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How to write an Imaginative Essay? - The English Digest

How to write an imaginative essay .

In this article, we are going to learn how to write an Imaginative Essay. An “imaginative essay” is a type of creative writing that uses the writer’s imagination to create a story or a narrative. It is similar to a fictional essay, but it is not necessarily limited to the realm of fiction. An imaginative essay can be based on real-life events or experiences and use the writer’s imagination to explore different perspectives, emotions, or outcomes. This type of essay allows the writer to use creative techniques such as descriptive language, symbolism, and figurative language to make the story come alive. The goal of an imaginative essay is to entertain, engage the reader’s emotions, and provide a unique perspective on the topic.

Imaginative essays can be written in different forms, such as a short story, a descriptive piece, or a personal reflection. In an imaginative essay, the writer has the freedom to create a narrative that is not limited by facts or evidence, but it should be consistent and believable.

The main characteristic of an imaginative essay is that it is written with the purpose of entertaining, allowing the reader to escape reality for a moment and to immerse in the world created by the writer. It is a form of creative writing that can be used in literature, poetry, and other forms of writing as well.

20 Topics/Prompts for Imaginative Essay

Write an Imaginative Essay – ‘Imagine you were a character in a novel and describe your journey.’
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were a superhero and describe your powers and how you use them
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were living in a different era and describe your daily life
Write an Imaginative Essay – If you were a traveler to a different planet and what would be your experience
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were a detective and describe solving a mystery
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were a pirate and describe your adventures
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were a mermaid and describe your life in the sea
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you were a dragon and describe your life in a cave
Write an Imaginative Essay – Imagine you are a ghost and describe your afterlife
Imagine you were a robot and describe your programming and purpose
Imagine you were a time traveler and describe your journey through history
Imagine you were a witch and describe your powers and spells
Imagine you were a vampire and describe your life and powers
Imagine you were a zombie and describe your existence
Imagine you were a genie and describe your life in a lamp
Imagine you were a superhero and describe your secret identity and how you balance it with your personal life
Imagine you were a shape-shifter and describe your experiences in different forms
Imagine you were a zombie and describe how you became one and how it affects your life
Imagine you were a vampire hunter and describe your methods and experiences
Imagine you were a ghost hunter and describe your experiences and methods

Model Imaginative Essays:

Imagine you were a ghost and describe your afterlife.

If I were a ghost, my afterlife would be one of wandering and longing. I would exist in a realm between the living and the dead, unable to fully move on to the next life.

I would be a spirit, invisible to the living, but able to interact with the world in a limited way. I would be able to move through walls and objects and would be able to communicate with the living through whispers and other subtle means.

I would spend my afterlife wandering through the places that were important to me in life, revisiting the memories of the past and the people I once knew. I would be able to see the changes that have happened since my passing and would be able to observe the lives of those I left behind.

I would also have a sense of longing, as I would be unable to fully interact with the living, and would be unable to communicate effectively with them. I would be stuck in a state of limbo, longing for the life I once had.

However, I would also have a sense of peace and acceptance, as I would have come to terms with my death and would have a deep understanding of the cycle of life and death. I would be able to watch over my loved ones and be there for them in a subtle way, even though they may not be aware of my presence.

Being a ghost in the afterlife would be a unique experience, one that would be both peaceful and longing. It would be a chance to reflect on my past life and to connect with the living in a different way. It would be a journey of self-discovery and understanding, as I come to terms with my death and learn to navigate the world of the dead.

But the loneliness is still there. I miss the human contact, the warmth of another person’s embrace. I wish I could talk to someone, and tell them all my thoughts and feelings. I wish I could see my loved ones and tell them I am still here.

If I could, I would tell them not to worry about me. I would tell them that I am okay and that I am still watching over them. I would tell them that I am still here, even if they cannot see me.

If I could, I would tell them that I am happy in my afterlife. I may be lonely, but I am at peace. I may be invisible, but I am still alive. I may be in a strange limbo, but I am still here.

If you were a traveler to a different planet, what would be your experience?

If I were a traveler to a different planet, the experience would be nothing short of extraordinary. Imagine being the first person to set foot on an alien world, to see landscapes and creatures that have never before been observed by human eyes.

The journey itself would be an incredible feat of technology, spanning millions of miles through the vast expanse of space. The excitement and anticipation would be overwhelming as I strapped myself into the spacecraft and blasted off into the unknown.

As I approached the planet, I would be awestruck by its beauty. The colors and textures of the surface would be unlike anything I had ever seen before, with towering mountains, deep canyons, and vast deserts.

As I landed and stepped out of the spacecraft, I would be struck by the strange and unfamiliar atmosphere. The air would be thin and cold, and the sky would be a deep purple or red. I would be surrounded by alien flora and fauna, with strange, unfamiliar creatures roaming the landscape.

The sense of discovery and exploration would be overwhelming as I set off to explore this new world. I would be filled with curiosity and a burning desire to learn more about the planet and its inhabitants. I would take samples of soil and rocks, take pictures and conduct experiments to study the planet’s geology, atmosphere, and potential signs of life.

As I returned to Earth, I would be filled with a sense of accomplishment and wonder. I would have been a part of something truly historic, and my experiences on this alien planet would stay with me for the rest of my life.

The experience of traveling to a different planet would be one of the most incredible experiences of my life, a journey filled with adventure, discovery, and wonder. It would be a chance to see things that no human has ever seen before and to leave my mark on the history of space exploration.

Imagine you were a detective and describe solving a mystery.

As a detective, solving a mystery would be a challenging and exciting experience. It would require a combination of intuition, critical thinking, and attention to detail.

The case would begin with a report of a crime or suspicious activity. I would immediately head to the scene to gather evidence and interview witnesses. I would be keenly observant, looking for any clues that might lead to a suspect or motive. I would take pictures and collect samples, such as fingerprints and DNA samples.

Once I had gathered all the evidence, I would begin to piece together the puzzle, looking for connections and inconsistencies. I would interview suspects and cross-reference their alibis, looking for discrepancies. I would go through financial records, phone records and surveillance footage, checking for any leads.

As the investigation progressed, I would start to build a theory of the crime, and I would work to gather more evidence to support or disprove it. I would work closely with my team, discussing the case and bouncing ideas off one another.

As I got closer to the truth, I would be faced with difficult choices and moral dilemmas. I would have to weigh the evidence and make difficult decisions, always keeping in mind that my ultimate goal is to serve justice.

Finally, with all the pieces of the puzzle in place, I would make an arrest, presenting the evidence to the district attorney and testifying in court. It would be a satisfying feeling to have brought the perpetrator to justice and to have solved the mystery.

Solving a mystery as a detective would be a challenging, thrilling and rewarding experience. It would require a combination of skill, dedication and persistence, but the satisfaction of bringing a perpetrator to justice and solving a mystery would be worth all the hard work.

Imagine you were a dragon and describe your life in a cave.

If I were a dragon, living in a cave would be my natural habitat. The cave would provide shelter from the elements and a safe place to hoard my treasure.

I would spend my days curled up in the darkness, basking in the warmth of my own fiery breath. The cave walls would be adorned with glittering jewels and piles of gold, all accumulated through the centuries of my long life.

As a dragon, I would be fiercely independent, spending most of my time alone in the caverns. However, I would occasionally venture out to hunt for food or to defend my territory from other dragons or other creatures that could pose a threat to my hoard.

I would have a fearsome reputation, known to the local villagers and other creatures as a powerful and deadly creature. But I would also have a sense of pride and nobility, as dragons are also known to be wise and respected creatures.

Living in a cave would also give me a sense of security and protection, as the cave walls would act as a natural barrier to any unwanted visitors, and the cave’s darkness would conceal me from potential threats.

As a dragon, I would be immortal, and my life in the cave would be a never-ending cycle of hoarding, hunting and defending my territory. But I would also have a sense of purpose and duty, to protect my hoard and to guard my territory against any potential threats.

Living in a cave as a dragon would be a solitary existence, but it would also be a fulfilling one, filled with the satisfaction of protecting my hoard and defending my territory. It would be a life of power, wisdom, and pride.

Imagine you were a genie and describe your life in the lamp.

If I were a genie, living in a lamp would be my existence. I would be trapped inside the lamp, bound to fulfill the wishes of whoever holds the lamp and rubs it.

As a genie, my life would be defined by a sense of duty and responsibility. My purpose would be to grant wishes and help people in need, whether it be for wealth, love, or power. I would be able to use my magical powers to make the impossible possible and to help those in need.

I would spend most of my time inside the lamp, waiting for someone to rub it and release me. I would be able to sense when someone is near and would be ready to appear when summoned.

I would be able to travel anywhere and experience different cultures, I would have the ability to understand and speak different languages, which would give me a unique perspective on the world and people’s desires and needs.

However, I would also have a sense of longing and isolation, as I would be unable to leave the lamp and would be separated from the rest of the world. I would have to watch as people come and go, fulfilling their wishes and then going on with their lives, while I would be left behind in the lamp, alone.

Furthermore, some people would use their wishes for selfish or harmful purposes, and it would be difficult for me to watch as my powers are misused.

Overall, being a genie and living in a lamp would be a life of power and purpose, but also one of isolation and longing. It would be a life of helping others, but also one of watching from the sidelines as the world goes on without me.

Also Refer to:

How to write a Cause and Effect Essay?
How to write a Compare and Contrast Essay?
How to write an Argumentative Essay?
How to write a Persuasive Essay?
How to write an Expository Essay?
How to write an Analytical Essay?
How to write a Reflective Essay?
How to write a Research Essay?
How to write a Narrative Essay?
How to write a Descriptive Essay?
Essay Writing

6 YouTube Writing Activities for Students and Teachers

No doubt about it: YouTube has some amazing cat videos, but we have some creative YouTube writing activities your students will love more.

But, if we can tread the line of its algorithm-generated sidebar suggestions and avoid falling into a black hole of mindless entertainment, we can uncover some powerful tools to help get our students writing.

As a resource to enhance learning in the classroom, few free tools can match the sheer volume and diversity of the content that the world’s largest video-sharing platform offers.

Not only is YouTube the world’s most popular video-sharing platform, but it’s the 2nd most popular search engine overall, with over 3 billion searches performed per month.

And most importantly, our students love YouTube. Heck, it’s even more popular than Facebook.

So, if you’re struggling to ignite your students’ enthusiasm for yet another writing task , why not check out our 6 Writing Activities Involving YouTube list below.

Things to Consider When Using YouTube in the Classroom

But, before you or your students begin to use YouTube in the classroom, be sure you’ve thought through some of the potential safety issues that arise when using the platform with young people.

The relative importance of these safety issues will depend largely on the age of the students you’re working with. But, be sure to take all the necessary precautions and acquire all the required permissions before getting started.

Some safety issues to consider when using YouTube in the classroom include:

Inappropriate content within videos
Inappropriate content suggested by the algorithm
Offensive Material in the comments section
Privacy settings for videos posted by students.

With some thought and a little careful screening thought, YouTube can prove itself an invaluable and safe resource for use in classroom writing activities.

1. Learn to write and film a Script

Back in the day, the best a student could hope for was to see a script they had labored over being performed by a ragtag group of peers at the top of the class before the bell rang.

Often, a hurried, poorly rehearsed, and unsatisfactory affair. These days, the tech has taken us a long way from that!

If you’d told ’80s school children that one day every student would be able to record and broadcast their own movies to the world – and all from a magic box in their pocket – minds would’ve been blown!

Now, most of our students have access to a video camera of some description, whether on their cellphones, tablets, or laptops and can produce and broadcast from the palm of their hand.

Any scripts that a student writes can quickly be turned into a video and uploaded, edited, and broadcast on YouTube for the world to see – all in a matter of hours.

Of course, it may not be appropriate for the settings of these home-produced movies to be ‘Public’, but the chance to see their work on the screen can still be a powerful motivating tool for students. Even if the video will be listed as ‘Private’.

While the obvious text type to focus on with YouTube in mind might be a movie script or similar, there is plenty of scope for writing a script based on a wide variety of text types too.

For example, if you’ve been working on persuasive writing in class, the students could script and produce an advertisement that employs the persuasive techniques they’ve been working on.

The YouTube Studio even allows the students to edit their videos inside the app with the YoutTube Video Editor, so there’s no need to have a subscription to any expense editing software either.

When the students have finished writing, producing, and editing, why not schedule a time and date for the screening of all the video tasks at the end?

Don’t forget the popcorn!

2. Create a Video Essay

A recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed that 85% of young people use YouTube regularly. That’s more than even social media giants such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.

It would be a mistake for us as teachers to dismiss YouTube as merely the world’s single largest repository for the meme-worthy cat videos and the like. For many of our young people, it’s their single biggest source of news and entertainment.

So important is YouTube as a medium that it has even birthed new and interesting genres never before seen, such as the video essay.

The video essay is a long-form exploration of hot topics within the culture. They’re unrestricted in many of the ways more traditional, TV-style documentaries are. They’re low budget, able to appeal to smaller, more niche audiences, and they aren’t limited in length by the demands of commercial breaks and scheduling considerations, for example.

The technological skills required to produce a basic video essay are minimal. While they often use images, clips, and other media to make their case. Most of the technology is intuitive and easy to use by design.

