I know you've been struggling for a very long time to find many things about creativity and you might also have numerous questions in your head regarding the same.
But, but, but I am delighted to tell you that the wait is over as I am here with a BIG BANG!! And that I will be solving your queries around creativity. I might not be able to answer all your questions but I will try to answer some.
So, let me first introduce you to the learning outcomes for today, by the end of this blog we'll be able to:-
Elaborate as to what is creativity? Why do we need to be creative? And lastly, how to be creative?
Have extreme fun!
What is creativity?
It can be defined as the ability to develop our imagination and generate ideas in authentic and valuable ways. It also means stepping and thinking out of the confined box. The definition of creativity differs from person to person for example:- for one person creativity can be exploring ideas while for the other it can be using ideas to address any problem.
Why is creativity important?
There are thousands of reasons to say that creativity is important but, in the end, it is extremely beneficial to build on a certain idea, think of alternatives and solve problems.
How to be creative?
Now comes the last but not the least part where we'll deal with how to be creative in writing blogs?
So, I’ve listed 10 different simple and useful ways to be creative! And they are as follows:-
Using attractive pictures:
Attractive pictures in a sense that brings the reader’s interest to the blog and pushes them to continue reading more. You can maybe click a few pictures related to the ideas you are mentioning or research pictures that can creatively showcase your ideas. This can be done by collecting 3 to 4 pictures and uploading one which relates and attracts you most as a reader. These images lead to the imagination of your ideas in the reader's mind and give a small break from continuous reading and shift their mind to imagine.
Adding details: Making sure your blog is clear to the audience and you are precisely explaining “Why" to the audience creates that clarity, we can do this by providing specific details about ideas or thoughts we are putting like Explaining details in a way that we are explaining the process, how, where it is applicable and when we can use it.
Giving your ideas creative headings:
Give an eye-catchy heading so that it makes the reader question and make him/her get attracted towards the blog. When you are starting a new paragraph try to give it a small heading that describes what it is talking about. Without heading it will become like an email or letter without mentioning the subject.
How to choose headings?
Try to understand what your blog will talk about and what you are trying to convey and if you want to choose a subheading for a para try to put some questions as it’s heading into a short and crisp manner.
Always look for strong keywords that can be used in subheadings.
E.g. My heading for a waste management blog can be “Less produce more reduce''.
This one way I thought would be interesting according to the topic of my blog.
Bring connection alive: Connection is something that helps you connect your ideas at the same time push the readers to connect what they are reading with their own lives. We can bring this connection alive by connecting the ideas we have thought to real life, our experiences, examples or evidence related to the topic like if you are trying to write a blog on waste management you can write a small story of a garbage collector community (the challenges she or he faces related to waste management ) you can also get more real-life applications of your ideas by conducting primary research and surveys and secondary research as to check the relevancy of your ideas!
Here, this picture shows different ways we can practice primary research. There are many case studies you can find on the internet related to different situations.
You can put a case study in a box and name it as case study box like:
Push your thinking: To push your thinking you have to put yourself in shoes of people and think from different perspectives. Imagine people from different generations like children, adults or old ones are reading your blog and think of the questions they might have while reading your blog. Try to answer them either by providing details or you can make a separate box explaining that. Don't make it a question or answer type of blog. Try to push your thinking by asking yourself what can you relate this topic most to? What can you realize from your ideas? What are the examples coming in your mind? What is your opinion on this? And try to answer these while adding descriptions. This is how you can push your thinking and use it as a tool to add creativity as well as represent perspectives in different ways.
Adding data creatively: First of all, while conducting secondary research you can search for statistics percentage websites that connect to your blog’s topic. Then put that into creative forms one of that can look like “FACT FILE” over here you can represent the information you have gathered from surveys, interviews or group discussion into a very creative and yet specific way. Here is one more way you can add information in a creative way which is to add different types of graphs. It's up to you whether you would as a reader prefer to read big paragraphs on facts or refer to analyses from graphs, pie charts etc. You can make your pie charts, bar graphs or tables from the information you have gathered from research, using excel sheet and here is a video to guide you for the same.
Bringing up more perspectives: We have to do primary research to bring different perspectives but let's understand and explore a very useful tool in primary research which is "focus groups discussion" in it usually we set out what we want to hear or discuss like some of the examples maybe I want to talk or bring perspectives on self-awareness/waste management etc. I will choose the theme for Focus group discussion related to the topic of my blog. Probably make a small list of people & questions you want to discuss with whether Teenagers, workers in the community, children, women etc. about the topic before asking them. if you don't have much time to conduct this. you can use "Google Forms" a very easy way to bring in different perspectives. You can go through this link to understand how it works.
Use "show don't tell rule: It is a technique used by many writers which you can use to illustrate your ideas rather than just constantly telling which makes the blog more immersive for the reader, as Chekhov said: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass". But, how can we do that?
Well, here are some examples:-
You can include some comic strips in between which can show one of your ideas/solutions.
Use dialogue clouds as support to put your feelings+emotions. Doing so adds depth and more creativity to your blog.
Analysing research information: We may get a lot of information that we want to use from the research in our blogs but the important part is how we analyze out of this information to use in our blog. If you are finding facts note it down in your notes then if you are looking for some evidence or content make sure you are taking constant notes. After you finish up with this now read it, make observations and connect to the topic and then choose what is making you feel is very important use those instead of using all information this will also balance your world limit, makes you use data or information in a very specific way and make crisp but great creative content.
Building your imagination: To be able to give life to the blog by relating to your experiences and your own story it needs an idea brainstorming to create that sense of connection and imagination for that you need time and a thought process. To create this thought process you can use the strategy of "mind mapping" where you can connect ideas to stories and experiences. The adjacent picture displays how it can look like but You can create your mind map and the more you practice mind-mapping the better you get at it.
References:
Used Canva for most of the pictures.
- by Danyah Khan & Huda Sultana
Assessment Interns (Blogging)