Creative Writing Course Details - Fees, Subjects, Syllabus, Duration, Eligibility, Career Scope

What is Creative Writing

Creative Writing is the art of creatively penning down ideas or stories, with "writing style" being a key factor in the work. The creative writing may involve the creation of fiction or nonfiction writing, usually in the form of poems, stories, novels, biographies, magazine columns and newspaper articles- to name a few. The art lies in expressing ideas in a manner that leaves an impact on the reader. 

While doing creative writing, words play a powerful, impactful means of expression. A combination of words can alter a reader's ideas, present them with new information, give them a fresh perspective, or even evoke a surge of overwhelming emotions. 

Words have healing powers, as well as the power to bring about change. Words can express intimate emotions, they can help even the writer get in touch with his/her own emotions. Such is the power of a mere set of words which is used in creative writing. 

Eligibility Criteria (UG & PG) of Creative Writing

Eligibility to Study Creative Writing 

The eligibility criteria for studying BFA Creative Writing may differ from college to college, but some common criteria include:

• Candidates must have completed their 10+2.

• They must have secured a minimum aggregate score in 10+2. This cutoff is 50% or above.

• Candidates must have studied either English or Hindi at the high school level.

• Finally, while there are no set criteria for which stream must be studied in class 12, candidates who studied in the Humanities stream are preferred in some institutes.

For MFA in creative writing, the eligibility criteria are, usually, as follows:

• Candidates should have completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts or any other equivalent degree from a recognized university

• The minimum aggregate score for this course must be as stipulated by the university being applied to, which is usually in the range of 50-60%

• Candidates having a Humanities bachelor degree, too, are sometimes eligible.

Entrance Exams for Creative Writing 

The Bachelor of Fine Arts is a three-year course which you can study with a specialization in creative writing. While most institutes and colleges admit students based on merit, some conduct their entrance exams for admission. Some entrance exams for admission into the top humanities colleges in India are: 

• Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) is conducted to offer admissions to candidates into the university's UG, PG, M.Phil, and PhD programmes. A computer-based test conducted at a national level, the DUET is held once every year.

• Banaras Hindu University Undergraduate Entrance Test (BHU UET) is conducted by the Banaras Hindu University for admissions into various UG courses. The exam is conducted in online mode once every year. 

On the other hand, institutes which offer merit-based admission (usually private universities) admit candidates based on the marks they secured in 10+2. Besides which, there might be a Personal Interview conducted as well. 

At the Master's level, once again, admissions may be conducted either based on merit or via entrance examinations. For the latter case, some top colleges conducting entrance exams in India for MFA are: 

• Aligarh Muslim University conducts a university- level entrance examination for admissions to its many undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including MFA (Creative Writing).

• Banaras Hindu University conducts a postgraduate-specific entrance examination called the BHU PET or Banaras Hindu University Postgraduate Entrance Test.

Required Skillset for Creative Writing

It's in the name: "Creative Writing" requires creativity. The ability to think out of the box, to come up with unique ideas. This, however, isn't all that one needs to build a lucrative career out of Creative Writing. In a field of work where your career depends so heavily on the motivation and creativity that you harbour, a few other key skills can help you along the way: 

• Organization skills: As a creative writer, one must possess strong organizational skills to avoid burnout when the work begins to pile up. Considering how the work of a creative writer involves, for the most part, being in a creative mindset, feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work to do can affect one's creative ability.

• Research skills: Often, certain stories need to be set at different times, or different places with which the writer may not have any personal experience. With good research skills, creative writers can find out enough about life during the said time or in said place enough to place themselves in that setting and understand how to describe it. This ensures that a story's originality and authenticity remain intact.

• Attention to detail: When we write stories, many different loose ends need to be tied up to give the story a sense of completion. With a lack of attention to detail, one can easily overlook minor important details which need to be incorporated or rectified or questions that may arise in a reader's mind, which needs to be answered. These mistakes can take away from the story as a whole, causing a major loss to the writer.

• Teamwork: In certain professions, creative writers are required to work with an entire team. For instance, a team of screenwriters may be required to write a TV series, in which case each writer must have the ability to work collaboratively in a team, laying out one's ideas while also listening to ideas put forth by others. The spirit of compromise and understanding is paramount in such scenarios.

• Composition skills: A struggle that one may often face as a writer is with composing one's ideas into words in a satisfactory manner. This work is more difficult than it sounds, because there is a wide gap between our ideas and our articulation of these ideas, and bridging this gap requires a great deal of practice and patience.

• Strong vocabulary: This goes without saying, a creative writer needs to have a strong vocabulary. The larger the set of words one understands, the more how thoughts and ideas can be expressed. Lacking this skill, one can often find it difficult to find the right words to do justice to what one is trying to say. 

Of course, these are only a few out of the many skills that go into a successful creative writing career.