What is Creative Writing without Creativity?!
By Elham Nosrati | May 27, 2018
Although the name creative writing has an emphasis on creativity and creativity is the base of art, there is a continuous trend of books published every year while hardly there is any trace of creativity in them.
Not that every published book does not have a sign of creativity in 2018, but a number of books praised do not contain any sort of creativity whatsoever. Sadly, there are stories out there that are written by creative writers who are not recognized as they should, maybe we as readers should ponder why this is happening?
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One reason is publishers who do not want to make changes to what they know would sell and do not want to risk their success by investing in a pure creative writing that is new to market. In fact, they are risking their future success with following the old trend and not going after what is true art.
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Readers who have forgotten the true art, with reading same stories in different context and with different author’s names on their covers, could also be a reason. It should be mentioned that same story can be told in thousands of creative ways without being stock in clichés. However today we see books in best seller lists that do not have the creativity professional readers are seeking for.
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Reviewers and criticizers also play a big role in regard to creativity in fiction writing. The question is why there are a number of books that are listed in certain reviewers’ lists while there is barely anything new and creative in them. While, on the other hand , creative and true art of a number of authors who do not have their names established yet is neglected. Out of which few would be recognized over time, if they can continue their persistence and manage to stay creative despite all ignorance they receive.
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Book agents have a big role in what is seen, heard and read by publishers, readers, reviewers and criticizers. History of creative writing and poetry implies thousands of big names that have struggled at their time by neglection they have received from the agents. Today unprofessional readers are not patient enough and this has persuaded many agents to vote on a book by few pages only, while no matter how good a book starts it might be stuck in cliches after a while. This has brought the risk that the slow and profound stories are not discovers as author never gets the chance by reader to introduce the profound base that he/she has made over the story. Inpatient readers will not be rewarded by the sweetness of a profound story, which has a strong base established over lines and time -without an over react, over done start in beginning of the story and no other creativity to present to readers over the story.
Although George Orwell was one and is one, there are creative authors who can amaze us by their art but are not recognized as they should. Maybe it is time for readers to ask publishers, agents and reviewers for a change. Art is creativity and as Paul Gauguin said, “art is either plagiarism or revolution.”