Creative Writing vs Academic Wrting? An Essay

 

Creative and Academic writing, how to truly differentiate them?

 

Let’s suppose you are just starting your writing assignments for a scholarly article and a fantasy short story, and receive feedback from one of your teachers regarding the article. In it, you can read, “Your text is too critical and lacks descriptive paragraphs; consider adding creativity to your essay.” What then should you do? Are creative and academic writing really that different? How can you discern when to be creative and when to be concise? Which one is more important? Academic writing and creative writing differ in objectivity, audience, structure, and perspective, while sharing similarities in conventions, creativity, and topics. Academic writing is reliable for decision-making and academic progress, while creative writing excels at inventing fictional environments and inspiring others.

Academic writing and creative writing are different in terms of objectivity, intended audience, structure, conciseness, and perspectives. Savage & Shafiei (2007) underline the conciseness and coherence that any academic writing should have as a crucial feature. In order to carry out proper academic writing, they state that “good academic writers follow specific steps to make sure their writing is both clear and accurate” (Savage & Shafiei, 2007, p.12). Academic structure is more rigid and more carefully thought out than creative structure for the purpose of establishing credibility and readability; in order to do so, including evidence for academic purposes such as “facts, quotations, and statistics” (Muñoz, 2020, p.51) is advisable.

Additionally, the target audience is very different for both kinds of writing, considering the information delivered and the vocabulary used, as well as the perspectives and goals that each of them has; academic writing seeks to inform, persuade, and educate, while creative writing seeks to entertain and inspire (Mudarra, 2015). To illustrate, the structure followed by a postgraduate candidate in a medical research paper about the effects of benzene gas on the lungs and heart has to convey a clear message with proper evidence that supports every statement and a straightforward conclusion that will be read later by physicians, and medical decisions that affect patients’ lives may be taken from it. On the other hand, the structure followed by a fantasy story about a ghost can be loose; the writer can allow himself creative freedom to make up scenarios, theories, backgrounds, break some physics rules, or even create a world where these do not apply, etc. Resulting in a creative tale that will not be taken seriously, nor will decisions be made from it.

Nevertheless, academic and creative writing can share parallels, namely basic writing conventions, e.g., grammar, punctuation, spelling, creativity, and topics. In writing, authors, whether academic or creative, try their best to keep in mind all basic conventions in order to be understandable and avoid distracting or irritating the reader by misspelling or using wrong punctuation. Writing without basic writing conventions is a risky movement, even for creative writers, who risk being seen as newbies ridiculed for their grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, or unclear writing. There are instances where creative writers choose to follow some style guides that are used for academic writers as well; for example, “plenty of academic disciplines require students to write according to the Chicago Manual of Style, which also happens to be the most popular style guide for fiction and nonfiction books in the US” (Skaggs, 2024, p.1). Furthermore, an aspect that I personally find particularly interesting is the role of creativity in both academic and creative writing. One may believe that creativity is neither important nor necessary in scholarly publications, but it turns out that is actually the opposite: creativity is fundamental when writing, regardless of the category. Without creativity, academic texts would be a plain compilation of facts followed by rutinary conclusions that were achieved in the most mechanical way; even in academic environments, “decentering and creativity allow the “I” to give meaning to that (academic) writing practice” (Urtasun & Domínguez, 2020, p.99), enabling the reader to find creative approaches for his research, to derive interesting conclusions from his findings, and to be able to redact dynamically a paper meant to educate and persuade. Lastly, a given topic can be approached from various perspectives and angles in both academic and creative writing; a tomato is a prime illustration of this. Think about a tomato. What could you write about a tomato? If you want to proceed from an academic perspective, you might as well write about the tomato’s nutritional features, the tomato’s growing conditions, or the tomato’s strain. If, otherwise, you want to take a creative approach to your tomato, you may end up writing about a tomato that caused a war between two villages, the biography of a teacher very fond of the tomato, or a story about a tomato that wanted to be a strawberry.

Finally, there are specific situations where a type of writing takes precedence over the other; academic writing takes precedence when science progress is at stake and is reliable for decision-making circumstances. Oshima & Hogue (2007) stated in the most didactic way that “academic writing is the kind of writing used in high school and college (contexts)” (Oshima & Hogue, 2007, p.14), therefore, due to its importance, academic writing must be formal and rigorous. In contrast, creative writing excels when it comes to creating fictional environments, expressing feelings, or inspiring readers. Even personal writing, such as letters, journals, and e-mails, can be considered creative writing for its informal structure and the use of abbreviations, incomplete sentences, or slang. “Creative writing is the use of written language to conceptualise, explore and record experience in such a way as to create a unique symbolisation of it” (Marshall, 1974, p.11), and in this exploration, creative writing prevails by allowing writers to open themselves and let their artistic flow run.

To summarise, academic and creative writing are two well-defined branches in the writing field that are meant to work for different circumstances and meet divergent needs in our society. Academic writing and creative writing differ in objectivity, audience, structure, and perspective, while sharing similarities in basic writing conventions, creativity, and topics. Academic writing is developed for decision-making and scientific progress, while creative writing excels at inventing fictional environments, expressing emotions, and inspiring others. Understanding their differences and similarities is crucial in order to develop a well-thought-out piece of writing. It is time, then, to start this wonderful writing journey where you will be able to masterfully employ your creativity in your academic writing assignments, producing dynamic, descriptive, and concise texts, and where you will also be able to create appealing creative productions that will engage your readers.