As writers in any genre, all too often we find a structure or pattern that works for us and use the form repeatedly.

It makes sense: if our writing is successful when we use a certain form, why wouldn’t we embrace that? In my case, I’ve noticed that I love writing essays with subtitles at the beginning of each section. I’ve found something that’s easy for me to do, so I’ve trusted that it’s always the right thing to do.

That’s all well and good, but when I look at my pieces, they all have a similar appearance on the page. And that’s pretty boring.

So that’s why I wanted to compile this list. I’m most familiar with adopting forms in the creative nonfiction genre, but similar techniques are applicable for fiction writers and poets. We see unique structures in often overlooked pieces of writing as we move through the world on a daily basis. Why not borrow the form and substitute your own content? Here are just a few suggestions of common forms that creative writers can steal for their work.

The Recipe

Our pieces of writing need titles, and the recipe form automatically lends itself to that need. Instead of writing a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, though, maybe it’s a recipe for the perfect date. Or a successful speech. Or it could even be a recipe for a specific person – what truly makes a certain character, and how would the narrator of your piece put that into words?

The additional variety of both a list of ingredients and a set of directions offers even more potential for creative work. The first could act as an introduction, while the second could be shown in scene, or even using cooking terms if you want to really stick to the recipe format.

The How-To Guide

The explanation for this one is simple: we love lists. Think of Buzzfeed articles, like “24 Things Every Minnesotan Will Understand,” or 50 Amazing Movies You’ve Never Seen. Even this blog post. Lists bring order to our disordered world–which is totally relevant with how-to guides if they guide the reader through a seemingly impossible task.

Think of the possibilities, like How to Grieve, or How to Play Video Games, or How to Talk to Yourself. You can look at any task in a new way, especially through the use of humor, image, and original detail. Marcia Aldrich alludes to this form in her essay, “How to Leave a Room”– she doesn’t provide a step-by-step guide, but the title paired with the rest of the content indicates the narrator’s experience of grief and how she wants to remember her mother now that she’s gone.

The Dictionary

A nice way to break up sections in a poem or a piece of prose is to utilize definitions of words that correspond with the major themes in your work. For example, if your content deals with a failing relationship, you might insert definitions of “inevitable,” or “end,” or “miscommunication.”

This structure works for you in two ways:

• You prepare the reader with certain expectations as to what this section or stanza will be about.
• You can get larger abstract words out of the way so that you won’t be tempted to throw them into the bulk of your piece.

The world around us offers a myriad of writing structures just waiting to be used. Next time you’re in a rut, try writing a letter, a series of text messages, or a to-do list, and see where that exercise takes you.

Of all the genres available to a fiction writer, fantasy challenges the writer to tell a lie while making it sound plausible and realistic.

The writer is forced to invent magical potions so drunken elves can stumble home to their trees with a satisfied contemplation, or explain how a person can transform into a car and still keep their liquor down. Inspiration may be tough to come by when that blank page is staring back at you.

A good writer has to be a good reader, and if you want to become one of the best, you have to find what inspires you. Nobody can master everything, of course, but sometimes the best place to start is in front of your local bookshelf. While many of these novels have made it into the movie theaters and are probably already on your Netflix list, they all started on the bookshelf and, upon that shelf, might be the purest form of inspiration you can find.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series
Okay, it sounds obvious. It sounds like everyone’s done it and it sounds so everyday, so cliché, so last decade. But think about this for a moment. Harry Potter was an ordinary boy, an orphan in Little Whinging, who tragically lost his parents in a car accident. But no! His parents were wizards and murdered, not just killed. And Harry isn’t just an ordinary boy, but a wizard. The possibilities have just begun.

Beyond the bricks of Diagon Alley a new world opens up. London isn’t just London and our world is actually home to Muggles, not just people. Wizards are everywhere, and hey, how could you not see that?

Here’s the thing about Harry Potter. Rowling’s ability to create a world that has its own sense of laws, justice, and change the perception of everyday tasks not only draws a reader in but invites them to go further. We follow along with Harry as he purchases a wand, read his mail delivered by owl, fly alongside as he takes his first ride on a broomstick. Everything about the world is delivered through this eleven-year old’s eyes. As wonderful as the world is, there are a great deal of risks associated within. We read on, wanting to know what a simple scar on a boy’s forehead has to do with this world. From the very first page, we are hooked and crave more.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
From one wizard to another, we stay in the mythology of the United Kingdom and harken back to days when trees walked and ogres ground hobbits into their bread. If the worldbuilding of the wizarding world hides within our own world, the world of Middle Earth expands on it even that much more. Elves are eternal and roam the forests. Dark creatures spill out of the deepest mines and defeat the honorable. Men struggle to survive in a world where power can corrupt them for eternity.

Tolkien started with a simple idea when he created The Hobbit. He wanted to create a world where language would determine how the world was formed. The Sylvian language was created for his race of High Elves, among them Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel. Gandalf served as a guide to this world, and it was up to the hobbits and men of the land to make it their own.

