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Encouraging Creative Writing

by Kate Wicker in Family on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 6:00 AM

Flannery O’Connor, who was both a brilliant writer and faithful Catholic, once said, “I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”

As a writer, sometimes the most difficult part of the process is starting. Too often my adult sensibility gets in the way of my creativity.

Yet, children have no problem recognizing or telling a good story. One of my side jobs is teaching creative writing to little ones, and these budding writers inspire me far more than I inspire them. They’ve written stories about twin sisters releasing candles into the sea mist and man-eating blueberry muffins. Kids are brimming with creativity. Telling a story is still easy for them.  As parents, we need to do what we can to not let that change.

Here, four tips to hatch a lifelong writer:

1. Encourage your child to write. This sounds like a no-brainer, but sometimes we may think we’re encouraging our child when we’re doing just the opposite. Let’s say your child reads you a story that really doesn’t make logical sense. Or maybe your child always writes about a magical world and nothing else. It’s tempting to point out that this or that doesn’t make sense or to ask your child to write about something different for a change. You might feel your words are innocuous, but kids are sensitive muses, and we have to be careful when looking at their works in progress.

2. Never forget: Your child is creative. Not all children are destined to be Shakespeares or Flannery O’Connors, but all children are creative.

While some seem to drift through life with their heads in the clouds where there’s no dearth of dreamy ideas, you might have to point your more “grounded,” logical children in the direction of heaven. Barbara Ueland, a writer, writing teacher, and author of If You Want to Write, suggests the creative power (or the creative impulse to be creative) that we all possess is actually the Holy Spirit.

Similarly, William Blake said, “Imagination is the Divine Body in every man.” Just as we sometimes begin to see the world through a secular lens and neglect the supernatural (AKA divine) forces in our life, Ueland says our creativity is “inhibited and dried up by many things – by criticism, self-doubt, duty, nervous fear which expresses itself in merely external action like running up and downstairs and scratching items off lists and thinking you are being efficient; by anxiety about making a living, by fear of not excelling.”

Try not to be so focused on what your child writes that you gloss over the fact that she is writing and trying to listen to her inner muse. Otherwise, she may start to think of writing as a chore instead of a means of listening to the Holy Spirit and a way of expressing her “creative power.”

Consider having a creative writing time when he can write about anything and doesn’t have to worry about the way things are spelled. Then concentrate on composition, the art of constructing a paragraph, grammar, syntax, etc. during a different writing session.

3. Use a timer with reluctant writers. If your child seems reluctant to write, tell him you’re going to set a timer for five minutes (or whatever time you deem appropriate given her inclination to write, attention span, etc.) and have him free write. This means your child should write whatever is on her mind. There are no rules other than the fact that she must write until the timer buzzes. She can make a list. She can describe the way the pencil feels in her hand or the weather outside. She can write a poem or a song. What she writes isn’t nearly as important as the fact that she’s writing. The more your child uses his creative power (by writing what’s on his heart and mind instead of constantly completing formal writing assignments), the more he’ll have.

Writing will also get easier. Think of creativity in terms of an athlete. An athlete has to train and warm up her muscles to play at the top of her game. Likewise, writing exercises help your child strengthen his creative “muscles.” Of course, even the greatest athletes play a bad game every once in awhile. Writer’s block is sometimes inevitable, but your child can work through it by free writing or perhaps clustering.

A mini cassette tape recorder may come in handy, especially for children who are still struggling with penmanship. Encourage kids to tell their story first into a tape recorder and then to write it down after they have their thoughts organized. Similarly, a child who writes something but later has trouble ciphering her scribble might benefit from writing their story and then immediately reading it out loud into a tape recorder when the story is still fresh on her mind. Then she can re-write it more neatly later.

4. Read great works. By exposing your children to great literary works, you’re not only showing them what it means to tell a timeless story, but you’re allowing them to see beauty. This will not only help them to be better writers, but better human beings as well. Laura Berquist, an expert on classical education, says, “If children love the beautiful, they will love truth, as truth, when they are older.”

*Stay tuned for a future feature on creative writing exercises for kids.

—Kate Wicker still writes because her parents never squashed her creativity even when she wrote really weird stories about talking pugs vying for world dominance. She blogs at KateWicker.com.

Resources:

• Funds for Writers
• Kids on the Net
• Stone Soup

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