Do you ever find yourself using the same tired words over and over again while writing? Words such as, 'thing',' tool', 'car', etc? These words don't convey much do they? No detail, no color, no description of any kind, just a boring word. How about instead of car we wrote it as, "A 1956 Studebaker the color of rusted smoke, with its muffler scraping along the gravel road." Now we can picture in our minds what kind of car, what shape and year it is and where it is. This is creative writing. The big difference between writer's and non-writers is we know how to tell a story that gets the attention and ropes the reader in for a full-on adventure. The writer has total freedom to fabricate anything they can imagine. The more imaginative your scenes, the more your characters start to come alive. The more the characters come alive they'll practically write your story for you.
Try writing more from your heart, rather than the mind. Lead with the heart and follow with the mind. The heart never steers us wrong, but the mind insists on playing the villain, bringing in doubt, insecurities, and would rather play it safe...which means boring. Use the mind more for editing, punctuation, spelling, and etc. The mind is where the ego resides and the ego can be very impatient. It just wants to get done with it and wrap up the whole story in three paragraphs. What fun would that be? Tap into your creative reservoir , the universal consciousness, and you will create magic!
Words have power, and they are potent. Words were, and still are used for casting spells. And that's where the word 'spelling' originated from. No, I am not promoting casting spells on others, but what we write should not be taken lightly. Readers cry, laugh, become angry, feel love, excitement, a whole spectrum of emotions. If we don't grab the reader's attention in the first couple of paragraphs, they will probably put the book back on the shelf.
Now, just a quick word on cliches. Do not use them. Unless...it is a way of portraying a character who uses cliches. Don't be afraid to be authentic by bringing out your own heart's creativity, no matter how weird you think you are. Have fun making things up. You have a story or poem just waiting to be told in all it's agonizing glory.
Here's a fun exercise to do:
Make three columns: Nouns...............Verbs...............Adjectives
1.Make a list of as many nouns you can think of. Reach into the abyss for nouns you don't usually think of. A Thesaurus should always be close at hand.
3. Once you have a fairly lengthy list for all 3 categories, make a sentence using one word from each list. You can mix 'em up and do anything your heart desires. Just have fun with it!
For ex: Nouns Verbs Adjectives
Manzanita limped battered
Mazda guzzled sandy
Dog crept drenched
The manzanita tree crept long the sandy driveway.
When the drenched dog limped home, he guzzled the kibble.
The battered Mazda croaked back to the parking stall.
Got it? Okay give it a shot and see what you can create.