardless of how much vernacular Salinger incorporated into
Holdens voice.
To put it bluntly, understated does not have to mean prosaic any more than creative has to mean flowery.
The creativity of creative writing should be found in all the parts of speech we use as writers, and where there are
deficiencies in a writers vocabulary, those weaknesses become evident in the writing style, itself.
However, it is similarly difficult to disabuse beginning writers of the idea that "truth" in our writing is about
accuracy, and that "accuracy" is achieved by remaining faithful to facts. Even in the genre of short fiction,
writers will embroil themselves in the nitty-gritty of what objectively happens, as though the story lies in the facts.
This can be appropriate for larger, plot-driven works, but in most short fiction, the real story lies within the
perceptions of the protagonist and takes place on the internal landscape; the external story situations and plot
(if there is one) are there to facilitate that internal story. Writers preoccupied with telling stories as though they
are objectively factual miss the real opportunity of prose writing: to convey a subjective truth through the
experiences and perceptions of a character. As a result, their writing once again sounds more like a summary
or a synopsis, rather than a work of literature, because the language needed to report the facts objectively is
the same prosaic, dull, and safe language students use to "sound" objective in their expository writing.
There's nothing you can do better to reprogram yourself than to read contemporary, living, literary authors who
write in the genres you're most interested in. In so doing, you'll read and hear language used subjectively, see
how writers create imagery and experience, and come to understand how truth depends more on a point of
view than on a collection of plot details. What readers most want to relate to in your writing is the subjective
truth of it, not the objective accuracy of it.
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The following, therefore, are some examples of literary prose. Examine each, and be aware of your own
responses to the prose style. Which of these captures your imagination the most, and why? Which do you
most relate to by way of experience? Which puts you in a point of view inside the writing, as opposed to
making you a mere witness?
Flowery and Overwritten
Prosaic and Inadequate
A Balanced Literary Style
The coroner grasped gingerly the

soft, white, perfumed wrist of the
utterly dead girl, surprisingly
chilly and seemingly as hard as a
clear crystal goblet faceted with
prisms of colored light. He turned
the silken wrist into the
unforgivingly harsh light of the
nearby lamp. He could trace with
his modest forefingers freshly
trimmed fingernail an exquisitely
elegant cut under the dried,
translucent red varnish of her
exsanguinated
life-fluidsher
once warm aqua vita, so to speak,
now cold and lifeless. This was no
barbaric gash crudely hacked into
her writhing flesh while she was
overcome with feelings of deep
desperation and longing.
Nor
could he espy her hesitant
vacillations about whether to
commit to the finality of suicide,
as was so often the case in the
interstices of perforated cuts, like
the ones he recalled in the
reminiscences of his dearest
Grand-mama, whose intricate,
weathered hands spryly plucked
the soft, yeasty, pasty piecrust
dough before gently and carefully
languishing it into the awaiting
jaws of her kitchens oven. Nay,
this lean and straight slit of softly
supple skin was the final and
grand flourish of calligraphic
splendor she had longingly used to
engrave her ultimate truth upon the
ardent and abject parchment of her
tortured, now ended life.
Version 1
The dead girls wrist was cold. In
the light, the coroner could see a
cut under her blood. It was not a
gash, nor did it appear to be in the
shape of perforations. In his mind,
he remembered his grandmother
making piecrust that way.
Opposite to that, this looked
precise, like she meant it.
Version 1
The coroner grasped the wrist of
the dead girl, chilly and hard as a
bottle, and turned it into the blunt
light of the lamp. He could trace
with his finger an elegant cut
under the varnish of her blood,
not a crudely desperate gash or
the hesitant perforations he had
learned from watching his
grandmother pluck the piecrust
before baking. No, this slit of soft
skin, subtle and precise, was a
final flourish of calligraphy to
engrave her truth on the
parchment of her life.
In this version, the flowery or

