“Writing is all the same,” a non-writer would reply if asked the difference between creative and content writing. When you ask the same to a writer who provides various content writing services, you will get a long-winded answer explaining differences between those two concepts. Here’s what the answer may look like.
Creative Writing |
Content Writing |
| 1. Definition | |
| Creative writing is defined as the form of writing that expresses a writer’s feelings, emotions, experiences, ideas, and even thoughts obtained at a subconscious level. It goes outside the boundaries of professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. | Content writing is defined as the form of online writing (for instance, blogs) which links to web marketing campaigns. Content writing services are used to sell or promote a specific product. It is written professionally according to the brief provided by the client. |
| 2. Purpose | |
| Creative writing is all about originality, expression of own personal thoughts, and feelings to entertain and amuse readers. Though usage of creative writing can be commercial, it is mostly recreational. | One of the purposes of content writing is to inform, to opine, and to persuade the reader to buy a product or service. Content writing for the internet has more commercial use as it is a part of marketing. |
| 3. Content | |
| Creative writing is not academic or technical. Types of creative writing include journals, diaries, essays, stories, poetries, memoirs, scripts, and free writing pieces. The content written is suggestive and creative. It is usually dramatic and imaginative. The writing may have a complex sentence structure and linguistic aspects like dialects and ambiguity. | Content writing deals with a lot of topics. It tells you outright the information needed and limits the interpretation to a reader. Content writing includes factual, impersonal, and freedom from emotions and distortions. The writing has a technical vocabulary, simple sentences, and has an impersonal and objective tone. |
| 4. Content Platforms | |
| Creative writing is used in platforms such as blogs, magazines, newspapers, websites, novels, handbooks, newsfeed, etc. | Content writing services are used for search engine optimization (SEO) to create pages that are highly visible to the target audience when they search something related to the topic. SEO engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing are platforms where the client’s website can be visible with the help of quality content and other tactics. |
| 5. Content Style | |
| Creative writing involves certain texts that are not necessary to read, but the audience reads them to be entertained. The writing style here just flows freely with the help of figures of speech. This writing intends to educate the audience and gives liberty to the writer to express the emotions to the readers. The writing creates a beautiful picture in the minds of readers. | The writing follows a structure, based on thorough research, that address a specific audience, topic, and purpose. It uses objective and straightforward language and is presented consistently. The style of writing focuses on facts and instances. The clients choose the writing style keeping the target audience in mind. Content writing services involve words and ideas that are factual. |
Content writing and creative writing skills can be used by various writers at different crossroads!
Image source: unsplash.com
Both creative and content writing are valuable skills, and you must master the trick to use these skills at the right time and correct place.
Content writing can often be creative, but creative writing can never content writing.