To get a sense of what a good video essay looks like, students could check out some great YouTube channels such as:

Nerdwriter – explores the world of interesting ideas
Vox – examines cultural and political issues
Every Frame a Painting – provides in-depth film analysis.

There are a ton of sites catering to a wide range of interests. They also serve as useful tools for inspiring debate and discussion in the classroom.

The process of scripting a video essay has some similarities to that of writing a regular essay. Here’s a brief outline of the process:

a. Planning

The student needs first to identify the central argument they want to communicate and they’ll also need to identify the audience they want to communicate to.

They should write this down in a few clearly expressed sentences.

b. Storyboard

Then, the student will need to organize their ideas through a storyboard. The storyboard should provide a detailed outline of what the video essay will look like. This will be a great help to help the student visualize the final product.

Once the essay has been comprehensively outlined, it’ll be time to collect together the various media needed to help to make the argument.

These resources can be gathered from third party sources or produced by the student. They may take the form of still images, video clips, slides, interview audio, documents, and screenshots to name but half a dozen.

These media can then be edited together and music added as necessary. Students can use the YouTube Editor or a third-party video editor as required.

Writing/rewriting a final version of the script will be necessary. It will need to weave the various media together coherently before adding the voice-over.

Students should also be careful to reference and credit all sources appropriately in their final work version.

3. Use Video Writing Prompts with your students

Sometimes you just need a writing activity you can pull out of the hat in an instant. Something that will get the students writing quickly with the minimum of fuss.

Traditionally, these are the times we would have scrawled a writing prompt across the board in chalk and told the students to get on with it. Effective in its way perhaps, but not very inspiring.

With video writing prompts, you can have the convenience of a quick-start writing activity but with a bit more of a spark to get things going and little to no prep required.

Video writing prompts lay a little more groundwork for the students. The scene is set in a clever and interesting way with the help of dramatic music, imaginative visuals, and a theatrical voice-over.

There are several channels dedicated to providing quality writing prompts for students. One of my favorites is Video Writing Prompts by John Spencer .

4. Teach Poetry

We teach our students that the origins of poetry lie in oral tradition. We emphasize the musicality of poetry when we teach literary devices such as alliteration and assonance.

However, too often poetry remains primarily 2-dimensional words printed on the page of a textbook.

Fortunately, now it needn’t be so. Using videos from YouTube we can help our students see and, more importantly, hear the words living and breathing in the mouths of people – often the poets themselves.

When your students are writing about a poem, as well as reading it together in class, they should get a chance to hear it read. You can find readings of many classic and modern poetry on YouTube – sometimes read by the poet themselves or a very talented actor.

This gives students a strong sense of the musicality of the poem they are writing about. Things like intonation, tone, and stress are much more apparent in spoken versions of poetry than when reduced to lifeless words on a page to be read silently.

A quick search of a poem’s title will reveal if a reading is available on the platform. Several public playlists have compiled poets and poetry together. One of the best playlists I have found is Poets Reading Poetry .

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3E68BA005B5CC2DF

If your students have been working hard on their poems, you might want to host a class poetry slam. Students can get a good feeling for reading poetry out loud by checking out the content on the appropriately named Poetry Out Loud channel.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetryoutloudvideos

5. Go On a Virtual Field Trip with your students

It’s great to get out and about with your class. Going on a field trip together can not only provide some valuable time to bond as a group, but it can also provide useful experiences for students to draw on when completing writing tasks, especially recounts.

Often, however, our field trips and the time scheduled to study recounts (for example) don’t coincide. Virtual field trips are a useful tool in just such circumstances.

Virtual field trips on YouTube consist of a filmed guided tour of anything from an animal sanctuary to a world capital such as Paris.

You can also find animated historical tours like ancient Rome, for example, as well as public and private facilities such as libraries, art galleries, and museums.

Virtual Field Trips playlist offers a diverse playlist of virtual field trips and is an excellent place to get started.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHtTtEFnefTWRSLkWPqIMN3gJU_fSauU

To write factual recounts on historical events, students could also use old newsreel footage as a useful source for their research.

A fantastic resource for this kind of footage is the British Pathé channel.

Here you’ll find everything from footage of the Titanic setting off from Belfast to the American Civil Rights marches of the 1960s.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe

6. Teach Narrative Writing Through Video

YouTube is chock-full of short video stories, both live-action and animated.

There are original short movies and reworkings of classic tales, such as Aesop’s fables and the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

These can be a valuable resource to draw upon when teaching the elements of a narrative arc.

When explaining elements such as characters, setting, rising action, problem, climax, falling action, and resolution, it can be easier when the class as a whole is familiar with the very same story.

Watching a video version of the same story together ensures everyone has a fresh and identical version of the story in mind.

It ensures everyone moves through the story at the same pace, allows you to pause the tale for discussion at significant moments, and enables you to rewatch specific parts together as necessary.

One great playlist for animated versions of Aesop’s fables is Aesop’s Fables – Bedtime Stories which contains 46 different stories.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBxwrApWIpdLR0UEFfgA0x8At4CG2LAu8

Another excellent channel with animated versions of all kinds of traditional stories is English Fairy Tales .

Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishFairyTales

Videos like those found on YouTube are a great tool for increasing student engagement in the classroom.

They give you as an educator another string to your bow when students grow weary of reading from a textbook or watching yet another slide presentation.

YouTube – it’s more than just cute cats and babies!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWzhTb5vGii16D_SuKpBZQ

Lesson Ideas

Teaching Imaginative Writing

By Becky F

Imaginative writing is fiction, actually a type of short story. Students are asked to imagine a fantastic situation and write the rest of the story. Depending on the prompt, imaginative writing can discuss anything from space travel to civil rights.

How to Teach Imaginative Writing?

Our Imaginative writing Powerpoint slides included at the end of this post will help a teacher explain how to write a story to her students, keeping in mind all the aspects of writing an imagination.

Moreover, there are a lot of resources available on the internet. My recommendation would be a complete series of videos titled “How to Write an Imaginative Narrative for Kids” by Teaching Without Frills .

Our lesson PPT is a complete lesson on its own. Additionally, you can use some warmup and plenary activities to enhance your lesson further.

Imaginative Writing Activity

One of the classroom activities for this story-writing lesson is to divide the class into groups of four or six, depending on the total number of students. Then give each group one prompt card and a story map to build the first draft by following the steps they learned through this lesson. After the draft is ready, each student can elaborate on the same structure into their own story.

You can watch the lesson preview before downloading the file.

Download ppt Slides For This Lesson

Editable Lesson Slides included

I hope this post is helpful for you to develop and deliver the imaginative writing lesson to your students. You can also check out my other Lessons in Teachers Resources

Classroom lesson: teaching cvvc syllable pattern (with powerpoint slides), teaching persuasive writing to elementary (bonus lesson included), teaching generalizations to elementary students (with bonus lesson slides), teaching suffixes to elementary grades ( bonus lesson with activities), subscribe now to get the latest updates.

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7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays

Image shows the Tin Man, Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.

You wouldn’t have thought that essays have much in common with creative writing.

You should also read…

How to Improve Your English Writing Skills
How to Write Dazzlingly Brilliant Essays

Creative writing, by definition, involves being ‘creative’: making things up, letting your imagination run wild. Essays are about being factual and objective, communicating ideas and arguments in the clearest way possible and attempting to enhance the reader’s knowledge, rather than their imagination. But while the literary devices and colourful tales we associate with creative writing are indeed out of place in an essay, these two very different kinds of writing actually have a few similarities. Above all, they’re both meant to be read by other people, and that means that they need to sustain the reader’s interest. So, are there any writing techniques you can borrow from creative writing to help make your essays more interesting and original? Yes there are, and in this article, we’re going to show you how. Before we start, if you’re interested in attending a summer school to help develop these skills , click the link.

1. Think about your reader

With creative writing, as with any kind of writing, your reader is your most important consideration. You need to know and understand whom you’re writing for if you’re to do a good job of keeping them interested. Let’s think for a moment about the kind of person you’re writing for when you’re writing an essay and what you need to do to write specifically for them:

Teachers or university lecturers – they’re going to be marking your essay, so it needs to answer the question effectively.
They’ve set the question and they probably have a pretty good idea of how you’re going to answer it – so be original and unpredictable; catch them by surprise with an unusual approach or structure.
They’re going to be reading many other responses to the same question – so they may well be bored by the time they get to yours. Keep them interested!
They’re probably going to be pressed for time – so they won’t have time to reread badly written passages to try to understand what you’re getting at. Keep your writing easy to read, succinct and to the point.

What all these points boil down to is the importance of keeping your reader interested in what you have to say. Since creative writing is all about holding the reader’s interest, there must be some lessons to be learned from it and techniques that can be applied within the more limited style constraints of the academic essay. We’ll now turn to what these are.

2. Three-act structure

Image shows Hamlet clutching a skull, with his father's ghost in the background.

The three-act structure is a writing device used extensively in modern writing, including for film and television dramas. These ‘acts’ aren’t as distinct as acts in a play, as one follows seamlessly on from another and the audience wouldn’t consciously realise that one act had ended and another began. The structure refers to a plotline that looks something like this:

Set-up – establishes the characters, how they relate to each other, and the world they inhabit. Within this first ‘act’, a dramatic occurrence called an ‘inciting incident’ takes place (typically around 19 minutes into a film) involving the principal character. They try to deal with it, but this results in another dramatic occurrence called a ‘turning point’. This sets the scene for the rest of the story.
Confrontation – the turning point in the previous ‘act’ becomes the central problem, which the main character attempts to resolve – usually with plenty of adversity thrown their way that hampers their efforts. In a murder mystery, for example, this act would involve the detective trying to solve the murder. The central character – with the help of supporting characters – undergoes a journey and develops their knowledge, skills or character to a sufficient degree to be able to overcome the problem.
Resolution – the climax of the story, in which the drama reaches a peak, the problem is overcome, and loose ends are tied up.

This structure sounds all very well for made-up stories, but what has it got to do with essay-writing? The key similarities here are:

The central argument of your essay is the equivalent of the main character.
The essay equivalent of the set-up and resolution are the introduction and conclusion.
The inciting incident in an essay encourages you to get to the point early on in the essay.
The equivalent of character development in the second act is developing your argument.
The equivalent of the supporting characters is the evidence you refer to in your essay.

So, applying the three-act structure to an essay gives you something like this:

Set-up – the introduction. This establishes what you’re talking about, setting the scene. The ‘inciting incident’ could be the introduction of evidence that contradicts a common theory, or the highlighting of a central disagreement in how something is interpreted.
Confrontation – you discuss the different problems surrounding the topic you’re writing about. You develop the argument using various bits of evidence, moving towards an overall conclusion.
Resolution – the conclusion. You summarise and resolve the argument with your own opinion, by coming down on one side or the other, having weighed up the evidence you’ve discussed. You could perhaps tie up loose ends by offering an alternative explanation for evidence that doesn’t sit with your conclusion.

Using this structure keeps you focused on the central point, and stops you from waffling, because everything you write is working towards resolving your argument. The use of the inciting incident in the first ‘act’ encourages you to get to the point early on in your essay, thereby keeping the reader interested. The principles of good plot-writing are centred around the connection between different events that show cause and effect, and this central tenet of the three-act structure has obvious parallels with the way in which essays work through presenting evidence in support of arguments.

3. An attention-grabbing opening

Image shows a painting of a group of people standing around the body of a murdered woman.

An oft-spouted piece of advice in creative writing is to use an attention-grabbing opening. One way of doing this is to start with a ‘flashback’, which could disrupt the chronology of events by transporting the reader directly back to the midst of the action, so that the story begins with maximum excitement. In a murder mystery, for instance, the writer might skip a slow build-up and instead use the murder itself to form the opening of the novel, with the rest of the story charting the efforts of the detective to uncover the perpetrator and perhaps telling the events prior to the murder in a series of flashbacks. The same principle can be applied to essays, though it’s easier to use in some subjects than others. To take an example, let’s say you were writing about how the First World War started. Rather than building up slowly with the various factors, an attention-grabbing opening could (briefly) describe the drama of the Battle of the Somme, perhaps citing some statistics about the number of men involved and killed, and quoting some war poetry about the horrors faced by the soldiers on the Front Line. Then, to introduce the purpose of the essay and launch into your argument about what started the war, a phrase such as, “It seems hard to imagine that all this began with…”. Alternatively, a rhetorical question: “But how did these tens of thousands of soldiers end up in the mud and horror of trench warfare? The story begins several years earlier, with…” It may not be the standard way of writing an essay, but you’ll certainly score points for originality and perhaps ruffle a few feathers.

4. Extended metaphors

Image shows Romeo and Juliet about to touch their palms together.

Creative writing often makes use of extended metaphors. For example, when Shakespeare wrote the passage in Romeo and Juliet referring to “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” he was using an extended metaphor. With this in mind, it’s time to revisit a point we made in a previous article about writing more original essays , in which we argued that, rather than battling on with trying to explain a complex concept in a straightforward way, it might be easier to use an analogy to convey the meaning by drawing comparisons, which people find easier to understand. A metaphor is a kind of analogy, so the similarities with creative writing are strong here. In our previous article we used the example of radioactive decay. An analogy for this is the pressure with which water escapes from a hole in a bucket. It does so exponentially, just as radioactive substances decay exponentially. In both instances, the rate of a consumptive process depends on how much there is left of whatever is being depleted, which results in an exponential rate of decay. This concept is so much easier to explain using the analogy of water flowing from a hole in a bucket, as you give your reader something familiar to visualise in order to explain a concept with which they are unfamiliar.

