Read time: 2 mins
Why Is Creative Writing Important? | FAQs
Are you wondering why creative writing is important?
If you’re a creative writer yourself you’ll know that the answer goes far beyond an audience’s entertainment or a feature writer’s next pay check.
In this short video, Andre Wiesner, Head Tutor of the University of Cape Town Feature Journalism online short course, explains the deeper purpose behind creative writing and points out that the question “Why is feature journalism important?” is far more complex than it sounds.
Does creative writing speak to your soulful needs?
Make your writing your career with skills and recognition from the UCT Feature Journalism online short course.
Transcription
Is creative writing important? That’s a very difficult question to answer because it’s so huge. You could just as well be asking: Why is literature important – or art, or at an even higher level, culture? There have been, and will be, an innumerable, an infinite, range of views on these questions. But, for laughs, here’s one considered philosophical answer: creative writing is important because it gives you something to do – and, hey, it’s a lot of fun. It’s fun to read, and, often, in an anguished, agonised kind of way, it’s fun to do. Man – or woman, for that matter – can’t live on bread alone. Creative writing offers pleasure of a many-hued kind. It speaks to our more soulful needs – our deeper, higher, even nocturnal needs. It’s a kind of ecstasy, ultimately.