florid language is not the only
problem. The writing style is
also over-reliant on lists of
adjectives and adverbs, while the
verbs are largely passive. Does
this seem an authentic and
relatable voice to you?
Version 2
Having walked to the dead girl,
the coroner then knelt beside her.
Next, he felt her wrist, which was
cold. He found some light and,
when he observed the wrist
further, he saw that the cut had
been covered in blood.
He
observed that it was not so much
a gash or a series of intermittent
cuts like those used in pie crust,
but rather it seemed straight and
precise, the way people cut
themselves when they intend to
go through with the suicide.
In these prosaic versions, the
writing is devoid of active voice,
and the descriptive style reports a
series of factual events in
chronological order, but does
nothing to suggest a reaction to
them. A protagonist's internal
reality seems to be missing.
Rather, it reads like a paraphrase
of something seen in a movie
objective and accurate as a
report, but static and soulless as
a reading experience.
Version 2
The girls cold wrist turned in the
coroners hand like a bottle, and
in the lamp light the V-cut
pointed true beneath the dried
bloodnot a hasty gash, nor a
hopscotch of perforations where
those second thoughts might have
swiveled in her mind. No. She
had traced the blade down the slit
of skin like a bead of ink, so that
she wouldnt need to corsage a
clumsy note to her sleeve.
Instead, she would tattoo the
daring truth of it down the canvas
of her wrist: an arrow pointing to
where none could follow her.
Both of these versions succeed
where other versions did not.
Why? Because each achieves a
balanced literary style by 1)
using a predominantly active
voice, 2) not being so literalminded about diction and
usage, and 3) avoiding cliches.
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Poetical Language
Newbies to Creative Writing tend to fall into two camps: those that love expressive poetry and those that love
to write genre fiction. The camps are not equally opposing forces, however. While inveterate fiction writers
have outbursts in class testifying to how much they "hate" writing poetry, rarely does the opposite ever occur.
Poets tend to make the transition more easily, because they bring with them the power of poetical language to
the act of writing prose. Prose writers, on the other hand, frequently detest the alleged falseness of expressing
the kind of sentimentality poets do (not realizing just how falsely they, themselves, cling to simulacrum in
storytelling).
It's a damaging and self-stymying view of poetry, to be sure, but it's not wholly unfounded, because many
beginning poets misinterpret "poetical language" to mean the language of "pure" emotion (whatever that is).
The poetical use of language is hard to pin down, and it's as diverse as the poets, themselves. However, this
much is true: poems can be killed by overfeeding, or they can die from starvation.
By "overfeeding," I'm referring to a poet's tendency to use a lot of rich abstractions. The resulting poems are
sentimental and corpulent with lots of non-count nouns like anger, agony, bitterness, vile cruelty, pain, jubilation,
evil, darkness, love, loneliness, exaltation, suffering, ecstasy, magnificence, and--everyone's familiar fave-heart. In some earlier literature class, these were the words that turned up in students' explication of works by
famous poets from those centuries when everyone seemed to be speaking a different kind of English. Because
of this, beginners assume such words must somehow be on the approved list for really deep and expressive
poetry. And, in composing a little missive from the heart, it can be cathartic to name the emotions getting you
down. However, even at the height of the Romantic period--that era of poetry believed to be the most
emotivethis was hardly the case. It is true that poets in the Western tradition have, for centuries, "written
from their hearts" and tried to capture those emotional and psychological truths that are the connective threads
of humanity. However, the language of poetry is not the explicit naming of those themes.
By "starving" a poem, I mean the willful refusal to use emotion at all, as though "sentiment" and "sentimentality"
were one in the same. This is the kind of poem that embarrassed prose writers frequently draft the first time
around, in an attempt to make their poem read more like their matter-of-fact stories. The results are lines of
lackluster simple sentences where the nearest thing to a concrete detail is the use of a sensory word like
"smell" or "taste," or a verb of observation such as "watched" or "listened." In the end, such poems die on the
vine, withered by prosaic writing style, parched by the lack of imagery and concrete detail, and choked by their
own triteness.
As with the prose genres, the answer is to open your mind and educate yourself about what contemporary
poetry actually is, what poets today are writing about, and how the image and the line prefigure in the success
of a poem. If you're only reading John Keats, William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Edgar A.
Guestbecause their "verse" ends up in greeting cards and calendarsyou're doing yourself a disservice. If
you don't know where to start, begin with our current Poet Laureate (which, as of the posting of this article, is
Natasha Trethewey). Find out who they're reading, and who credits them as an influence. Read those poets
as well, and immerse yourself in the contemporary milieu of poetry. You'll learn fast that contemporary poetry is
not the rhyming game that most people believe it to be, and that it has great power to move readers with its
ideas and its specificity of language.
Consider the following examples. All three poems are written on the subject of Alzheimer's, but only the poem
by contemporary poet C.K. Williams seems to treat the subject matter with any credibility. Why? First, consider
that millions of people suffer from this tragic disease. (Perhaps you even know someone who suffers from it.)
What's required to treat the delicate subject matter with dignity. If you were asked to write a poem for one or
two people with Alzheimer's or dementia that you would later read to them, how would you show them your
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respect? How would you discuss them in your poem to do justice to their particular experiences with the
disease, while still making a general statement about Alzheimer's? In other words, how would you make them
a representation of the more general tragedy of Alzheimer's without losing what's specific to them as individuals.
What sorts of general statements could you make about the disease that doesn't just exploit the subject matter
(or the people about whom you're writing)?
Now, read the three poems. What in the Williams poem speaks to you and makes you relate to it, and why
doesn't that happen with the other two? Why doesn't generalizing the experience of Alzheimer's, or writing
about it in a more traditionally "poetical" way, have a more powerful effect? Consider the different ways that
Williams uses imagery and concrete detail to connote the emotionally complex nature of the disease.
OVERFED
STARVED
SATED
Message For My Grandson
Forgetting To Remember
Alzheimer's: The Wife (C.K. Williams)
At this genesis of a new life,

