Freelance Content Writer, SEO Blogger, Ghostwriter – squareONE

Looking for a creative writing job is a great way to start your freelance writing side gig, earn some serious cash, and use your creative abilities productively.

Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash

Creative Writing Is…

Creative writing is about using your words to express ideas and human emotions while engaging in storytelling, poetry, or personal essay writing. The primary aim of creative writing is to express the mundane in an imaginative way that reflects the writer’s individuality. It includes fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, poetry, and scriptwriting.

A few essential elements of creative writing include layered and complex characters, not simply black or white but complex shades of grey. The more layered, the more believable. Dialogues need to sound natural and authentic; using phrases that people use while talking is a great way to add nuances to characters in the piece.

The setting is an integral part of any creative writing piece, and it is apparent from the get-go whether the writer knows it well. A detailed setting that gives the reader the feeling they are experiencing firsthand sets a good writer apart from a great one. The plot is essential to any creative writing piece because it will pull readers in and make them want to read it. Creating tension and conflict in the story helps keep readers engaged, and the writer will need to take a personal interest in creating believable turns and twists and adhere to what the characters would do according to their personality traits.

Revision is a key part of writing, especially in creative writing, where we often write from the heart with emotion. Your ideas should be succinct and clear to the reader, which can sometimes become muddled if you write too fast when you just want to jot down ideas quickly. Take the time to refine and perfect by editing and re-editing, and then have a final read to weed out any errors and improve expression and tone.

Creative Writing Skills

A creative writer needs several skills to help cement themselves into the role of a creative writer and master its art. If I had to pick three that are the most important when it comes to getting a headstart, it would be these:

1. Imagination

The most valuable asset of any creative writer is relying on their elaborate and rich imagination. I don’t mean just someone who can imagine things; you must create complex scenarios and tangents to stories to make them believable, so you could call it an extra over-active imagination. This will be required on every front when developing plot lines, characters, dialogues, conflicts, and even for settings where, as a creative writer, you will be pushing the boundaries. At certain moments in your writing, you will have to ‘let go,’ and not everyone can or is ready to do that. With time, creative writers become better at this skill, but you will need to enjoy this. If it is something you struggle with, then maybe creative writing is not for you, but you can pursue other freelance writing.

2. Empathy

Observing your surroundings and empathizing with your characters like they are real people is another important skill creative writers must have. They will need to have emotional intelligence and be able to step into the shoes of each of their characters and ask themselves what they would do and why they would do it. This results in a more layered depiction of characters and situations. It helps to create the story and will engage readers. Understanding human nature and researching certain things that are integral parts of the creative piece will also be required, and it is something that the writer should take an interest in because they will be doing it quite a bit.

3. Revising

Any writer should be able to go back and edit their work, but creative writers will need to pick apart certain aspects of what they have written to see if it comes across naturally and if things flow in a believable sequence. A creative writer will go through many drafts before they get to a final version of what they think is acceptable to submit. With this, I will add that a creative writer will need a thick skin because an editor may pick apart the characters they create, and they will have to take that criticism and be able to accept the edits or defend them as the case may be.

Where can you find Creative Writing Jobs?

Many job boards cater to creative writing freelancers. Still, a few of the most well-known and legitimate boards are Pro-blogger, Mediabistro, Upwork, and The Freelancers Writers Den, which has a paid membership plan. If you are just starting, I would suggest Pro-blogger, Mediabistro, and Upwork before you get into a paid membership.

So what are you waiting for?

Originally published for New Writers Welcome on Medium on October 29, 2024.