Creative Writing Examples: Unlock the secrets to writing flawlessly

The field of creative writing is vast. It is not confined to just poetry and stories. Songs, plays, screenplays, essays, satire, and non-fiction writing are all under the umbrella of creative writing. As you can see, different genres and styles are part of creative writing. And there are creative writing examples available for each of them. Courses on creative writing have always been popular. Every style of writing requires creativity and channelling your imagination. 

Creative Writing Examples

There are many creative writing examples pdf available online. Edulyte’s experts have collected some exceptional examples of different genres of creative writing for you. 

Novels and Novellas

These are what come to our minds when we talk about creative writing. With a plot, characters, setting, themes and narrative, reading novels and novellas is something many of us indulge in and why not?

Some examples of riveting novels are:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Extract:

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 

Extract:

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening because everything happens within you.”

Poetry

Poetry is good for the soul. Writing short, strategic sentences and reading poetry makes you comprehend yourself and the people. It is therapeutic as it touches your sentiments. 

Some good examples of poetry are:

The Road Not taken by Robert Frost

Extract: 

• I shall be telling this with a sigh
• Somewhere ages and ages hence:
• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
• I took the one less travelled by,
• And that has made all the difference.

Still I Rise by Mary Angelou

Extract:

• Out of the huts of history’s shame
• I rise
• Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
• I rise
• I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
• Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Essays

Essay writing holds significance among creative writing genres as it makes the writer sort out ideas, organise them, critically judge them, and then place them for the readers to consume. 

Some examples of creative writing essays are: 

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Extract:

“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America — or, more precisely, it is the story of Americans. It is not a very pretty story: the story of a people is never very pretty. The Negro in America, gloomily referred to as that shadow which lies athwart our national life, is far more than that. He is a series of shadows, self-created, intertwining, which now we helplessly battle. One may say that the Negro in America does not really exist except in the darkness of our minds.”

The Book of My Lives by Aleksander Hemon

Extract:

“I do not know how old I was when I learned to play chess. I could not have been older than 8 because I still have a chess board on whose side my father inscribed, with a soldering iron, “Saša Hemon 1972.” I loved the board more than chess — it was one of the first things I owned. Its materiality was enchanting to me: the smell of burnt wood that lingered long after my father had branded it, the rattle of the thickly varnished pieces inside, the smacking sound they made when I set them down, the board’s hollow wooden echo. I can even recall the taste — the queen’s tip was pleasantly suckable; the pawns’ round heads, not unlike nipples, were sweet. The board is at our old place in Sarajevo, and even if I haven’t played a game on it in decades, it is still my most cherished possession, providing incontrovertible evidence that there once lived a boy who used to be me.”

Short Stories

A compelling writing form, short stories assimilate human conditions in a few pages. No wonder many consider writing short stories more difficult than writing novels.

Extracts from some famous short stories as creative writing examples are:

The Dead by James Joyce

Extract:

“The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover’s eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.”

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

Extract: 

“And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved.”

Songs

Songs are considered a powerful medium. Revolutions have been led in history by songs, as they are an effective medium to communicate across all socio-economic barriers. 

Changes by 2Pac

Extract:

• “We gotta make a change
• It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes
• Let’s change the way we eat
• Let’s change the way we live
• And let’s change the way we treat each other
• You see, the old way wasn’t workin’
• So it’s on us to do what we gotta do to survive”

Beautiful Day by U2

Extract:

• “You’re on the road
• But you’ve got no destination
• You’reYou’re in the mud
• In the maze of her imagination
• You love this town
• Even if that doesn’t ring true
• You’veYou’ve been all over
• And it’s been all over you.”

Script and Screenplays

They are essential to story telling as they explain the actions,dialogue and incidents that will occur during the course of a movie or  scene. You have to pay attention to every detail that has to be projected on the screen. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Screenplay by Charlie Kaufmann

Excerpt:

“EXT. COMMUTER TRAIN STATION – DAY 1

 It’s gray. The platform is packed with business commuters: suits, overcoats. There is such a lack of color it almost seems as if it’s a black and white shot, except one commuter holds a bright red heart-shaped box of candy under his arm. The platform across the tracks is empty. As an almost empty train pulls up to that platform, one of the suited men breaks out of the crowd, lurches up the stairs two at a time, hurries across the overpass and down the stairs to the other side, just at the empty train stops. The doors open and the man gets on that train. As the empty train pulls from the station, the man watches the crowd of commuters through the train’s dirty window. We see his face for the first time. This is Joel Barish. He is in his 30’s, sallow, a bit puffy. His hair is a little messy, his suit is either vintage or just old and dirty and sort of threadbare. His bright tie has a photograph of a rodeo printed on it.”

Lost in Translation: Screenplay by Sofia Coppola

Extract: 

“INT. CAR – NIGHT

POV from a car window – the colors and lights of Tokyo neon at night blur by.

CUT TO:

In the backseat of a Presidential limousine, BOB (late- forties), tired and depressed, leans against a little doily, staring out the window.

P.O.V. from car window- We see buildings covered in bright

signs, a billboard of Brad Pitt selling jeans, another of Bob

in black & white, looking distinguished with a bottle of

whiskey in a Suntory ad.. more signs, a huge TV with perky

Japanese pop stars singing.

EXT. PARK HYATT – NIGHT”

Memoirs / Autobiographical Narratives

Writing down your experiences can be cathartic and inspiring for you and the readers. It is an effective way to express yourself and communicate your thoughts.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Extract:

“I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity. When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.”

My Experiments with the Truth by Mahatma Gandhi

Excerpt:

“I decided at last to write out the confession, to submit it to my father, and ask his forgiveness. I wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him myself. In this note not only did I confess my guilt, but I asked adequate punishment for it, and closed with a request to him not to punish himself for my offence. I also pledged myself never to steal in future.”

Speeches

There is no formula to an impactful speech other than that they impart wisdom and relate directly to the people. 

A few good ones are below:

I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr.

Extract:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Greta Thunberg’s Speech at UN Climate Action Summit

Extract: 

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I’mI’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”