I write these solemn words,
upon the pages of my heart.
lest I someday not recall
all your purity and promise
or my own memories of pain,
that impulsive awakening of the
past
that cruelly time forgets.
As my brain corrodes, like a cancer,
spreading its hopeless loss
until tears, like torrents of water,
come flooding back into the ocean,
I will remember my love for you
from moment to moment.
My elderly face looks haggard

As I force my feeble legs to
walk on,
Barely able to maintain
sufficient strength,
Body aching, muscles pushing
One more yard, then two more
feet.
As soon as I open the door
As I start to wonder
When this day began. I begin
to realize
The day is already ending.
As my brain deteriorates a
little more
Each day, still making the
motions
That move me to and fro,
I watch my life go by and
gradually
I accept I will forget who you
are.
She answers the bothersome telephone,

takes the message, forgets the message,
forgets who called.
One of their daughters, her husband guesses:
the one with the dogs, the babies, the boy
Jed?
Yes, perhaps, but how tell which, how tell
anything when all the name tags have
been lost or switched,
when all the lonely flowers of sense and
memory bloom and die now in adjacent
bites of time?
Sometimes her own face will suddenly
appear with terrifying inappropriateness
before her in a mirror.
She knows that if she's patient, its gaze will
break, demurely, decorously, like a welltaught child's,
it will turn from her as though it were
embarrassed by the secrets of this awful
hide-and-seek.
If she forgets, though, and glances back
again, it will still be in there, furtively
watching, crying.
This poem's point of view is

someone suffering memory loss.
Which
preoccupies
your
attention more, the real
difficulty of memory loss or the
poem's
bloated,
overfed
diction?
Which words are
grandiose or clichd, and why?
Do you relate to it?
As with "Message for My

Grandson," this poem is in
first person p.o.v. Do you
believe it is actually written
by an elderly person
suffering from dementia?
Or by a loved one? Why
would that be important?
In what ways does the
diction seem starved of
poetical style?
Using the other two poems at left,

examine what's different about this
poem's language, subject matter, point
of view, and the writer's motivation.
Does C. K. Williams know someone
suffering from Alzheimer's? Which
details tell you this, and why?
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A Note About Self-Aggrandizement