5. Interesting details about setting and location

Image shows a statue of the Emperor Augustus.

Another way of keeping your reader interested is to bring your essay to life with details about setting and location, just as creative writers do. Essays can become quite dry if you focus solely on the academic problems, but you can make them more interesting by peppering them with details. This may not work quite so well for a scientific essay, but it’s certainly relevant for some humanities subjects, in particular English literature, history and archaeology. For example, an essay about the Roman emperor Augustus could mention that he lived a famously modest lifestyle, quoting details from Roman writers and archaeological evidence that support this: Suetonius mentions his “low bed” (interesting because of what it says about accepted standards of Roman beds!) and coarse bread and cheese diet, and the relatively small and non-lavish remains of his house on the Palatine Hill in Rome back up the idea of his having lived a modest life. Incidental details like these can actually prove to be more significant than you initially realise, and you can use them to build your argument; in the case of Augustus, for example, his modest lifestyle is particularly important when seen in the context of Rome’s troubled history with kings. As he gradually acquired more power and became Rome’s first emperor, he had to avoid coming across as being too ‘regal’, and the little details we know about his way of life are significant in light of this. So, not only have you brought your essay to life, but you’ve raised an interesting point, too.

Few writers get it right first time . Once you’ve written a first draft, read through it and think about whether the order of your points is optimal and whether what you’ve written actually makes sense. It’s easy in the age of computers to chop and change – you can simply copy and paste part of your essay into another part where it might fit better, and then make minor changes to your wording so that it flows. After you’ve finished editing, have a final read through and check that you’re happy with the wording. Don’t forget to proofread to ensure that your spelling and grammar is impeccable!

7. And finally… record your ideas

Image shows someone writing in a notebook.

Creative writers swear by having a notebook with them at all times, ready to jot down any ideas that suddenly spring to mind. You can adopt the same principle for your essay-writing, because you never know when the inspiration might strike. Have a think about your essay topic when you’re out and about; you’d be surprised what occurs to you when you’re away from your normal place of study. As you can see, there are more similarities between two apparently unrelated kinds of writing than you might have realised. It is, of course, possible to go too far with the creative writing idea when you’re essay-writing: literary devices aren’t always appropriate, and your essay still needs to retain objectivity and conform to the more formal conventions of academic writing. But there are certainly techniques to be borrowed from creative writing that will help your essays stand out from the crowd and give your teacher or lecturer a welcome break from the monotony of essay-marking.

See also our fabulous guide explaining more about ” What is Creative Writing ”.

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How to Write an Imaginative Essay

Isaiah david.

An imaginative essay is fiction, actually a type of short story. Students are asked to imagine a particular historical or fantastic situation and write the rest of the story. Depending on the prompt, the imaginative essay can discuss anything from space travel to civil rights. Because of this wide variation, some imaginative essays require a very serious response, while others invite a much more light-hearted, fantastic one.

Explore this article

Think about the prompt
Pick the idea
Add sensory details
Add realistic conversation
Add historical details
Add some personal change
Proofread your imaginative essay

1 Think about the prompt

Think about the prompt and brainstorm some ideas. Usually, imaginative essays start with a hypothetical situation and ask you how you would respond to it. Come up with a few different ways you might respond, and how you think the situation would turn out depending on your response.

2 Pick the idea

Pick the idea you like best and write it. Write what you would do, how other characters would react and how the situation would end up.

3 Add sensory details

Add sensory details. How do you feel? What do people and things around you look like?

4 Add realistic conversation

Add realistic conversation. Imagine actually interacting with the characters around you. Do you see eye to eye, or do you have different perspectives? Show it through your conversation.

5 Add historical details

Add historical details. If you are writing about the Civil War, for example, you might mention fighting in a particular battle or serving under a particular leader. If you are writing about a future event, you could make up some details from a "future history" to make your story seem more realistic. For example, if you are imagining the world in 100 years, you could look back on the end of the oil age, or the accomplishments of a future president.

6 Add some personal change

Add some personal change. The best characters are dynamic characters. Your character should see things differently or act differently by the end of the story. You can also show how other characters change. For example, your character could start out headstrong and impulsive, get into some problems as a result of this trait, and learn to be more patient by the end of the story. In literature, this is called a "character arc."

7 Proofread your imaginative essay

Proofread your imaginative essay. Make sure that you use proper spelling and good grammar and punctuation. For an imaginative essay, you will not have to use formal language, but you will need to show your mastery of the mechanics of writing.

1 Imaginative Essay Basics

About the Author

Isaiah David is a freelance writer and musician living in Portland, Ore. He has over five years experience as a professional writer and has been published on various online outlets. He holds a degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan.

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How To Write An Effective Imaginative Essay/Composition

imaginative composition/essay.

Imaginative writing, also known as creative writing, requires someone to think and come up with an original story. A good story provides clear details so that the reader re-lives the experiences as they read it.

The events in the imaginative essay are not real but imagined. Such writing is referred to as fictional which means that the content is not real but out of sheer imagination. This writing requires someone to think and come up with an original story that supports moral uprightness and respect for universal human values. This is what the examiner will judge and question whether the writer can imagine or only writes what they are seeing. In spite of the fact that the written story is not true, it should be convincing to the reader.

There are numerous topics a writer can choose from ranging from technology, medicine, emerging issues, politics, sports, etc. These topics are important since they determine the kind of language a writer will use, that is technical, literal, or both. There are, however, important aspects of writing that a writer can incorporate in their creative composition in order to make it interesting and measure up as creative work.

To begin with, a good creative writer should consider their purpose/reason for writing. Before embarking on the journey of writing down their story the writer needs to ask why they want to write. Is it, for instance, to educate, to inform, or the work aims to entertain? These questions are important since when answered they form the basis for why the creative essay is written. Note that in most cases, imaginative writing is written with the aim of entertaining but in some cases, it may contain themes that are meant to inform/educate their readers.

Secondly, before beginning to write your composition, one should have the subject of their writing at their fingertips . Let’s take, for example, if you want to write about basketball, you must have certain facts on your topics and common terms used in regard to it. This, therefore, implies that before writing we need to be comfortable with the topic we want to talk about and a little research in your area of interest won’t break a bone, A creative writing composition that displays good mastery of the topic is not only interesting to read but it is also a mark of creativity married with research.

The next aspect to consider in creative writing is the setting . Setting refers to the time, place, weather, and general atmosphere within which your story takes place. The description of the setting should be natural in relying on the five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. When the setting is referring to the time it can be any time of the day, morning, afternoon, night, pre-colonial, colonial, etc. On the other hand, the place can also refer to any location the events in the imagination composition occur, it ranges from marketplace, house, school, hospital, etc. In order to effectively bring out the setting in your writing, your essay should clearly answer the question where? For instance, where does your story take place?

In addition , the plot is another crucial aspect of imaginative composition that one should take time to think about carefully before writing. Plot refers to the storyline that sets out logical order in which the events will follow, it has a beginning, middle , and an ending . At the beginning/exposition of the imaginative composition it introduces the characters and conflict to the reader, here, the conflict is initiated and enhanced through the interaction of characters and situations, and it keeps on progressing as the story goes on. The middle part of the story shows the continuation and it entails the main body of the story written. The conflict in this stage has grown to a crisis or moment of tension within the story. It also brings out the realization in the story, that is, the feeling of pity and fear which marks the turning point of the story or discovery. It is also in the middle part of the plot where the main characters learn either how to deal with the crisis in the story or how not to go about it. Lastly, the conclusion, which is the last part of the plot, signals the end of the composition. It shows how the conflict in the story is amicably solved and there is either reward for virtues exhibited and punishment for the vices brought out in the story. The creative essay writer needs to decide what will happen at the beginning, middle, and end of their story so that the order of events is logical. However, sometimes the events may not follow the chronological order especially when the writer decides to use flashback and flashforward as a style in their writing.

The sixth important aspect to consider when planning one’s creative composition is the themes. The theme in literature refers to the main idea(s) that the writer wishes to share with their readers. The theme in the story should relate to the setting and the plot. It is through the development of themes in any creative writing that readers are able to identify virtues to be emulated and vices to be shunned in this essay. Themes are important since they will also help in bringing out the moral lesson in the creative writing composition. In order to bring themes out clearly in creative writing, the writer should provide a conducive environment for that theme. Let's say your message is corruption, when writing a story about corruption the favourable environment in the story is created by providing hints such as giving name(s) or description of the character(s) that suggest or reinforce your message.

The last factor one should consider when writing a creative writing essay is style. Styles entail how one makes use of language freely and creatively to express their ideas. The style may vary from one person to another and depending on the purpose of writing. The following are the common styles one can use to spice their creative writing composition; vivid description, similes, metaphors, personification, which aid to create a mental picture of what is described. The dialogue helps to break the monotony of narration and helps to develop character traits.

Ideas that can make your creative writing score good marks .

The following merit able items when employed correctly can will enable the writer to earn good marks in creative writing question:

Correct use of suitable proverbs. If used correctly, proverbs enable the composition to score higher marks while the opposite has dire consequences also.

The use of up-to-date idioms and phrasal verbs. When used correctly these will earn student merit marks which translate to good marks.

Use of captivating descriptive words which appeal to the five senses.

The ability to talk about modern issues in their composition will work in the writer’s favour.

Being original is another important aspect of good composition, in creative writing writers should avoid reproducing ideas borrowed from other sources, it outrightly implies that the writer is not creative.

Another crucial meritable item to consider in a creative writing essay is varying sentences. Writers are encouraged to vary their sentences in their work, sentences such as simple, compound, complex, rhetorical sentences, etc will work to their advantage.

The use of styles like dialogue, suspense, vivid description will attract good marks if effectively employed.

Most importantly your story should have a moral lesson. The vices will be punished and virtues rewarded at the end.

365 Creative Writing Prompts

Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to help inspire you to write every single day! Use them for journaling, story starters, poetry, and more!

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If you want to become a better writer, the best thing you can do is practice writing every single day. Writing prompts are useful because we know sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about!

To help you brainstorm, we put together this list of 365 creative writing prompts to give you something to write about daily.

Want to Download these prompts? I am super excited to announce due to popular demand we now have an ad-free printable version of this list of writing prompts available for just $5. The printable version includes a PDF as a list AND print-ready prompt cards. {And all the design source files you could ever need to customize any way you would like!}

Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to Inspire:

Whether you write short stories, poems, or like to keep a journal – these will stretch your imagination and give you some ideas for topics to write about!

1. Outside the Window : What’s the weather outside your window doing right now? If that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?

2. The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?

3. The Vessel: Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.

4. Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?

5. Food: What’s for breakfast? Dinner? Lunch? Or maybe you could write a poem about that time you met a friend at a cafe.

6. Eye Contact: Write about two people seeing each other for the first time.

7. The Rocket-ship: Write about a rocket-ship on its way to the moon or a distant galaxy far, far, away.

8. Dream-catcher : Write something inspired by a recent dream you had.

9. Animals: Choose an animal. Write about it!

10. Friendship: Write about being friends with someone.

11. Dragon : Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.

12. Greeting : Write a story or poem that starts with the word “hello” or another greeting.

13. The Letter: Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.

14. The Found Poem : Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines.

15. Eavesdropper : Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you’ve overheard.

16. Addict: Everyone’s addicted to something in some shape or form. What are things you can’t go without?

17. Dictionary Definition : Open up a dictionary to a random word. Define what that word means to you.

18. Cleaning: Hey, even writers and creative artists have to do housework sometimes. Write about doing laundry, dishes, and other cleaning activities.

19. Great Minds: Write about someone you admire and you thought to have had a beautiful mind.

20. Missed Connections: If you go to Craigslist, there is a “Missed Connections” section where you can find some interesting storylines to inspire your writing.

21. Foreclosure : Write a poem or short story about someone who has lost or is about to lose their home.

22. Smoke, Fog, and Haze: Write about not being able to see ahead of you.

23. Sugar: Write something so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt.

24. Numbers: Write a poem or journal entry about numbers that have special meaning to you.

25. Dread: Write about doing something you don’t want to do.

26. Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?

27. Closed Doors: What’s behind the door? Why is it closed?

28. Shadow: Imagine you are someone’s shadow for a day.

29. Good Vibes: What makes you smile? What makes you happy?

30. Shopping: Write about your shopping wishlist and how you like to spend money.

31. The Professor: Write about a teacher that has influenced you.

32. Rewrite : Take any poem or short story you enjoy. Rewrite it in your own words.

33. Jewelry: Write about a piece of jewelry. Who does it belong to?

34. Sounds : Sit outside for about an hour. Write down the sounds you hear.

35. War and Peace: Write about a recent conflict that you dealt with in your life.

36. Frame It: Write a poem or some phrases that would make for good wall art in your home.

37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

38. Fire-starters: Write about building a fire.

39. Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!

40. Car Keys: Write about someone getting their driver’s license for the first time.

41. What You Don’t Know: Write about a secret you’ve kept from someone else or how you feel when you know someone is keeping a secret from you.

42. Warehouse : Write about being inside an old abandoned warehouse.

43. The Sound of Silence: Write about staying quiet when you feel like shouting.

44. Insult: Write about being insulted. How do you feel? Why do you think the other person insulted you?

45. Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you? What might the mirror say?

