The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

116 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 3 of one author, Suzanne Collins, and it was her creative energy that flowed onto those pages. Suzanne Collins and her work are just a small portion of the greater genre known as creative writing. Creative writing is a form of writing that usually goes outside the normal realms of writing, whether that is professional, journalistic, academic, or technical. It can come in many different forms including poetry, plays, movie scripts, songs, speeches, and fiction. The purpose of creative writing is both to entertain and share human experience. Much like what Collins did in the Hunger Games series when she thought up Katniss and the world of Panem, creative writers are able to share their own views through the power of their creative expression. Creative writing also brings along with it a variety of literary devices including character developments, theme, conflict, plot formation, dialogue, metaphors, anecdotes, and emotional appeal (Tate 181- 183). Clearly, creative writing is a much bigger genre than many people consider it. Unfortunately, just as the people of Panem at the beginning of The Hunger Games were settled with the idea that there was no value in their own freedom, many people see creative writing as not valuable and are choosing to not show their creativity in this manner. A survey of Cedarville University students scored a five or under when polled if they liked creative writing or enjoyed writing for pleasure (Composition Course Survey). In addition, William Dell makes the poignant observation in his article “Creative Writing in the English Classroom” that the reason more and more is being written on promoting creative writing in the classroom is because of student’s lackluster attitudes toward it. Dell points out that this is due to the fact that people fear negative criticism from both their teachers and their peers (500). Even when creative writing does occur, there is a great deal of discussion about its lack of quality, the underwhelming attitudes of the audience for it, and how the two are tired together (Dell 28). Ron McFarland makes this claim specifically about the creative writing genre of poetry in his article, “An Apologia for Creative Writing” that even teachers are hesitant to encourage the practice of creative writing in their classrooms (45). Douglas Hesse writes in his article “The Place of Creative Writing in Compositional Studies,” that creative writing in academia is considered an “elephant-making machine” because it makes students fall in love with something that the majority of them will not be excelled enough in to make a living (32). With such