Perhaps the hardest lesson for young creative writers to learn has to do with their own ego. Truthfully, it's a
lesson that seasoned writers don't always master, either.
We all write creatively as an extension of our egos; this seems inevitable. Regardless of how altruistic,
therapeutic, cathartic or well-meaning the act of writing is, ultimately it puts us in a spotlight of our own making
and control. There's nothing wrong with that. All art, even art for art's sake, starts by projecting a single voice.
What happens, though, when that single voice likes the sound of itself a little too much? We've all had our
Saturday afternoon held hostage by that one kid in the neighborhood who, one day, learned to use his
forefinger and thumb to wolf whistle, and then kept doing it for the next five hours until threatening calls were
made to his parents. Or, that person who droned on at a party about all the cool places she's traveled, never
hearing anyone else's stories about where they've been. Or, that date who ruined the evening by talking only
about himself and his interesting life. Or the person who always takes over the conversation by starting with,
"You think you've got it bad!" Why do these people bug us? Because they are consummate self-aggrandizers.
"Self-aggrandizement" is the act of making yourself seem "more" than others are: more talented; more
interesting; more important; sadder; smarter; luckier; healthier; sicker; wittier; darker. In creative writing, when
the author's voice is identified with self-absorbed behavior, unintended insensitivity, or both, it is selfaggrandizing. Such behavior ranges from being superficially precious to deeply intellectual; from moral
entitlement to martyr-like superiority; from acting clever and cocky to self-indulged and tortured. That isn't to
say you shouldn't feel these things as motives for your writing, but when you begin to call attention to your own
motives, and you make it sound like you, alone, are privileged to these motives, it rubs readers the wrong way.
It changes an act of ego into an egotistical act.
Self-aggrandized writing is fueled by a desire to be impressive, regardless of how that may be defined by the
writer, but it always ends up feeling intrusive. Readers welcome the vulnerability, self-reproach, and self-doubt
that a writer injects into his poems, stories, and characters, but when writers become unnecessarily selfindulgent, the work seems less authentic. Self-aggrandizement has become a kind of trope in the boastful
lyrics of rap and hip-hop these daysone could say it is "somethin' like a phenomenon"so you don't need to
look far to find it. However, here are a few literary illustrations:
1.
I am a warrior of words. My pencil,
a weapon. I unsheath your truths
upon this page, and stand up when you
are down. I, the dreamer, dream for you
these dreams.
2.
With my mild, sparkling-blue eyes, I glanced to find the homeless man's change can was empty, so I humbly
offered him a crisp ten-dollar bill and gave him a graceful smile.
3.
There were over six billion people living on the planet. Six billion! Do they even stop to think, he wondered,
how miniscule they truly were in the universe's grand design? Was it even right to think they mattered? The
more he thought about it, the more he reassured himself it wasn't a silly question.
4.
"I've seen things you couldn't even imagine," I said to my uncle.
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5.
I flipped up my Ray Bans and put my Porsche into gear, watching the gates close to our house in the rearview
mirror. As the engine roared and tires burnt the city pavement, I felt my sixteen-inch biceps harden under my
Versace shirt, and my hands gripped the steering wheel as if a beautiful woman had just thrown herself into
my arms once again. How miserable my teenaged life with my stepfather was. Yes, escape would be just
around the corner: my acceptance letter to Yale arrived three days ago. But, somehow, I still had to get
through the long summer ahead, living under these insufferable conditions.
6.
Her dorm mates had cleared out that morning. Gloria imagined them huddled in airport terminals, or lifting
themselves into trains slowly leaving the station then hurrying them to their empty little lives with their dull
suburban families, while she remained here alone, adrift in her isolation. She hated these pointless holidays,
anyway. She pulled her pillow closer to her and hugged it. In that moment, she knew what Anne Frank felt
like, a prisoner of her attic, alone with her diary, and understood by no one.
Some Practical Suggestions To Better Literary Style