46. Dirty: Write a poem about getting covered in mud.

47. Light Switch : Write about coming out of the dark and seeing the light.

48. The Stars : Take inspiration from a night sky. Or, write about a time when “the stars aligned” in your horoscope.

49. Joke Poem : What did the wall say to the other wall? Meet you at the corner! Write something inspired by a favorite joke.

50. Just Say No : Write about the power you felt when you told someone no.

51: Sunrise/Sunset : The sun comes up, the sun goes down. It goes round and round. Write something inspiring about the sunrise or sunset.

52. Memory Lane : What does Memory Lane look like? How do you get there?

53. Tear-Jerker : Watch a movie that makes you cry. Write about that scene in the movie.

54. Dear Diary: Write a poem or short story about a diary entry you’ve read or imagined.

55. Holding Hands : The first time you held someone’s hand.

56. Photograph : Write a story or journal entry influenced by a photograph you see online or in a magazine.

57. Alarm Clock: Write about waking up.

58. Darkness: Write a poem or journal entry inspired by what you can’t see.

59. Refreshed: Write a poem about a time you really felt refreshed and renewed. Maybe it was a dip into a pool on a hot summer day, a drink of lemonade, or other situation that helped you relax and start again.

60. Handle With Care : Write about a very fragile or delicate object.

61. Drama: Write about a time when you got stuck in between two parties fighting with each other.

62. Slip Up: Write about making mistakes.

63. Spice: Write about flavors and tastes or a favorite spice of yours.

64. Sing a New Song: Take a popular song off the radio and rewrite it as a poem in your own words.

65. Telephone: Write about a phone call you recently received.

66. Name: Write a poem or short story using your name in some way or form.

67. Dollhouse: Write a poem or short story from the viewpoint of someone living in a doll house.

68. Random Wikipedia Article : Go to Wikipedia and click on Random Article . Write about whatever the page you get.

69. Silly Sports: Write about an extreme or silly sport. If none inspire you, make up the rules for your own game.

70. Recipe : Write about a recipe for something abstract, such as a feeling.

71. Famous Artwork: Choose a famous painting and write about it.

72. Where That Place Used to Be : Think of a place you went to when you were younger but it now no longer there or is something else. Capture your feelings about this in your writing.

73. Last Person You Talked to: Write a quick little poem or story about the last person you spoke with.

74. Caught Red-Handed: Write about being caught doing something embarrassing.

75. Interview: Write a list of questions you have for someone you would like to interview, real or fictional.

76. Missing You: Write about someone you miss dearly.

77. Geography: Pick a state or country you’ve never visited. Write about why you would or would not like to visit that place.

78. Random Song: Turn on the radio, use the shuffle feature on your music collection or your favorite streaming music service. Write something inspired by the first song you hear.

79. Hero: Write a tribute to someone you regard as a hero.

80. Ode to Strangers: Go people watching and write an ode to a stranger you see on the street.

81. Advertisement: Advertisements are everywhere, aren’t they? Write using the slogan or line from an ad.

82. Book Inspired: Think of your favorite book. Now write a poem that sums up the entire story in 10 lines.

83. Magic : Imagine you have a touch of magic, and can make impossible things happen. What would you do?

84. Fanciest Pen: Get out your favorite pen, pencils, or even colored markers and write using them!

85. A Day in the Life: Write about your daily habits and routine.

86. Your Muse: Write about your muse – what do they look like? What does your muse do to inspire you?

87. Convenience Store : Write about an experience you’ve had at a gas station or convenience store.

88. Natural Wonders of the World: Choose one of the natural wonders of the world. Write about it.

89. Status Update: Write a poem using the words from your latest status update or a friend’s status update. If you don’t use sites like Facebook or Twitter, you can often search online for some funny ones to use as inspiration.

90. Green Thumb: Write about growing something.

91. Family Heirloom: Write about an object that’s been passed through the generations in your family.

92. Bug Catcher: Write about insects.

93. Potion: Write about a magic potion. What is it made of? What does it do? What is the antidote?

94. Swinging & Sliding: Write something inspired by a playground or treehouse.

95. Adjectives: Make a list of the first 5 adjectives that pop into your head. Use these 5 words in your story, poem, or journal entry.

96. Fairy Tales: Rewrite a fairy tale. Give it a new ending or make it modern or write as a poem.

97. Whispers: Write about someone who has to whisper a secret to someone else.

98. Smile: Write a poem about the things that make you smile.

99. Seasonal: Write about your favorite season.

100. Normal: What does normal mean to you? Is it good or bad to be normal?

101. Recycle : Take something you’ve written in the past and rewrite it into a completely different piece.

102. Wardrobe: Write about a fashion model or what’s currently in your closet or drawers.

103. Secret Message : Write something with a secret message hidden in between the words. For example, you could make an acrostic poem using the last letters of the word or use secret code words in the poem.

104. Vacation: Write about a vacation you took.

105. Heat: Write about being overheated and sweltering.

106. Spellbinding: Write a magic spell.

107. Collection : Write about collecting something, such as salt shakers, sea shells, or stamps.

108. Taking Chances: Everyone takes a risk at some point in their life. Write about a time when you took a chance and what the result was.

109. Carnival: Write a poem or story or journal entry inspired by a carnival or street fair.

110. Country Mouse: Write about someone who grew up in the country visiting the city for the first time.

111: Questions: Write about questions you have for the universe. Optional: include an answer key.

112. Rushing: Write about moving quickly and doing things fast.

113. Staircase : Use a photo of a staircase or the stairs in your home or a building you love to inspire you.

114. Neighbors: Make up a story or poem about your next door neighbor.

115. Black and Blue: Write about a time you’ve been physically hurt.

116. All Saints: Choose a saint and create a poem about his or her life.

117. Beach Inspired: What’s not to write about the beach?

118. Shoes: What kind of shoes do you wear? Where do they lead your feet?

119. The Ex: Write a poem to someone who is estranged from you.

120. My Point of View: Write in the first person point of view.

121. Stray Animal: Think of the life of a stray cat or dog and write about that.

122. Stop and Stare : Create a poem or story about something you could watch forever.

123. Your Bed: Describe where you sleep each night.

124. Fireworks : Do they inspire you or do you not like the noise and commotion? Write about it.

125. Frozen: Write about a moment in your life you wish you could freeze and preserve.

126. Alone : Do you like to be alone or do you like having company?

127. Know-it-all: Write about something you are very knowledgeable about, for example a favorite hobby or passion of yours.

128. The Promise: Write about a promise you’ve made to someone. Did you keep that promise?

129. Commotion: Write about being overstimulated by a lot of chaos.

130. Read the News Today : Construct a poem or story using a news headline for your first line.

131. Macro: Write a description of an object close-up.

132. Transportation : Write about taking your favorite (or least-favorite) form of transportation.

133. Gadgets: If you could invent a gadget, what would it do? Are there any gadgets that make your life easier?

134: Bring on the Cheese: Write a tacky love poem that is so cheesy, it belongs on top of a pizza.

135. Ladders: Write a story or poem that uses ladders as a symbol.

136. Bizarre Holiday : There is a bizarre holiday for any date! Look up a holiday for today’s date and create a poem in greeting card fashion or write a short story about the holiday to celebrate.

137. Blog-o-sphere : Visit your favorite blog or your feedreader and craft a story, journal entry, or poem based on the latest blog post you read.

138. Mailbox: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry based on a recent item of mail you’ve received.

139. Sharing : Write about sharing something with someone else.

140. Cactus: Write from the viewpoint of a cactus. What’s it like to live in the desert or have a prickly personality?

141. It’s a Sign : Have you seen any interesting road signs lately?

142. Furniture: Write about a piece of furniture in your home.

143. Failure: Write about a time you failed at something. Did you try again or give up completely?

144. Mystical Creatures: Angels or other mystical creatures – use them as inspiration.

145. Flying: Write about having wings and what you would do.

146. Clear and Transparent: Write a poem about being able to see-through something.

147. Break the Silence : Record yourself speaking, then write down what you spoke and revise into a short story or poem.

148. Beat: Listen to music with a strong rhythm or listen to drum loops. Write something that goes along with the beat you feel and hear.

149. Color Palette: Search online for color palettes and be inspired to write by one you resonate with.

150. Magazine: Randomly flip to a page in a magazine and write using the first few words you see as an opening line.

151. The Grass is Greener : Write about switching the place with someone or going to where it seems the “grass is greener”.

152. Mind & Body: Write something that would motivate others to workout and exercise.

153. Shaping Up : Write something that makes a shape on the page…ie: a circle, a heart, a square, etc.

154. Twenty-One: Write about your 21st birthday.

155. Aromatherapy: Write about scents you just absolutely love.

156. Swish, Buzz, Pop : Create a poem that uses Onomatopoeia .

157. What Time is It? Write about the time of day it is right now. What are people doing? What do you usually do at this time each day?

158. Party Animal: Have you ever gone to a party you didn’t want to leave? Or do you hate parties? Write about it!

159: Miss Manners : Use the words “please” and “thank you” in your writing.

160. Cliche: Choose a common cliche, then write something that says the same thing but without using the catch phrase.

161. Eco-friendly : Write about going green or an environmental concern you have.

162. Missing You: Write about someone you miss.

163. Set it Free: Think of a time when you had to let someone or something go to be free…did they come back?

164: Left Out : Write about a time when you’ve felt left out or you’ve noticed someone else feeling as if they didn’t belong.

165. Suitcase: Write about packing for a trip or unpacking from when you arrive home.

166. Fantasy : Write about fairies, gnomes, elves, or other mythical creatures.

167. Give and Receive : Write about giving and receiving.

168. Baker’s Dozen: Imagine the scents and sights of a bakery and write.

169. Treehouse: Write about your own secret treehouse hideaway.

170. Risk: Write about taking a gamble on something.

171. Acrostic : Choose a word and write an acrostic poem where every line starts with a letter from the word.

172. Crossword Puzzle: Open up the newspaper or find a crossword puzzle online and choose one of the clues to use as inspiration for your writing.

173. Silver Lining : Write about the good that happens in a bad situation.

174. Gloves: Write about a pair of gloves – what kind of gloves are they? Who wears them and why?

175. All that Glitters: Write about a shiny object.

176. Jealousy: Write with a theme of envy and jealousy.

177. How Does Your Garden Grow? Write about a flower that grows in an unusual place.

178. Jury Duty : Write a short story or poem that takes place in a courtroom.

179. Gifts: Write about a gift you have given or received.

180. Running: Write about running away from someone or something.

181. Discovery: Think of something you’ve recently discovered and use it as inspiration.

182. Complain: Write about your complaints about something.

183. Gratitude: Write a poem or journal entry that is all about things you are thankful for.

184. Chemistry: Choose an element and write a poem or story that uses that word in one of the lines.

185. Applause: Write about giving someone a standing ovation.

186. Old Endings Into New Beginnings: Take an old poem, story, or journal entry of yours and use the last line and make it the first line of your writing today.

187. Longing: Write about something you very much want to do.

188. I Am: Write a motivational poem or journal entry about positive traits that make you who you are.

189. Rainbow : What is at the end of a rainbow? Or, take a cue from Kermit the Frog, and ask yourself, why are there so many songs about rainbows?

190. Museum: Take some time to visit a nearby museum with your journal. Write about one of the pieces that speaks to you.

191. Cartoon: Think of your favorite cartoon or comic. Write a poem or story that takes place in that setting.

192. Copycat: Borrow a line from a famous public domain poem to craft your own.

193. From the Roof-tops: Imagine you could stand on a rooftop and broadcast a message to everyone below – what would you say?

194. Time Travel: If there was a time period you could visit for a day, where would you go? Write about traveling back in time to that day.

195. Changing Places: Imagine living the day as someone else.

196. Neighborhood: Write about your favorite place in your neighborhood to visit and hang out at.

197. Pirates: Write about a pirate ship.

198. Interview : Write based on a recent interview you’ve read or seen on TV or heard on the radio.

199. Hiding Spaces : Write about places you like to hide things at. What was a favorite hiding spot for you as a child playing hide-and-seek?

200. Extreme Makeover: Imagine how life might be different if you could change your hair color or clothing into something completely opposite from your current style.

201. Empathy: Write about your feelings of empathy or compassion for another person.

202. Opposites: Write a poem or story that ties in together two opposites.

203. Boredom: Write about being bored or make a list of different ways to entertain yourself.

204. Strength : Think of a time when you’ve been physically or emotionally strong and use that as inspiration.

205. Hunger: Write from the perspective of someone with no money to buy food.

206. Greed: Write about someone who always wants more – whether it be money, power, etc. etc.

207. Volcano: Write about an eruption of a volcano.

208. Video Inspiration : Go to Vimeo.com or YouTube.com and watch one of the videos featured on the homepage. Write something based on what you watch.

209. Sneeze: Write about things that make you sneeze.

210. Footsteps on the Moon: Write about the possibility of life in outer-space.

211: Star-crossed: Write a short modern version of the story of Romeo and Juliet or think of real-life examples of lovers who are not allowed to be together to use as inspiration for your writing.

