Importance of Creative writing in this Digital age of blogging

I was an avid reader all through my life, during my engineering and MBA, reading some pages from my favourite books helped to rewind. Reading them I had always dreamt to write and design one of my own books someday. I even had a blog back then where I would find my solace writing my thoughts. Fast forward to 2016, while being pregnant– all the pregnancy books made so much sense to me that I wanted to write one too post my delivery. But I rather chose to start my parenting blog in 2017 and kept aside my long-term dream to nurture my little one who was my priority at that moment. Somewhere down I felt that I lack a sense of creative writing as I never have been a good storyteller. Creative writing in blogging can give you that magical power to ace in this digital world of blogging or a writer in future.

Importance of Creative writing 

Like all budding bloggers, I too wanted to grow, give time to my blog and the much-needed love it deserved. So I joined the creative writing course by Blogchatter to know more and gain some experience. Well, there was nothing to lose as it was for free. Also, I felt that its time to acquire some formal training and hone my skills for creative writing.  And this Creative Writing Course by Blogchatter was something I was looking for.

The program is well defined, and we are provided with a platform full of resources by some of the known personalities in the field. As a blogger and an aspiring writer, my main objectives of doing this creative writing course with Blogchatter are mainly

• Learning the basics and nuances of creative writing
• Improving and strengthening my writing
• Understand the technicalities involved in various aspects of writing
• Applying the learning and skills acquired to make my work better

My learnings from Creative writing course by Blogchatter

The biggest learning has been the exposure to various Niches and genres of writings. The festival had people from various Niches sharing their experiences and learnings. As a writer, one needs to have a wide spectrum of knowledge to be able to deliver something unique yet entertaining for their audience. So while the learnings which the massive amount of information coming from all directions, I tried to grab the maximum out of it. So today, I am sharing some of the key learning here which will help you to add that Creative writing in your blogging.

Editing the Manuscript with aplomb by Samarpita

• Getting a professional editor for your book is really important. Though your family and friends may help they might not be as critical and experiences in your genre.
• While selecting your editor, one should always look at his own work to understand that the said person is a good writer. Also looking into their portfolio and if required talking to previous clients. This will help to understand the quality and value which was added to their project.
• To save on time and get the real value to add before submitted your Manuscript always do some basic level of checking like grammar and spell check. This will help the editor to focus more on the important aspects of check and provide inputs on the charter building and plot of the Manuscript well
• The entire process of running the Manuscript with an editor can definitely add value, especially when you are writing fiction and stuck with climax or building any character. The editor may suggest basis a second or third eye and help improve the overall readability and quality of the book.
• She also highlighted that to gain maximum benefit from an editor or a beta reader, one should be open to accepting constructive criticism as well. A writer should be able to accept it with an open mind as there could be chances when one need to re-write certain positions or chapter or modify the sequence of events. As the Editor understands the pulse of the market better than the Author and less than a publisher, it is important to be supportive.

Creative Writing by Dipankar Mukherjee

Dipankar Mukherjee talked on Creative writing in fictional writing. According to him the creative writing is done for the entertainment of the audience and has basically 4 parts- Plot, Characters, Settings and Element

• THEME- He explained how selecting the right theme is important to get recognition. When there are over thousands of books published every year, we need to find what stands out in our writings and basic of our experience we need to choose the theme. This experience could be self gained, through other experience, gained over various readings etc. One should deliver what is unique about them and decide on the theme.
• ELEMENTS- He also talked about the elements in writing i.e Plot and characters and how our focus on any of these changes the pace of the book. It was insightful to understand how the adding layers to your sentences can add drama and slow down the pace,
• PLOT- it was again insightful to learn about ‘The eight-point arc method’ for writing’ which has standard structures to help you with the basics of levels of plotting, characterisation which are essential for creating a sound foundation of any fiction.
• CHARACTERS- It is essential t understand the conflicts between characters. These conflicts could be positive or negative as well. Understanding of these conflicts helps in better characterisation and add to the back story which makes it relatable to readers.  

Rewriting by Kanchana Banerjee

• Kanchana focused on the rewriting part of her second book. When she faced rejection of her Manuscript by her publisher of the first book, she decided to rewrite the book. Though the skeleton was the same, she had changed the entire book including modification and deleting some of the characters. She explained that it did bring her some negativity but one should never take it personally and stop improving. 
• She suggested the book ‘Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson’ which helped her get a new perspective for rewriting with steps to fix and change the plot. Clearly reading some popular and best sellers of the same genre help to understand plotting and structure. And its always better to make a fair assessment and check where you are going wrong and improve yourself. 

Indian Style of writing by Anand Neelakantan

• This was truly an inspiring session. Here Anand Neelakantan talked about how he follows Indian style of writing with all the 9 rasas i.e 9 emotions as per Indian Mythology.
• His style of writing is basically visual, he writes for the big screen. Quite contrary to the character and plot style of English writing, he believes that a human has far more emotions which should be displayed. It was interesting to know how he would add 5-6 emotions in one chapter. Something definitely worth it for improving your storytelling experience and adding Creative writing in blogging or any other forms of writings.

Personal Branding with Kiran Manral

• In this digital age, only writing and waiting for your work to speak for yourself doesn’t help much.  And the session by Kiran Manral’s on personal branding and social media is what we all need today.
• She talked on how we need to blow our own horn/trumpet and talk about our own achievements ourselves. And how we can use Social media in our favour and get people to buy our books and read our stuff.
• It was also discussed how Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be used to promote your content or create a buzz in a good way.

Though I am still far from getting my book published, I believe the tips would definitely help in my blog promotions and I hope to make the maximum use of all the discussion that happened.