Students are always looking for the keys to succeeding in any writing assignment, as though, if they knew
exactly what the instructor was looking for, they would have an easier time completing the task. For creative
writers, that's simply not real life, because writing a poem or telling a story is not a task. It's work, yes! And, of
course, it's good to have deadlines and writing groups to keep you motivated. However, the rules of writing
creatively are something you pick up along the way, sometimes by trial and error. The following are not so
much rules as they are pitfalls that occur because of a lifelong habit of writing prosaically. (Dialogue is exempt
from requiring a literary style.) Be aware of these pitfalls at every stage of the writing process: drafting, editing,
workshopping, and revision. Force yourself to care about these. Besides reading and daily writing, this is the
only means to improving your literary style.
1. Avoid Passive Voice
A.
Avoid the following passive verbs altogether, if possible. (Note: the first three are commonly used as auxiliary
verbs used in different verb tenses, but they can be avoided as main verbs.)
be, is, are, was, were
go, goes, went
have, has, had
come, comes, came

get, got
Example 1
She was too tired even to eat when she came home, but she got some dinner anyway and went to the couch to
have some time with her sitcoms or TV vampires before going to bed.
Example 2
She stumbled through her front door too tired even to eat, but she assembled some dinner anyway and ambled
to the couch to laugh with her sitcoms or fantasize about her TV vampires. Soon enough, they would sweep
her back onto her feet and tuck her into bed.
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B.
Reduce the number of verbals used:
participles (adjectives ending in ing or ed and other past-tense endings,
The gathering storm... The dried leaves...);
gerunds (nouns ending in ing: He was in the act of running).
Example "Bad"
Rising from an eastern sky, the illuminating moon filled the mountainside with pale light, looming like a giant
sand dollar until the shadows of pine trees began arching away from all its shining.
Example "Better"
The rising moon loomed in an eastern sky like a giant sand dollar, and illuminated the mountainside with pale
light, until the shadows of pine trees arched away from all its shine.
2. Reduce Vague Sensory Words and Linking Verbs

appeared / appearance
saw
aromas
seemed
felt / feelings
sensed
flavors
showed
heard
sights
listened
smelled / smells
sounds
tastes
visions
watched
Example "Bad"
I heard his voice and sensed its calm syllables, which seemed to show me he was listening to me, too, and
feeling my nervousness.
Example "Better"
His calm syllables took hold of my nervous fidgets.
3. Emphasize Active Verbs, De-Emphasize Modifiers Like Adjectives And Adverbs)

instead of began to walk: walked
instead of starts to wonder: wonders
instead of moved quickly: darted
instead of a rainy afternoon: the afternoon drizzled with grey sheets of wind
4. Avoid Clichd Transitional Phrases
All at once
All of a sudden
As time went by
Before the night was through
Eventually
In a matter of time
In the end
5. Avoid Clichd Similes and Metaphors
hot as all hell
quiet as a church mouse
as plain as the nose on my face
as far as the eye can see
as angry as a hornet
Last but not least

Lest it be forgotten
Little did I know
Needless to say
Out of the blue
The next thing I knew
rich as Croesus
cold as ice
pitch black
dark as sin
slick as snot
clichs
c
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6. Don't Overuse Clichd and Common Vernacular Phrases

freaking out
keep you in my heart
dealing with
my heart knows no limits
being there for me
these kids
know in my heart
some dude
breaking my heart
this one lady
some old man, old geezer

an innocent babe
a couple of guys
7. Avoid Predictable Patterns Of Complex Sentence Construction