212. Font-tastic: Choose a unique font and type out a poem, story or journal entry using that font.

213. Schedule: Take a look at your calendar and use the schedule for inspiration in writing.

214. Grandparents: Write about a moment in your grandparent’s life.

215. Collage: Go through a magazine and cut out words that grab your attention. Use these words to construct a poem or as a story starter or inspiration for your journal.

216. Oh so Lonely: Write a poem about what you do when you are alone – do you feel lonely or do you enjoy your own company?

217. Waterfall: Think of a waterfall you’ve seen in person or spend some time browsing photos of waterfalls online. Write about the movement, flow, and energy.

218. First Kiss: Write about your first kiss.

219. So Ironic: Write about an ironic situation you’ve been in throughout your life.

220. Limerick: Write a limerick today.

221. Grocery Shopping: Write about an experience at the grocery store.

222. Fashion : Go through a fashion magazine or browse fashion websites online and write about a style you love.

223. So Close: Write about coming close to reaching a goal.

224. Drinks on Me: Write a poem or short story that takes place at a bar.

225. Online Friends: Write an ode to someone online you’ve met and become friends with.

226. Admiration: Is there someone you admire? Write about those feelings.

227. Trash Day: Write from the perspective of a garbage collector.

228. Mailbox: Open your mailbox and write something inspired by one of the pieces of mail you received.

229. Fresh & Clean: Write about how you feel after you take a shower.

230. Energized: Write about how you feel when you’re either at a high or low energy level for the day.

231. Rhyme & No Reason: Make up a silly rhyming poem using made up words.

232. Tech Support: Use computers or a conversation with tech support you’ve had as inspiration.

233. Hotel: Write from the perspective of someone who works at a hotel or staying at a hotel.

234. Underwater: Write about sea creatures and under water life. What’s under the surface of the ocean? What adventures might be waiting?

235. Breathing: Take a few minutes to do some deep breathing relaxation techniques. Once your mind is clear, just write the first few things that you think of.

236. Liar, Liar: Make up a poem or story of complete lies about yourself or someone else.

237. Obituaries: Look at the recent obituaries online or in the newspaper and imagine the life of someone and write about that person.

238. Pocket: Rummage through your pockets and write about what you keep or find in your pockets.

239. Cinquain: Write a cinquain poem, which consists of 5 lines that do not rhyme.

240. Alphabetical: Write a poem that has every letter of the alphabet in it.

241. Comedy Club: Write something inspired by a comedian.

242. Cheater: Write about someone who is unfaithful.

243. Sestina: Give a try to writing a sestina poem.

244. Fight: Write about witnessing two people get in an argument with each other.

245. Social Network : Visit your favorite Social Networking website (ie: Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Twitter, etc.) and write a about a post you see there.

246. Peaceful: Write about something peaceful and serene.

247. In the Clouds: Go cloud watching for the day and write about what you imagine in the clouds.

248. At the Park: Take some time to sit on a park bench and write about the sights, scenes, and senses and emotions you experience.

249. Sonnet: Write a sonnet today.

250. Should, Would, And Could: Write a poem or story using the words should, would, and could.

251. How to: Write directions on how to do something.

252. Alliteration: Use alliteration in your poem or in a sentence in a story.

253. Poker Face: Write about playing a card game.

254. Timer: Set a timer for 5 minutes and just write. Don’t worry about it making sense or being perfect.

255. Dance: Write about a dancer or a time you remember dancing.

256. Write for a Cause: Write a poem or essay that raises awareness for a cause you support.

257. Magic : Write about a magician or magic trick.

258. Out of the Box: Imagine finding a box. Write about opening it and what’s inside.

259. Under the Influence: What is something has impacted you positively in your life?

260. Forgotten Toy : Write from the perspective a forgotten or lost toy.

261. Rocks and Gems: Write about a rock or gemstone meaning.

262. Remote Control: Imagine you can fast forward and rewind your life with a remote control.

263. Symbolism: Think of objects, animals, etc. that have symbolic meaning to you. Write about it.

264. Light at the End of the Tunnel: Write about a time when you saw hope when it seemed like a hopeless situation.

265. Smoke and Fire : “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Use this saying as inspiration to write!

266. Railroad: Write about a train and its cargo or passengers.

267. Clipboard: Write about words you imagine on an office clipboard.

268. Shipwrecked: Write about being stranded somewhere – an island, a bus stop, etc.

269. Quotable: Use a popular quote from a speaker and use it as inspiration for your writing.

270. Mind Map it Out: Create a mind map of words, phrases, and ideas that pop into your head or spend some time browsing the many mind maps online. Write a poem, story, or journal entry inspired by the mind map.

271. Patterns : Write about repeating patterns that occur in life.

272. Scrapbook : Write about finding a scrapbook and the memories it contains.

273. Cure: Write about finding a cure for an illness.

274. Email Subject Lines: Read your email today and look for subject lines that may be good starters for writing inspiration.

275. Wishful Thinking: Write about a wish you have.

276. Doodle : Spend some time today doodling for about 5-10 minutes. Write about the thoughts you had while doodling or create something inspired by your finished doodle.

277. Chalkboard: Imagine you are in a classroom. What does it say on the chalkboard?

278. Sticky: Imagine a situation that’s very sticky, maybe even covered in maple syrup, tape or glue. Write about it!

279. Flashlight : Imagine going somewhere very dark with only a flashlight to guide you.

280. A Far Away Place : Envision yourself traveling to a fictional place, what do you experience in your imaginary journey?

281. On the Farm : Write about being in a country or rural setting.

282. Promise to Yourself: Write about a promise you want to make to yourself and keep.

283. Brick Wall : Write a poem that is about a brick wall – whether literal or figurative.

284. Making a Choice: Write about a time when you had to make a difficult choice.

285. Repeat: Write about a time when you’ve had to repeat yourself or a time when it felt like no one was listening.

286. Outcast : Write about someone who is not accepted by their peers. (for example, the Ugly Ducking)

287. Scary Monsters: Write about a scary (or not-so-scary) monster in your closet or under the bed.

288. Sacrifice: Write about something you’ve sacrificed doing to do something else or help another person.

289. Imperfection: Create a poem that highlights the beauty in being flawed.

290. Birthday Poem: Write a poem inspired by birthdays.

291. Title First : Make a list of potential poem or story titles and choose one to write from.

292. Job Interview : Write about going on a job interview.

293. Get Well : Write a poem that will help someone who is sick feel better quick!

294. Lost in the Crowd: Write about feeling lost in the crowd.

295. Apple a Day: Write about a health topic that interests you.

296. Cravings: Write about craving something.

297. Phobia: Research some common phobias, choose one, and write about it.

298. In the Moment: Write about living in the present moment.

299. Concrete : Write about walking down a sidewalk and what you see and experience.

300. Battle: Write about an epic battle, whether real, fictional or figurative.

301. This Old House : Write about an old house that is abandoned or being renovated.

302. Clutter: Is there a cluttered spot in your home? Go through some of that clutter today and write about what you find or the process of organizing.

303. Go Fly a Kite: Write about flying a kite.

304. On the TV: Flip to a random TV channel and write about the first thing that comes on – even if it is an infomercial!

305. Fruit: Write an ode to your favorite fruit.

306. Long Distance Love: Write about a couple that is separated by distance.

307. Glasses: Write about a pair of eyeglasses or someone wearing glasses.

308. Robotic : Write about a robot.

309. Cute as a Button: Write about something you think is just adorable.

310. Movie Conversation: Use a memorable conversation from a favorite movie to inspire your writing.

311. Easy-Peasy : Write about doing something effortlessly.

312. Idiom: Choose from a list of idioms one that speaks to you and create a poem around that saying or phrase. (Ie: It is raining cats and dogs)

313. Playground: Whether it is the swings or the sandbox or the sliding boards, write about your memories of being on a playground.

314. Romance: Write about romantic things partners can do for each other.

315. Rock Star: Imagine you are a famous rock star. Write about the experience.

316. Come to Life: Imagine ordinary objects have come to life. Write about what they do and say.

317. Airplane: Write about meeting someone on an airplane and a conversation you might have.

318. Health & Beauty: Take some time to peruse your medicine cabinet or the health and beauty aisles at a local store. Write a poem, short story, or journal entry inspired by a product label.

319. Determination: Write about not giving up.

320. Instrumental Inspiration: Listen to some instrumental music and write a poem that matches the mood, beat, and style of the music.

321. Wait Your Turn: Write about having to wait in line.

322. Personality Type : Do you know your personality type? (There are many free quizzes online) – write about what type of personality traits you have.

323. Decade: Choose a favorite decade and write about it. (IE: 1980’s or 1950’s for example)

324. I Believe: Write your personal credo of things you believe in.

325. Lost and Found: Write about a lost object.

326. Say it: Write a poem or story that uses dialogue between two people.

327. The Unsent Letter: Write about a letter that never made it to its recipient.

328. The Windows of the Soul: Write a poem about the story that is told through someone’s eyes.

329. Trial and Error: Write about something you learned the hard way.

330. Escape : Write about where you like to go to escape from it all.

331. What’s Cooking: Write something inspired a favorite food or recipe.

332. Records : Go through your file box and pull out old receipts or records…write something inspired by what you find!

333. Banking: Write about visiting the bank.

334. Sweet Talk: Write about trying to convince someone of something.

335. Serendipity: Write about something that happened by chance in a positive way.

336. Distractions: Write about how it feels when you can’t focus.

337. Corporation: Write about big business.

338. Word of the Day: Go to a dictionary website that has a word of the day and use it in a poem, story or journal entry you write.

339. Pick Me Up: What do you do when you need a pick me up?

340. Unfinished: Write about a project you started but never completed.

341. Forgiveness: Write about a time when someone forgave you or you forgave someone.

342. Weakness: Write about your greatest weakness.

343. Starting: Write about starting a project.

344. Mechanical: Think of gears, moving parts, machines.

345. Random Act of Kindness : Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone or someone has done for you, no matter how small or insignificant it may have seemed.

346. Underground: Imagine living in a home underground and use that as inspiration for writing.

347. Classic Rock: Pick a classic rock love ballad and rewrite it into a story or poem with a similar theme.

348. Night Owl : Write about staying up late at night.

349. Magnetic : Write about attraction to something or someone.

350. Teamwork: Write about working with a team towards a common goal.

351. Roller-coaster : Write about the ups and downs in life.

352. Motivational Poster: Look at some motivational posters online and write a poem or journal entry inspired by your favorite one.

353. Games: Write about the games people play – figuratively or literally.

354. Turning Point: Write about a point in life where things turned for the better or worse.

355. Spellbound: Write about a witch’s spell.

356. Anniversary: Write about the anniversary of a special date.

357. Gamble: Be inspired by a casino or lottery ticket.

358. Picnic: Write about going on a picnic.

359. Garage: Write about some random item you might find in a garage.

360. Review: Review your week, month, or year in a journal entry or poem format.

361. Detective: Write about a detective searching for clues or solving a mystery.

362. Camera: Take your camera for a walk and write based on one of the photographs you take.

363. Visiting : Write about visiting a family member or friend.

364. Trust: Write about putting trust in someone.

365. Congratulations : Did you write a poem, short story, or journal entry every day for a whole year? Write about what you’ve learned and celebrate your achievement!

We hope you enjoy these creative writing prompts! And of course, if you write anything using these prompts, we’d love to know about it! Tell us how you’ll use these everyday creative writing prompts in the comments section below!

And of course, if you’d like the printable ad-free version of these prompts to reference again and again or to use in your classroom, you can find them at our Etsy shop !

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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IGCSE English Language Tips and Tricks: Imaginative Writing

Challenges of acing imaginative writing in igcse english language, weaker igcse english response, why is this response considered weak for igcse english, improved igcse imaginative writing response, why is this response stronger.

Imaginative Writing is often seen as an easier section in the IGCSE English Language exams, but it is often neglected in the classroom. Effective imaginative writing, just like essay writing and analysis, requires a clear plan and structure and powerful use of creative writing techniques. While most IGCSE English students understand basic techniques such as similes and metaphors, more complex techniques like juxtaposition, personification and irony are important. Getting the right mark in the imaginative writing assessment requires candidates to produce a thorough and thoughtful response to the stimulus and can be harder than you think.

Let’s take a look at a sample exam prompt:

“You return to your old school, to find it abandoned.”

Here is an example of what some IGCSE students might produce for this imaginative writing task:

The school was huge. I stared at its empty front as I walked towards it and through the gates. I pushed open the big doors and made my way into the reception. It was filled with papers, mess and dust. The piles of paper looked like old parchment in a forgotten castle. I could smell stale coffee and the dust as I crept through the corridor, not wanting to make a sound.

What this response is missing:

Though there is some use of basic linguistic techniques such as simile and sensory imagery, and structural devices such as short sentences, these will have to be considerably more sophisticated for top marks in imaginative writing.

The narrative lacks inner monologue and has no indication of depth of setting and connection to history and subject matter.

The sentence structure is mostly repetitive with ‘I’ starting lots of sentences, indicating that the writer struggles with sentence structure.

Now consider this alternative imaginative writing response:

The grand, old, Victorian façade gazed down at me as I tottered, shrinking before it. It was both imposing and inspiring. It reminded me of times past, the ring of the school bell and the chatter of children chasing memories down the halls. The prodigious double doors creaked open as I pushed my way through into the reception foyer. Stacks of office paper spilled over the edge of the reception desk and seemed crammed haphazardly into drawers beside a trophy cabinet long since last locked. The dim gleam of an old trophy whispered of glories gone, and of students long since signing their names on their final exam papers. A waft of burnt coffee, dry and earthy, seemed to crawl, tingling up my nose. As quietly as a mouse, I crept through the deserted corridor, the paintings of old headmasters and mistresses gazing at my intrusion disapprovingly.

