I always thought a piece of written content must be structured in such a way that it looks nice and that has a logical form from top to bottom. But does that apply to all types of writings?
Lately, I changed my mind and I think it doesn’t. Structured writing is very useful when you try to teach someone something or when you try to expose some arguments to convince someone about something. However, when it comes to creative writing, the beauty is not in the logic, but in the feelings.
The unstructured writing is based on feelings, which are exposed in a creative way. Logic has little to no place here. Think about the last time you watched a romantic movie. Which parts of it made you cry? The logical parts or the unstructured (almost chaotic) parts?
From all forms of writing, the best are those that share feelings and they cannot be shared with logic. I learned it the hard way.
…(5 minutes later)…
Oh, sorry! I got distracted! And I try not to feel guilty or to punish myself for letting myself get distracted while in the middle of writing a post. But guess what? That’s life! Distractions are everywhere and they are all making an impact on me, on us. Should we feel guilty?
Anyways, I hope that after each and every distraction you can find your path once again.
What kind of content do you enjoy the most?
Free expression sometimes works, but there must always be a structure there somewhere, even if the structure itself is idle dalliance, or a seemingly random series of thoughts. I think the ability to conceal obvious structure is a necessary adjunct to one’s development of a style. I enjoy honest content, whatever it may concern. A plethora of ‘influencer’ blogs just designed to make money are out there, but they are not for me!
Of course, there should be a structure, otherwise there are just words thrown randomly. However, I think that the focus should be on what that piece transmits, not on how it does it. What do you think?
Okay, on that level, certainly, although even the accepted concept of a sentence, or the parsing of a sentence, should always be open to question. In creative writing we don’t always know where we are going when we start to write, nor should we: our character gets on a bus. Where is he going? We don’t need to know – we write alongside him, we don’t always have to be looking in front. And then again, how do we know if what we write resonates with our reader the way we intended?
Very true and we don’t, but I think that if it resonates with us, it’s close enough to what it is expected from that piece. It’s all about the goal of that writing, I think.
Hmmm. I think we might have to agree to disagree. I recall vaguely – I wish it were more thoroughly – the comment of a poet (was it Shaw?) upon reading a critique of his latest work which interpreted his piece as a particular form of social comment. He rejoined: “Oh, so that was what I meant, was it?”
Fair point 🙂
Well put 🙂
Thank you!
I feel everyone has a distinct style of writing. It is like a fingerprint no two people have the same style.
Yes, very true!
Hope you are doing well, Bogdan😊
You too, Scherezade 🙂
I think it can be difficult sometimes to employ emotion into creative writing for me, but I know the emotion is what brings the story to life and what makes it a great story. I loved reading this post!
Thank you very much for reading! Yes, it’s hard to capture and transmit emotion through writing, but practice makes it better 🙂
Thanks for this piece 🙂 It’s a struggle for me to not concentrate on structure, and the rules that go with it. Awhile back I decided to just write more from my heart and less from “the book.” It felt very freeing. For me, the beauty is in the balance. Enough structure to transmit my intent with a plethora of feeling from the soul. Still working on that lol
Thank you very much for reading! It’s also so much pleasant to write from the heart 😀
I like this. It’s a nice read. I agree though. Creative writing comes from the heart mostly. You’re not here to write facts and statistics. You are hear god make readers call in love with your characters
Thank you very much for reading and for sharing your thoughts! <3
My problem is that I struggle with structured writing. I end up writing everything completely unstructured and when I first read it back, it’s a mess! Lucky we have second and third drafts XD.
But I completely agree. The structured parts are needed to push a narrative but it’s the unstructured parts that help reflect the chaotic parts of a character’s emotions. It helps so much with driving empathy, the reader will relate to the character better. Completely structured pieces are impersonal.