Repeatedly beginning with As or While: As the sun slowly sank into the west, people drove home from
work. And, as their cars crawled along in traffic, the citys nightlife began coming alive. As they began arriving
home, . . .
Repeatedly beginning with a participial phrase: Looking to his left, he saw a deer grazing on the embankment.
Stepping onto the grass, he started prepared to feed them dried corn. Reaching out his hand, . . .
Plodding simple sentences (i.e., not compound-complex sentences): "The boy sat down at the table. The
mother put a plate before him. The food on the plate looked strange. He picked up a spoon. He put the spoon
into the mashed potatoes."
8. Use References to Emotions and Abstractions Infrequently
A.
Avoid summarizing or generalizing feelings; instead, use specific experiences that connote these feelings:
Example "Bad"
She was suddenly overcome with joy and an ardent desire to embrace her father and show him the depth of
her love, as though she were the parent and he the child.
Example "Better"
Her hand reached out to her fathers lapel. She drew him to her shoulders, and in her hand his vertebrae
beneath his suit lifted like a ladder from his middle back. She let her thumb climb that ladder until the small of
her fathers head rested in the bowl of her left handas familiar to her as the first time she held an infant.
B.
Tone down the grandiose and abstract words; instead, use the language of concrete detail to imply these
abstractions:
Example "Bad"
In the purity of peace rose the vicious anger swelling until it consumed him like an avalanche of powerful
emotions.
Example "Better"
No one but he knew what roiled beneath that ballpoint tip as he signed the divorce papers. He laid down each
flourish of a signature like a matchstick to the touch-paper, and his middle initial flamed the docket with its violet
indigo.
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9. Avoid Hyperbole and Caricature

A.
Hyperboles are exaggerations; writers often use them unconsciously to "sell" the importance of their imagery
and its emotional import, but they almost always sound manipulative and false. Quite often, they're used in
combination with clichs, which is just as much a serious failure of creativity.
endlessly waiting
deathly silent sorrow
screaming lies
forever lost
bottomless guilt
to the limits of sanity
excruciatingly painful
earth-shattering
all but a faded memory
utter darkness
the deepest despair
soaring heights of excitement
B.
Caricatures are exaggerated characters, some of which are "stock" characters we have learned to identify as
archetypes in certain genres of storytelling, movies, and TV. Sketch comedy often relies on the audience's
familiarity with such caricatures to set up the joke, because they're easily recognizable: clichd and
stereotypical. You may have need of one-dimensional characters in some of your stories and plays, but you
can still avoid the pitfall of their inherent clichs if you change the reader's eye about them. At least in this way
you'll subvert the clichs, rather than celebrate them. Caricatures are plentiful, but here at least is one Major
Arcana of stock character types used far too often in contemporary storytelling:
00
The Fool
the radical left tree-hugger

vegan activist
11
Justice
the chunky, doughnut-eating

cop
01
The
Magician
the nerd
12
The Hanged
Man
that effeminate "ginger" kid
02
The High
Priestess
the gum-smacking prostitute

who says, "Hey, sugar!"
13
Death
the creepy funeral director
03
The
Empress
the waitress with the bee-hive

and the cat-eye glasses
14
Temperance
the innocent babe (a

precious child or virtuous
young adult)
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04
The
Emperor
the delusional psyche patient

who always says "doc"
15
The Devil
the uneducated blue-collar

Dixie racist
05
The
Hierophant
the priest who always refers to

other people as "my child"
16
The Tower
the 40-something "cougar"

on a barstool, sipping dirty
martinis
06
The Lovers
the middle-aged gay couple

with the dyed poodles
17
The Star
the
sophisticated,
unattainable
model-type
with the British accent
07
The
Chariot
the Chicano low-rider gang

member
18
The Moon
the Goth chick
08
Strength
the high school jock in the

varsity letterman jacket
19
The Sun
the bleached blonde/blond

bimbo
09
The
Hermit
the "crazy" bag lady
20
Judgment
the mean girls trio
10
Wheel of
Fortune
the wheeling and dealing punk

who always says, "Hey,
mister" or "Hey, lady"
21
The World
Grandma
Sugar-Cookie,
who always says Dear
and my child
10. Hyperbolic Diction