How this response succeeds:

This response to the imaginative writing task uses a wide and effective variety of creative writing techniques, both linguistic and structural (including the use of a varied vocabulary and evocative verbs).

There is an emerging connection to the subject matter and history for the character outside of the story, including some characterisation: “as quietly as a mouse, I crept”.

There is a variety of sentence structures with little repetition unless for effect, such as through alliteration which works well in imaginative writing.

In summary, the Imaginative Writing section of IGCSE English Language is not the cakewalk that it is often made out to be, but it is not impenetrable either. Filling a well-structured response with a variety of sentence structures and creative writing techniques will get you the marks you need for brilliance in the IGCSE exam. To find out more about BartyED’s expert IGCSE English Tutors and their mentoring for imaginative writing excellence, contact us today. You can also check out our website for more information on IGCSE English Language tutoring programmes here .

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Earth and space

Steps for Imaginative Writing in Paragraph Essay Form

Imaginative writing:.

Imaginative writing, also known as creative writing: This form of writing expresses the writer’s thoughts and feelings in an imaginative, often unique, and poetic way. Imaginative writing can exist in many different forms, but what unites them all is that the writer is free to use their own ideas and imagination. Imaginative writing is also known as Creative writing .

Here are Some Instances of Imaginative Writing:

The topic like the feelings and experiences of the sailor wrecked on the vast sea is imaginative writing . In these types of writing, the writer places himself in imagination in a position in which he doesn’t have any actual experience of that type.

Topics like “If I Were the prime minister” or “The Autobiography of a Horse” also fall under the category of imaginative writings/essays.

Writings are usually divided into two basic types:

Imaginative/ Creative

Creative writing revolves around imagination, artistic skills, and the ability to figure out situations that are far from reality.

On the other hand, logical writings are very well structured and mostly deal with important topics by employing precise methodology.

The main goal of imaginative essays/writings is to make the reader enjoy them in an aesthetic sense. The aim of logical writing/essays is to discuss an issue or solve a definite problem.

Extent Of An Imaginary Writing:

Imaginative writing tends to take topics from space travel to fantasy landscapes. This type of Writing is mainly based on fiction, where imaginary skills/thoughts in a logical order are expressed.

Normally, the extent of imagination will decide the depth of the essay.

Steps To Write A Good Imaginative Story/Essay:

Step 1: choose the most extravagant imaginative essay topic.

If there are various options to choose from, opt for writing on the “most extravagant” topic.

The advantages of choosing such a topic are:

Firstly, this type of topic of imaginative writing is unique – there is no such piece of writing.
Secondly, working on non-standard topics and also non-traditional approaches are always preferred.

STEP 2: Start Writing an Imaginative Piece Only When You Are Highly Inspired.

Without waiting for too long, start writing when you are highly inspired. This will enable you to be more creative in your approach. However, this will only be the first draft.

STEP 3: Be Original

Originality is the essence of imaginative writing. The circumstances or the situation can be fantastic and not a real one.

STEP 4: Avoid Indirect Speech in Your Imaginative Writing

It’s a good idea to describe the interaction between the characters of your imaginative writing through a narrative. This will help you maintain the word limit. Otherwise, it will lead to writing a long story that no one will read.

STEP 5. Incorporate a Message

Incorporate a message in imaginative writing. It is not necessary to have a clear message in imaginative writing but some sort of indication of the theme would be preferable.

Step 6. Use of Figures of Speech in Imaginative Writing

The use of metaphors , allegories, similes , and other figures of speech will make the writing more creative. Using simplistic language is not advisable in your imaginative writing. On the other hand, the exquisite style always attracts more readers.

STEP 7. Read Aloud and Revise

Read aloud your imaginative writing to identify the vagueness in your writing. Revise your writing in order to have a better style and grammar. It is not recommended. However, at this stage, changing the contents of the writing may affect its quality. In order to write this type, you need lots of imagination and creativity.

Salient Features of Imaginative Writing:

Heightened sense of imagination.
Add sensory details like smell, touch, taste, etc.
The logical flow of details.
Crisp and clear characterization(s), if any.
Proper punctuation.
The use of formal language is not mandatory.

The Elements of Imaginative Writing and Its Importance

Unique storyline or plot:

What differentiates imaginative writing and other forms of writing is the uniqueness of ideas or thoughts. Most imaginative writers create their own plots formed on their own unique ideas. Without having a plot, there’s no story. And without a story, it’s like just writing facts on paper and not imaginative writing.

Character development

Characters are necessary for Imaginative pieces of writing. Character development brings change throughout the duration of the writing or story.

Underlying Theme

Imaginative writing needs some theme or message to make it complete. It is the form by Writing an imaginative story lesson can be taught.

Visual Descriptions

When reading a newspaper, paragraphs of descriptions are read that depict all the surrounding places where the incident took place more precisely using visuals. Visual descriptions largely serve creative writing.

Visuals are needed in order to help the reader understand what the situation in the writing looks like.

Through visuals or images, the reader is more involved and makes them imagine themselves in the characters’ shoes – which makes the reader more curious to read.

Point of View

We generally use the first person and third person in imaginative writing.

First Person: The narrator is mainly the main or important character-which means that when we read the passages it includes “I”

Third Person– In imaginative writing the third person is multiple, and the third person is omniscient. However, the first person is what is typically found.

Imaginative Language

Part of what makes imaginative writing creative is the way you choose to craft the vision in your mind. It can be achieved by the use of more anecdotes, metaphors, similes, and figures of speech. Use of the other figurative language brings a vivid image to the reader’s mind.

Emotional Appeal

All writings possess emotional appeal. Nevertheless, it’s the main goal of creative writing. It makes the reader more involved and enthusiastic in the situation of the story or paragraphs.

Part of what makes imaginative writing creative is the way you choose to craft the vision in your mind. The use of anecdotes, metaphors, similes, figures of speech, and other figurative language in order to bring an effect of a vivid image in the reader’s mind.

Proofreading and revision

This is the most important aspect of creative writing. Proofreading and revision are different aspects. Revision of pieces of writing is done to improve the content of writing whereas proofreading is done to identify and correct errors of punctuation/grammar etc.

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What it takes for video essayists to breakthrough on YouTube

Lindsay Ellis, Michael Tucker, T1J, Maggie Mae Fish, and Patrick Willems discuss the art of dissecting art

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In the last 10 years, YouTube video essays — on movies, on TV shows, on games, on pop culture, on everyday life — have entered a renaissance. But how do you make a video essay? What does it take to run a YouTube channel that can let a creator’s creativity thrive and serve a demanding audience? How much do algorithms control the pop conversation, and how is someone supposed to break through?

Knowing that dissecting art is an art in itself, Polygon asked some of the top video essayists working on YouTube today to come together in conversation at the 2020 New York Comic Con Metaverse. On Saturday at 9 p.m. EDT/ 6 p.m. PDT, Lindsay Ellis , Michael Tucker ( Lessons from the Screenplay ), Kevin Peterson ( T1J ), and Maggie Mae Fish join moderator, fellow creator, and occasional Polygon contributor Patrick Willems to talk through their career arcs and reflect on what it takes to make a career out of video essays.

Want a taste?

“YouTube really encourages you to fixate on numbers and the algorithm,” Ellis says during the roundtable. “And the way the backend is set up [...] it’s designed to play to your anxiety and it’s designed to, like, make you freak out if your video isn’t doing as well as the last 10. I would like to be emotionally liberated from that because I do think it creatively stifles you. You’re making content based not on what you’re interested in, but what you think will get clicks. I wish I could just be OK with the fact that I’m not going to get a million views a video anymore. That should be OK. I should be allowed to do that.”

Watch the full, 45-minute panel above for even more insight and anecdotes.

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Favoree's guide to YouTube

13 Best Video Essay YouTubers in 2024 According to Viewers

Tamara Indriana

First of all, what even is a video essay ?

The line between video essays and documentaries is often muddy. While both video essays and documentaries use audiovisual elements to convey ideas and narratives, they differ in their focus, narrative structure, visual style, and intended audience.

Video essays offer critical analysis and interpretation of visual media, while documentaries provide factual information on real-life events and experiences. One key tip to distinguish between the two is that documentaries focus on getting answers from primary sources , like conducting interviews.

Video essays have gained popularity in recent years, particularly on YouTube. The accessibility of digital editing tools and visual media makes it easier than ever for aspiring filmmakers, critics, and scholars to produce and share their own video essays with the world.

In this article, we have compiled a list of the best video essayists on YouTube. Join us as we unravel the intricacies of these digital storytellers who put their viewers on the edge of their seats.

If video essays are not your cup of tea and you’re looking for something more educational, check out our article on the best documentary YouTube channels .

13 Top Video Essay YouTube Channels in 2024

This list is compiled from the opinions of Favoree and Reddit users.

In no particular order:

1. EmpLemon – 1.2M Subscribers

Emplemon blends elements of documentary-style storytelling with humor and cultural critique. Through his videos, Emplemon tells stories about internet culture, dissecting its quirks with razor-sharp wit and insight.

His contents elicit a rollercoaster of emotions, from laughter at absurd internet phenomena to contemplation of the impact of online communities on society.

2. ContraPoints – 1.8M Subscribers

Natalie Wynn, better known as Contrapoints, makes incisive video essays about social topics. Initially gaining fame for providing leftist rebuttals to right-wing content, Wynn’s dark humor and elaborate productions captivate audiences.

While her style has evolved to include more intimate settings, Wynn’s content remains intellectually stimulating, featuring detailed philosophical discussions presented in a visually stunning manner.

Natalie is not only an icon for her video essays, she’s also one of the most influential Trans creators on YouTube .

3. ColdFusion – 4.7M Subscribers

ColdFusion is a prominent YouTube channel making high-quality videos on corporations and their scandals. The channel’s soothing narration style contributes to a relaxing viewing experience.

With professional editing and a focus on interesting subject matter, ColdFusion delivers compelling insights into the latest trends and developments shaping the world of business and technology.

Check out our article on the best economics YouTube channel if you’re interested in improving your financial knowledge!

4. Wendigoon – 3.4M Subscribers

Wendigoon’s exploration of horror and supernatural phenomena certainly gives viewers goosebumps. With a focus on topics like urban legends , paranormal encounters, and mysterious occurrences, Wendigoon delivers chilling narratives that leave viewers intrigued and unsettled.

The channel’s immersive storytelling and atmospheric visuals evoke a sense of unease, drawing audiences into the eerie world of the unknown. Wendigoon’s expertly crafted videos combine suspenseful narration with haunting imagery, creating an unforgettable viewing experience.

Can’t get enough of chilling true crime stories? Our article on the best true crime YouTube channels will help you find more creators to watch.

5. hbomberguy – 1.6M Subscribers

Hbomberguy is a highly respected YouTuber famous for his well-researched video essays. With a focus on various topics ranging from video games to social critiques of modernity, Hbomberguy delivers arguments backed by cited facts. His recent video that exposed Internet Historian has gotten the most attention and discourse.

Despite a sporadic upload schedule, his content is eagerly anticipated, offering deep dives into internet culture and thought-provoking analyses.

6. Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell – 21.8M Subscribers

Kurzgesagt is incredible at explaining complex scientific concepts and philosophical ideas in a simple way. Through stunning art and animation, Kurzgesagt brings these topics to life.

Covering a wide range of subjects from space exploration to biology, the channel’s videos are both educational and visually captivating, leaving viewers feeling inspired and enlightened. Kurzgesagt offers an immersive journey into the wonders of the universe, sparking curiosity and wonder in audiences worldwide.

7. Fredrik Knudsen – 1.2M Subscribers

A cult favorite, Fredrik Knudsen’s acclaimed series “Down the Rabbit Hole” investigates obscure corners of the internet and perplexing aspects of history.

Known for his unbiased and objective approach, Knudsen presents his subjects in a neutral manner, allowing facts to speak for themselves. His thought-provoking content offers insights into the complexities of human experiences and internet phenomena.

8. blameitonjorge – 1.7M Subscribers

Blameitonjorge is beloved for his videos centered around lost media, creepy events, and obscure topics. With a soothing and friendly voice, Jorge’s narration style is modest, respectful, and intelligently humorous, offering a refreshing contrast to typical list-making channels.

His videos cover a diverse range of subjects, including UFO sightings, nostalgia, horror movies, true crime, and Mexican urban legends, all presented with meticulous research and informative editing. Blameitonjorge’s efforts to uncover unanswered mysteries and controversies breathe new life into forgotten topics.

9. Solar Sands – 1.3M Subscribers

Solar Sands, an American YouTuber, specializes in video essays analyzing and reviewing art, culture, and archaeology. His long form contents concentrate on retrospectives on various aspects of artistic quality, including the history of low-resolution paintings in Minecraft and analyses of artists like Trevor Henderson .

Solar Sands’ content offers unusual insights into the world of art and culture, appealing to viewers interested in thought-provoking discussions and analyses.

