Creative Writing
Writing creatively doesn't mean that anything goes. It's important that the piece you're crafting has a clear and compelling purpose, a logical organization, a unique and distinct voice, and utilizes descriptive and figurative language effectively and intentionally.
Purpose
Before you begin composing the piece, consider your goal. What message do you want your reader to hear in this piece? Are you trying to say something universal about the human experience? Are you trying to imitate the voice of a character to show how he or she may think or act beyond the confines of the original text? Are you trying to present researched information through the lens of a realistic character's experience? Once you've established your reason for writing, you can begin thinking about how you can organize it logically on the page so others can understand it.
Form
Creative writing, like other writing, needs to be organized logically in order to communicate effectively. Whether you're writing a short story or poem, your content must have a pattern of development that establishes a starting point or context with a "beginning," develops through a "middle," and achieves a sense of resolution with an "end." Your organizational choices (the order in which you present your content) should help the reader to realize your purpose--whether that purpose is to convey an idea or to get the reader to feel a particular emotion. It's essential that you use mode-appropriate devices to help your reader navigate your creative piece; in other words, you need to use transitional language to help your reader go into and emerge from a flashback, line breaks to emphasize particular word choices or phrases in a poem, paragraphs that focus on a single idea in a short story, repetition in poetry for emphasis and rhythm, etc.
Language
In a creative writing piece one expects to employ language in a different, more creative style than in the ordinary thesis-based essay. In the thesis-based essay one's language is traditionally formal, emphasizing reason, precision and logic; in a sense the outcome is predictable. On the other hand, in a creative piece one's language has a wider range, such as, playful, suggestive and sensual. Specific language techniques offer the writer control not only in artistically designing a piece, but also in expressing his/her unique voice.
The most direct and easy method of increasing the power of your creative writing is to employ vivid verbs and specific nouns. Imagine you are describing a character. If you are using the most basic verb, walk, to talk about the character and brainstorm ten possible substitutes for it you will change the way the reader perceives your character's action. For example, "He walked into the boss's room" becomes " He stormed into the boss's office." The specific verb choice of "stormed" helps to elicit a tone of urgency, while the specific noun, "office" helps to highlight that this is a formal setting with high expectations. Do you see how this change is effective?
The knowledge and effective use of connotations allows the reader to create suggestions that raise the reader's imagination to the level of the writer's design. For example, "Gatsby walked up the Cody's boat" can become "Gatsby strolled up to Cody's yacht." The connotation of "yacht" is that Cody is wealthy and of the elite class. The connotation of "strolled" highlights Gatsby's casual approach to the situation, like he's got it all figured out already.
One of the virtues of comparisons is that they can communicate a meaning that has a particular significance. "As nervous as a long tailed cat in a room filled with rocking chairs" is a comparison that not only creates an image in the mind of the reader, but also it creates windows of perception. A distinct way of looking at something. If the writer indicates that the girl's "hair prickled like a cactus", there is a distinct feel to the texture of her hair as well as an implied sense of danger. The old cliche is true, "a picture is worth a thousand words".
One of the most illusive elements of creative writing is capturing the musical quality of language. Sound, emphasis and tempo can evoke emotions in the reader like a good piece of music affects the listener. Is there a sense of urgency, serenity,or hostility? Sentence structures are carefully arranged to create the qualities of music. Word choice can create sounds that emphasize meaning; "slippery slope" almost sounds like you are sliding.