No words are off limits in creative writing, since all vocabulary is the primary tool of your trade. However, there
are some that are "go to" words for inexperienced writers. In a manner of speaking, they're a class of clich,
because they're words that everyone associates with the poetical diction of high-flown quillsexactly the sort of
pretentiousness that makes people decry the entire genre. Of course, camp and bathos (or bathys) rely on
language like this, but only if used intentionally for its comic effect. Under ordinary circumstances, though,
hyperbolic diction entails exaggeratively pretty, emotive words resulting from the writer's abrogation of his
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charge to provide substantive detail; he instead resorts to pointing out a "certain jeu ne sais quois" so beautiful,
so complex, so deeply appealing or interesting that he allegedly doesn't have the adequate words to describe it.
Let's be clear: as a writer, if you don't have the adequate words to describe something, it's not because that
"something" is so deep that it defies description. The onus is on you to find the words--perhaps even make up
a few--that are up to the task. Otherwise, if you're not up to the task, don't presume to call what you're doing,
"creative writing." That may sound like a mean thing to say, but being a creative writer demands a degree of
stubborn intrepidity: we don't give up just because something is hard to describe! We search for just the right
words, look up their derivations, turn them in our minds to consider their nuances, and plug them into the fuse
box of our writing to see if they carry the current. And when they fail or don't fit just right, we don't just
substitute whatever nickel we can find in our loose change.
Example "Bad" 1
The prismatic light gingerly tickled his face with myriad hues, a colorful array of lustrous wonder.
Example "Bad" 2
You smilingly pierced my aching heart with your screeching daggers of vicious words.
aching ("this aching need to touch you")
angelic ("your angelic beauty")
ardently ("his heart ardently desired her affections")
array ("an array of marvelous sights")
beatific ("with beatific grace")
bedecked ("shelves bedecked with all manner of curiosities")
beseech ("she beseeched him for his mercy")
cacophony ("their shrieks rose like a cacophony over the forest canopy")
chipper ("the chipper young lad winked precociously")
colorful ("colorful bottles stood like sentinels before the window")
exquisite ("exquisite pain filled his very soul")
gingerly ("the old man gingerly sprung to his feet")
harmonious ("a harmonious blend of aromas")
heavenly ("with heavenly grace she strode mildly into the room")
hellish ("these thoughts tormented her with hellish visions")
incessant ("the incessant beating of love's butterfly wings")
languorously ("the kudzu hung languorously from the willows")
lavish ("with lavish attention he bathed and fed the beast")
lively ("lively dancers filled the town square")
longingly ("longingly, they gazed upon the lake")
lovely ("the afternoon was lovely")
lugubrious ("bereft, the old woman lugubriously cried out for death's cold embrace")
lustrous ("her hair, like lustrous silk")
magnificent ("the sun's magnificent light")
mellifluous ("the streams mellifluous burbles")
melodically ("couples melodically swayed on the dance floor")
miraculous ("miraculous laughter filled the hall")
myriad ("a myriad of hues")
orgasmic ("with orgasmic delight and lustful betrayal")
panoply ("the panoply of taste sensations")
passionately ("Passionately, he sang the notes.")
pierces ("Anger pierces the silence")
prismatic ("Color prismatic crystalline visions festooned their sight")
radiant ("A radiant warmth expanded between them.")
2013
redolent ("the air was redolent with fragrance")

rhythmic ("the butterflies rhythmic beating of wings")
screeching ("hatred screeching incessantly")
smilingly ("smilingly, she entered the room")
soaring ("with soaring spirit")
sparkling ("the boy's eyes sparkled with youth")
splendid/splendiferous ("a splendiferous music awakened within")
sublime ("spring's sublime renewal")
tumultuous ("tumultuous thoughts raced through his head")
vibrant ("in the woodwind's vibrant tones")
vicious ("cruel intentions landed vicious insinuations upon him")
winsome ("she was a bashful but winsome young lass")
wonder/wondrous ("wondrous tears swelled within his being")

What Is Creative Writing

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What Is Creative Writing

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English 126: Creative Writing