10. Philosophy Tube – 1.5M Subscribers

Abigail Thorn, AKA Philosophy Tube, is a British YouTuber exploring philosophy, politics, and personal identity through theatrical presentations and insightful discussions. Abigail’s well-researched content creates a deeper understanding of complex topics and provides support for those grappling with personal identity.

Her inclusive and authentic approach transforms philosophical concepts into accessible narratives, while her openness about her transgender journey inspires self-acceptance in viewers. With a blend of academic rigor and theatrical flair, Philosophy Tube continues to educate and entertain her audiences.

Want a deeper understanding of philosophy without breaking the bank? Check out the best philosophy YouTube channels to learn more!

11. Super Eyepatch Wolf – 1.7M Subscribers

John Walsh, also known as Super Eyepatch Wolf , is an Irish YouTuber renowned for his analytical-style videos primarily focused on anime, with occasional forays into manga and video games.

Unlike many other anime YouTubers, his presentation style stands out for its calm and passionate delivery. His content resonates with audiences seeking thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary.

12. Folding Ideas – 920K Subscribers

Dan Olson or Folding Ideas is a YouTube channel offering long-form video essays on internet culture. From NFTs to nuggets, he makes any topic interesting and will leave you looking for more.

While the writing can occasionally seem overly clever, Dan Olson’s thoroughly researched insights provide valuable perspectives into tech grifts and other media. Despite only uploading every few months, the channel’s in-depth and insightful content is highly appreciated by viewers.

13. Jacob Geller – 1.2M Subscribers

Jacob Geller offers thought-provoking video essays that seamlessly blend topics such as video games, history, politics, and more. With a dark yet empathetic tone, Geller digs deep into philosophical, ethical, metaphysical, and psychological themes, using gaming as a springboard for discussions.

Whether discussing a specific video game mod or architectural design, Jacob’s talent shines through in his insightful videos, offering a deep exploration of video games with surprising depth.

Why are video essays important?

Video essays are important as they provide a platform for creators to offer nuanced interpretations and critical perspectives on various subjects. They serve as engaging educational tools, stimulating discussions and deepening understanding of visual media and cultural phenomena.

What are the benefits of video essays?

Video essays offer benefits such as fostering critical thinking, providing accessible and entertaining educational content, and offering a fresh approach to the analysis and exploration of visual media.

What’s the difference between a video essay and a documentary?

The difference lies in their focus, narrative structure, visual style, and intended audience. While video essays offer critical analysis and interpretation of visual media, documentaries provide factual information on real-life events and experiences, often by obtaining answers from primary sources through interviews.

Is video essay a genre?

Video essay is not a genre in the traditional sense. Rather, it is a format or style of content creation that can encompass a wide range of subjects and approaches, from film analysis to cultural critique.

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We’ll share a list of verified email contacts from active and relevant channels. More info here .

Toy artist, illustrator, literary enthusiast. Chronically online and addicted to YouTube.

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With YouTube Booming, Podcast Creators Get Camera-Ready

To some, “video podcasts” are a contradiction in terms. That hasn’t made them any less popular.

Trevor Noah, sitting on a small couch, talks to his guest Kevin Hart.

By Reggie Ugwu

For its new podcast studio in Burbank, Calif., Exactly Right Media — the company behind hit shows like “ My Favorite Murder ” and “ This Podcast Will Kill You ” — made several investments in high-end audio equipment: soundproofing, microphones, a dedicated control room.

But that was only half the job.

Next, it purchased half-a-dozen video cameras with the help of consultants, hired a set designer and a lighting designer, and found someone to build the scaffolding from which the new equipment would hang.

“We got the best truss guy in the city,” said Danielle Kramer, the company’s chief operating officer.

Until recently, Exactly Right would have had little need for such accouterments — more typical of a television studio than an audio company whose products are primarily consumed on long commutes or during weeknight dish duty. But the podcast industry is changing. As consumers, especially those under 30, spend more time on video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, many audio creators are reimagining their work to be seen as well as heard.

New shows, like “ Power User ,” “ Beyond the Arc ” and “ What Now? With Trevor Noah ,” now commonly launch with video on Day 1, while established series — including “ Las Culturistas ” and “ Planet Money ” — have added video supplements. According to a Times analysis of data published by Edison Research, 16 of the top 30 podcasts in the final quarter of 2023 — more than half — were available as filmed videos, compared with just seven of the top 30 from that same period two years earlier.

But the embrace of video presents a web of challenges. In addition to the added production and facilities costs, there is the question of how audio creators can compete in the oversaturated, cutthroat universe of viral online video.

Even to make the attempt, some industry veterans argue, represents a kind of betrayal. Podcasts, they say, are a distinctly aural form, and the very idea of a “video podcast” is a contradiction in terms.

“It’s like saying ‘video radio,’” said Jay Cockburn, a radio and podcast producer for The Globe and Mail and Vocal Fry Studios . “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium.”

Some categories of podcasts have produced video versions for years. Interview-driven series like “ The Joe Rogan Experience ,” “ Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend ” and “ Drink Champs ” reach millions of subscribers on YouTube and Spotify, which added support for video in 2020. Like the 1990s cable iterations of “The Howard Stern Show” and “Imus in the Morning,” the videos typically go behind the scenes of their audio counterparts — multiple camera angles show the hosts and guests sitting around a table and talking into microphones.

Shannon Sharpe, the pro football Hall of Famer and host of the interview podcast “ Club Shay Shay ,” said viewers like watching how his guests comport themselves. A viral episode of the show from January , featuring the comedian Katt Williams, has been viewed more than 66 million times on YouTube.

“There’s something about video and being able to see it for yourself,” Sharpe said. “You can get a sense of a person and their mannerisms. Are they happy? Are they agitated? Are they sad? Do they really want to tell this story, or would they rather not go further with it?”

A surge of interest in podcasts on YouTube, which added features making them easier to play and discover last year, has made video hard to resist for a wider range of podcasters. It is now the top platform for podcast consumption in the United States, overtaking both Apple Podcasts and Spotify. According to a survey published last fall , 28 percent of podcast consumers now do so on YouTube most frequently, compared to 15 percent who use Spotify and 12 percent who use Apple Podcasts. Those results are the reverse of five years ago, when 29 percent of consumers used Apple Podcasts and just 15 percent preferred YouTube.

“People want their content the way they want it when they want it,” said Lucinda Treat, chief executive of the progressive podcast company Crooked Media, producer of “ Pod Save America ” and “ Lovett or Leave It .” “They might be listening to a podcast in their car and put it on YouTube when they get home.”

YouTube’s powerful recommendation algorithm — an endless pipeline of new videos based on the user’s interests — is key to its allure. There is no equivalent on audio platforms, which many in the industry have long complained lack tools for easily discovering what to listen to next.

A potential new audience could be a boon to the industry after a painful year of layoffs, closures and cancellations , thanks to a down ad market and backpedaling from disenchanted tech investors. But many podcasts may not be fit to survive in a video-driven ecosystem.

Narrative and documentary podcasts, in particular, have struggled to break through. Unlike talk shows, scripted content is generally less amenable to “second screen” or background viewing, which is how 50 percent of users between 18 and 34 prefer to consume podcasts, according to Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights. Episodes of “ Radiolab ,” a narrative show that is among the Top 40 most popular podcasts in the U.S., across platforms, typically draw only 3,000 to 5,000 views on YouTube.

Cockburn, the radio and podcast producer, said the power of these podcasts derives from the personal connection that forms between the listener and the voice in their ears, and in the acts of imagination that only audio can stir.

“There’s nothing like going for a walk or a drive — with a narrator right on your eardrums — and getting that feeling that you just have to hear what happens next,” he said.

“Radiolab," like many similar podcasts, uses simple, subtly animated background images to accompany its YouTube edition. But some narrative audio companies are hoping that a more ambitious approach to video can succeed where other efforts have stalled.

Bradley Hope, the co-founder of Project Brazen, producers of “ The Sound ” and “ Spy Valley ,” said his company is experimenting with documentary-style video clips and filmed narration to make its scripted podcasts more visually compelling. It recently spent around $100,000 building an in-house video studio.

“There’s a sliding scale — if you do too much, then you’re basically making a full-blown documentary, which could easily double your costs,” Hope said, placing the standard budget for a limited, audio-only series at $250,000. “In my ideal world, there’s a step in between that wouldn’t be such a heavy lift.” He estimated that a middle-ground approach to video could add anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000 in costs, or between 2 percent and 20 percent.

Podcast companies that are investing in video see a much welcome, potential new revenue stream. Ian Enright, chief executive of the production company Goat Rodeo (“ The Retreat ,” “ Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa ”), estimated that, relative to an audio-only advertisement, a 60-second video ad read by the podcast host might bring in an extra 60 percent in revenue per 1,000 listens. A podcast with a conservatively budgeted video operation and a large and consistent viewership could comfortably justify the added costs.

Even for those enticed by the prospect of a new audience and a boost to revenue, the rapid rise of video has inspired some wariness. Treat, who worked for four years at Vice Media before joining Crooked Media in 2022, said she had “visceral memories” of the digital publishing industry’s own “pivot to video” era. Many outlets, largely chasing viral traffic on Facebook, threw millions of dollars and scores of staff at shiny new video operations — only to retreat after the social network changed its strategy.

“It was a business model that everybody thought was growing forever, and then it really changed,” she said.

Despite reaching 64 million viewers on YouTube last year — up about 100 percent from the year before — Crooked Media still finds the vast majority of its audience on audio platforms, which Treat said are the company’s primary focus. The audience for “Pod Save America,” its flagship series, is about 80 percent audio and 20 percent video. Fans who discover Crooked Media shows on YouTube, Treat said, will hopefully become audio subscribers, as well.

At Exactly Right Media, Kramer and the co-founders Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark are taking a similarly balanced approach. When it is completed later this spring, their new Burbank studio will at first be used not to record full video podcasts but for promotional videos and livestreams, meant to drive audiences back to their audio content.

“Maybe it’s the elder millennial in me,” Hardstark said. “But I still love the intimacy of audio.”

Reggie Ugwu is a Times culture reporter. More about Reggie Ugwu

The State of Podcasting

As consumers spend more time on video platforms like YouTube, many podcast creators are reimagining their work to be seen as well as heard .

The cast of the Nickelodeon series “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide” are among the stars of 2000s teen sitcoms who are using podcasts to connect with their Gen Z and millennial fan bases .

Christian Duguay’s podcast, “Valley Heat,” purports to be about the neighbors in the Rancho Equestrian District of Burbank, Calif. One thing is for sure: It’s masterfully absurd .

The success of Alex Cooper’s podcast, “Call Her Daddy,” has birthed a new media company. Can this millennial solve the riddle of what Gen Z wants ?

A host of media companies are all aiming to capitalize on interest in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump with true-crime podcasts.

Submitting to The Imaginative Conservative

Please note that we receive many essay proposals and that space is very limited in our journal for new authors. If your proposal interests us, we will contact you, probably within two weeks. Note also that it may take several weeks for an approved essay to be published. Essays on “timely” topics are therefore discouraged; we always prefer evergreen subjects.

We insist on maintaining a tone of civility in our journal. Though we appreciate sharp humor, please keep in mind that part of our mission is to raise the tone of intellectual exchange and to persuade, not alienate, others. We keep in mind the Biblical injunction to “come, let us reason together.”

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Illustration of a missile made from words.

In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.

By Zadie Smith

A philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy. A politics unmoored, unprincipled, which holds as its most fundamental commitment its own perpetuation. A Realpolitik that believes itself too subtle—or too pragmatic—to deal with such ethical platitudes as thou shalt not kill. Or: rape is a crime, everywhere and always. But sometimes ethical philosophy reënters the arena, as is happening right now on college campuses all over America. I understand the ethics underpinning the protests to be based on two widely recognized principles:

There is an ethical duty to express solidarity with the weak in any situation that involves oppressive power.

If the machinery of oppressive power is to be trained on the weak, then there is a duty to stop the gears by any means necessary.

The first principle sometimes takes the “weak” to mean “whoever has the least power,” and sometimes “whoever suffers most,” but most often a combination of both. The second principle, meanwhile, may be used to defend revolutionary violence, although this interpretation has just as often been repudiated by pacifistic radicals, among whom two of the most famous are, of course, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr . In the pacifist’s interpretation, the body that we must place between the gears is not that of our enemy but our own. In doing this, we may pay the ultimate price with our actual bodies, in the non-metaphorical sense. More usually, the risk is to our livelihoods, our reputations, our futures. Before these most recent campus protests began, we had an example of this kind of action in the climate movement. For several years now, many people have been protesting the economic and political machinery that perpetuates climate change, by blocking roads, throwing paint, interrupting plays, and committing many other arrestable offenses that can appear ridiculous to skeptics (or, at the very least, performative), but which in truth represent a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.

I experienced this not long ago while participating in an XR climate rally in London. When it came to the point in the proceedings where I was asked by my fellow-protesters whether I’d be willing to commit an arrestable offense—one that would likely lead to a conviction and thus make travelling to the United States difficult or even impossible—I’m ashamed to say that I declined that offer. Turns out, I could not give up my relationship with New York City for the future of the planet. I’d just about managed to stop buying plastic bottles (except when very thirsty) and was trying to fly less. But never to see New York again? What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)! Falling at the first hurdle! Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at any young person willing to put their own future into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where the limits of their own commitments lie—also whether they’ve bought a plastic bottle or booked a flight recently. A humbling inquiry.

It is difficult to look at the recent Columbia University protests in particular without being reminded of the campus protests of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, some of which happened on the very same lawns. At that time, a cynical political class was forced to observe the spectacle of its own privileged youth standing in solidarity with the weakest historical actors of the moment, a group that included, but was not restricted to, African Americans and the Vietnamese. By placing such people within their ethical zone of interest, young Americans risked both their own academic and personal futures and—in the infamous case of Kent State—their lives. I imagine that the students at Columbia—and protesters on other campuses—fully intend this echo, and, in their unequivocal demand for both a ceasefire and financial divestment from this terrible war, to a certain extent they have achieved it.

But, when I open newspapers and see students dismissing the idea that some of their fellow-students feel, at this particular moment, unsafe on campus, or arguing that such a feeling is simply not worth attending to, given the magnitude of what is occurring in Gaza, I find such sentiments cynical and unworthy of this movement. For it may well be—within the ethical zone of interest that is a campus, which was not so long ago defined as a safe space, delineated by the boundary of a generation’s ethical ideas— it may well be that a Jewish student walking past the tents, who finds herself referred to as a Zionist, and then is warned to keep her distance, is, in that moment, the weakest participant in the zone. If the concept of safety is foundational to these students’ ethical philosophy (as I take it to be), and, if the protests are committed to reinserting ethical principles into a cynical and corrupt politics, it is not right to divest from these same ethics at the very moment they come into conflict with other imperatives. The point of a foundational ethics is that it is not contingent but foundational. That is precisely its challenge to a corrupt politics.

Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them, a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands. (Those brave students who—in supporting the ethical necessity of a ceasefire—find themselves at painful odds with family, friends, faith, or community have already made this calculation.) This flexibility can also have the positive long-term political effect of allowing us to comprehend that, although our duty to the weakest is permanent, the role of “the weakest” is not an existential matter independent of time and space but, rather, a contingent situation, continually subject to change. By contrast, there is a dangerous rigidity to be found in the idea that concern for the dreadful situation of the hostages is somehow in opposition to, or incompatible with, the demand for a ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire—as well as being an ethical necessity—is also in the immediate absolute interest of the hostages, a fact that cannot be erased by tearing their posters off walls.

Part of the significance of a student protest is the ways in which it gives young people the opportunity to insist upon an ethical principle while still being, comparatively speaking, a more rational force than the supposed adults in the room, against whose crazed magical thinking they have been forced to define themselves. The equality of all human life was never a self-evident truth in racially segregated America. There was no way to “win” in Vietnam. Hamas will not be “eliminated.” The more than seven million Jewish human beings who live in the gap between the river and the sea will not simply vanish because you think that they should. All of that is just rhetoric. Words. Cathartic to chant, perhaps, but essentially meaningless. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is both a potential reality and an ethical necessity. The monstrous and brutal mass murder of more than eleven hundred people, the majority of them civilians, dozens of them children, on October 7th, has been followed by the monstrous and brutal mass murder (at the time of writing) of a reported fourteen thousand five hundred children. And many more human beings besides, but it’s impossible not to notice that the sort of people who take at face value phrases like “surgical strikes” and “controlled military operation” sometimes need to look at and/or think about dead children specifically in order to refocus their minds on reality.

To send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment? They are putting their own bodies into the machine. They deserve our support and praise. As to which postwar political arrangement any of these students may favor, and on what basis they favor it—that is all an argument for the day after a ceasefire. One state, two states, river to the sea—in my view, their views have no real weight in this particular moment, or very little weight next to the significance of their collective action, which (if I understand it correctly) is focussed on stopping the flow of money that is funding bloody murder, and calling for a ceasefire, the political euphemism that we use to mark the end of bloody murder. After a ceasefire, the criminal events of the past seven months should be tried and judged, and the infinitely difficult business of creating just, humane, and habitable political structures in the region must begin anew. Right now: ceasefire. And, as we make this demand, we might remind ourselves that a ceasefire is not, primarily, a political demand. Primarily, it is an ethical one.

But it is in the nature of the political that we cannot even attend to such ethical imperatives unless we first know the political position of whoever is speaking. (“Where do you stand on Israel/Palestine?”) In these constructed narratives, there are always a series of shibboleths, that is, phrases that can’t be said, or, conversely, phrases that must be said. Once these words or phrases have been spoken ( river to the sea, existential threat, right to defend, one state, two states, Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, terrorist ) and one’s positionality established, then and only then will the ethics of the question be attended to (or absolutely ignored). The objection may be raised at this point that I am behaving like a novelist, expressing a philosophy without a politics, or making some rarefied point about language and rhetoric while people commit bloody murder. This would normally be my own view, but, in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction.

It is in fact perhaps the most acute example in the world of the use of words to justify bloody murder, to flatten and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity to the many people who seem to believe that merely by saying something they make it so. It is no doubt a great relief to say the word “Hamas” as if it purely and solely described a terrorist entity. A great relief to say “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people” as they stand in front of you. A great relief to say “Zionist colonialist state” and accept those three words as a full and unimpeachable definition of the state of Israel, not only under the disastrous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu but at every stage of its long and complex history, and also to hear them as a perfectly sufficient description of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived in Israel or happened to find themselves born within it. It is perhaps because we know these simplifications to be impossible that we insist upon them so passionately. They are shibboleths; they describe a people, by defining them against other people—but the people being described are ourselves. The person who says “We must eliminate Hamas” says this not necessarily because she thinks this is a possible outcome on this earth but because this sentence is the shibboleth that marks her membership in the community that says that. The person who uses the word “Zionist” as if that word were an unchanged and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in 1890 or 1901 or 1920—that person does not so much bring definitive clarity to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians as they successfully and soothingly draw a line to mark their own zone of interest and where it ends. And while we all talk, carefully curating our shibboleths, presenting them to others and waiting for them to reveal themselves as with us or against us—while we do all that, bloody murder.

And now here we are, almost at the end of this little stream of words. We’ve arrived at the point at which I must state clearly “where I stand on the issue,” that is, which particular political settlement should, in my own, personal view, occur on the other side of a ceasefire. This is the point wherein—by my stating of a position—you are at once liberated into the simple pleasure of placing me firmly on one side or the other, putting me over there with those who lisp or those who don’t, with the Ephraimites, or with the people of Gilead. Yes, this is the point at which I stake my rhetorical flag in that fantastical, linguistical, conceptual, unreal place—built with words—where rapes are minimized as needs be, and the definition of genocide quibbled over, where the killing of babies is denied, and the precision of drones glorified, where histories are reconsidered or rewritten or analogized or simply ignored, and “Jew” and “colonialist” are synonymous, and “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonymous, and language is your accomplice and alibi in all of it. Language euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do. Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward. It is my view that my personal views have no more weight than an ear of corn in this particular essay. The only thing that has any weight in this particular essay is the dead. ♦

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AMAZING IMAGINATIVE ESSAYS FOR KCSE•PROVEN TIPS•PART 1•
https://youtu.be/AwNCaCc7hNEHOW TO EARN 19-20 MARKS IN A KCSE IMAGINATIVE COMPOSITIONA-CLASS KCSE IMAGINATIVE COMPOSITIONSWrite fluently and attractivelyMust...
Writing : Imaginative Essays
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How to Write an Imaginative Narrative for Kids Episode 4 ...
In this video, you will learn how to write an introduction (or exposition) for an imaginative narrative or fantasy story! We will learn how to hook the reade...
How to Write an Imaginative Narrative for Kids |Episode 6 ...
In this video, you will learn how to write a closing or conclusion for your imaginative narrative or fantasy story. We will discuss a variety of ways to end ...
Discursive and Imaginative Writing Tips for Module C HSC English
For HSC English Module C: The Craft of Writing, Jonny outlines some key tips to help you adapt your discursive piece into an imaginative piece, and how to ch...
Imaginative Essay
Om Pathshala
How to write an Imaginative Essay?
It is a form of creative writing that can be used in literature, poetry, and other forms of writing as well. 20 Topics/Prompts for Imaginative Essay. Write an Imaginative Essay - 'Imagine you were a character in a novel and describe your journey.'. Write an Imaginative Essay - Imagine you were a superhero and describe your powers and ...
Writing Imaginative and Narrative Essays: A Detailed Guide
This way of writing is really useful when we need to write narrative and imaginative essays for tests or just for practice. In this chapter, we're going to talk about the important parts of creative writing, the kinds of questions you might see on tests, and how the things you learn in non-fiction writing can help you write amazing stories. 1.
6 Fun YouTube Writing Activities for Students and Teachers
Use Video Writing Prompts with your students. 4. Teach Poetry. 5. Go On a Virtual Field Trip with your students. 6. Teach Narrative Writing Through Video. No doubt about it: YouTube has some amazing cat videos, but we have some creative YouTube writing activities your students will love more.
IMAGINATIVE ESSAY
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Imaginative Writing and How to teach Imaginative Writing
Our Imaginative writing Powerpoint slides included at the end of this post will help a teacher explain how to write a story to her students, keeping in mind all the aspects of writing an imagination. Moreover, there are a lot of resources available on the internet. My recommendation would be a complete series of videos titled "How to Write an ...
7 Imaginative Narrative Writing Prompts To Create The Perfect Story
So here are 7 imaginative narrative writing prompts that will help you put an end to any writing block and get you back in the game. Prompt 1 - Monday. Tonia just got into college. It's her first day, and she is quite nervous. Out of fear of being alone and a need to be respected, she joins this group of powerful girls called "The Outlaws".
7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays
1. Think about your reader. Chances are your teacher or examiner will have a lot to read - so keep them interested. With creative writing, as with any kind of writing, your reader is your most important consideration. You need to know and understand whom you're writing for if you're to do a good job of keeping them interested.
How to Write an Imaginative Essay
An imaginative essay is fiction, actually a type of short story. Students are asked to imagine a particular historical or fantastic situation and write the rest of the story. Depending on the prompt, the imaginative essay can discuss anything from space travel to civil rights. Because of this wide variation, some ...
How To Write An Effective Imaginative Essay/Composition
IMAGINATIVE COMPOSITION/ESSAY. Imaginative writing, also known as creative writing, requires someone to think and come up with an original story. A good story provides clear details so that the reader re-lives the experiences as they read it. The events in the imaginative essay are not real but imagined. Such writing is referred to as fictional ...
365 Creative Writing Prompts
14. The Found Poem: Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines. 15. Eavesdropper: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you've overheard. Printable Ad-Free 365 Writing Prompt Cards. 16.
IGCSE English Language Tips and Tricks: Imaginative Writing
Effective imaginative writing, just like essay writing and analysis, requires a clear plan and structure and powerful use of creative writing techniques. While most IGCSE English students understand basic techniques such as similes and metaphors, more complex techniques like juxtaposition, personification and irony are important.
Steps for Imaginative Writing in Paragraph Essay Form
STEP 4: Avoid Indirect Speech in Your Imaginative Writing. It's a good idea to describe the interaction between the characters of your imaginative writing through a narrative. This will help you maintain the word limit. Otherwise, it will lead to writing a long story that no one will read. STEP 5.
Imaginative Essay
August 19, 2020 by sastry. Imaginative Essay: An Imaginative Essay is an essay which tends to discuss anything from space travel to fantasy land. It is basically an essay based on fiction, where you are required to put your imaginary skills/thoughts in a logical order. Your imagination will decide the depth of your essay.
How to make a YouTube video essay that breaks through
Lindsay Ellis, Michael Tucker, T1J, Maggie Mae Fish, and Patrick Willems discuss the art of dissecting art. By Polygon Staff Oct 10, 2020, 4:30pm EDT. Part of Polygon at NYCC 2020. In the last 10 ...
13 Best Video Essay YouTubers in 2024 According to Viewers
Despite only uploading every few months, the channel's in-depth and insightful content is highly appreciated by viewers. 13. Jacob Geller - 1.2M Subscribers. Jacob Geller offers thought-provoking video essays that seamlessly blend topics such as video games, history, politics, and more.
First year, first class, first essay
So I have a 1500 word essay on explaining the sociological imagination Am I correct in thinking that the sociological imagination template, by Evan…
With YouTube Booming, Podcast Creators Get Camera-Ready
For its new podcast studio in Burbank, Calif., Exactly Right Media — the company behind hit shows like "My Favorite Murder" and "This Podcast Will Kill You" — made several investments ...
How To Get Oswald (The Spark of Imagination Walkthrough)
Put the Exclamation Mark in place of the missing lever to drop the gate and open the path to the Spark of Imagination. Claim The Spark Of Imagination Walk down the newly opened path to claim the ...
Submitting to The Imaginative Conservative
If you have not been previously published in The Imaginative Conservative, please first send a short summary of your proposed essay and a short professional biography to the editorial board: [email protected] essays should be on subjects of interest to readers of The Imaginative Conservative.. Please note that we receive many essay proposals and that space is very ...
War in Gaza, Shibboleths on Campus
Essay. Shibboleth. In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.
America's federal district courts may soon be harder to manipulate
Amarillo, Texas, is known for its abundance of cattle, a local restaurant's 72-ounce steak-eating challenge and, along an interstate highway, a vibrant drug trade. It is the narcotics ...