There can be no story without conflict, however, and thus he created Mordor and gave a language to its inhabitants, the orcs. In hoping to entertain his grandchildren, he then created a mythology around a single object—a golden ring—and in turn wove a complex plot that uses the concept of power to shape kingdoms and epic journeys where one never wished to leave, but sometimes must reluctantly endure the face of evil.

C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Series
Talking lions? Frozen witches that aren’t endorsed by Disney? And how to get to this incredible world? By wardrobe, of course. The world of Narnia is much larger than that wardrobe in the room upstairs beyond the borders of your great uncle’s manor, spreading beyond continents, beyond the sea, beyond the stars.

Lewis began Narnia with a picture of a character, Faun, holding an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. With a solid character, he needed a world to live in. So he made one. Seven novels would follow, published out of order but forming a complete narrative that included characters that populate this world in full. Aslan may show you the door, but it’s up to you to go forward.

If you start with a place that seems impossible, do whatever it takes to make it possible. Add laws and rules. Create borders, but do not feel compelled to remain completely within them. Build nations and give them a population with impressive ethos and a history to match. Then start your own adventures, and write them down.

Anything That Inspires You
Inspiration can come from many places, including books, movies, videogames and nature. For me, the best thing to do is simply start writing. While you might want to explore why owls make such good postal workers or find out how a simple ring could fuel wars between multiple races, that blank page is still staring back at you.

Slay that blank page by filling it with a world of wonder. Fill it with a prince who must be rescued. Fill it with a world populated by jellyfish. Or Gummy Bears. Whatever you choose, don’t hold back until the monster is utterly and completely defeated.

Go out your front door. Don’t look back.

Poets get a lot of flack for being self-absorbed and sad creatures, but when you open your heart and soul up to the world and expose it to the toxic environment surrounding the everyday soul-crushing life that perpetuates the so-called “American Dream”, it’s easy to get down on yourself.

As a young man, I’m regularly told I’d be a lot more handsome if only, just only I would smile more. To look “happy” regardless of my actual state is an ongoing struggle for me. As with many people my age, I’m in a state of transition: too old to be a traditional college student but not quite so old as to have any aspect of my life put together yet.

I digress. It takes a lot put a smile on the face of a person like me, and the reason for that is the Big D: Depression.

The link between writers and depression is a storied one; just look at this link from bustle.com. You’ll see that those we revered the most have had some of the worst demons.

In a society where the arts are not valued as much as the ability to never take “No” for an answer, or a pretty face with a killer smile, it gets lonesome. That loneliness can bring with it a sense of bitterness and resentment.

That being said, the writing helps.

On the worst days, and moreover the worst nights, of my life I’ve found that truly and honestly putting down the words I don’t have the strength to say is probably the greatest act I can accomplish.

We can use the raw emotion of heartbreak: from something as simple as a crush not calling to drifting apart from a group of friends. That hurt should be on a page, not because it’s unique and unheard of, but because it is so utterly mundane and completely universal. This is what makes poetry beautiful: taking the moments that seem to be of no consequence and highlighting the beauty in them.

By doing this we allow others to see they are not alone in their rituals: everyone wants Cherry Garcia and A Cinderella Story after a hard week at work, and if not, they’re lying. (Hilary Duff is amazing.)  

One of the greatest things you can do is reach out across the world with some words and a computer screen and let people know that they have common ground to stand on.

It seems like a small token gesture, but it’s a lot like a kiss on the cheek from a beloved grandparent—a small moment in time that goes by without even really being noticed, yet when you stop to look at it, you find it means the world.

It won’t cure cancer or suddenly make the world become a better place, but the memory of that little thing can change your world.

This is exactly what writing can and does do for everyone. So when you’re down and alone and just need a pick-me-up because life has been kicking you around, pick up a pen and some paper, bust out an old notebook and WRITE IT OUT!

This past Christmas my family and I journeyed up to my grandma’s house in Mendota Heights to celebrate the holiday with my dad’s side of the family. Everything was going as scheduled: the adults gathered upstairs to drink and catch up on their work, vacations, and children; the cousins sat downstairs awkwardly trying to include everyone in the conversation.

Somehow, we got on the topic of career goals, and my cousin who had graduated last spring with a bachelor’s degree in economics jokingly said that since he had a lot of free time he was going to write a book.

“I mean how hard could it be?” he said with a chuckle.
“Okay,” I said, “what genre would you write?”
“What do you mean?”
I took a deep breath to ease my growing frustration. “I mean like what kind of books would you write?”
“I don’t know,” he said, smiling, “like murder mysteries.”
“Cool.” I grabbed for my drink and took a swig.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t want my cousin to write a novel, nor that I think he is incapable of doing so; but as a creative writing major I felt my heart race and stomach somersault in a fit of rage when he said it couldn’t be that hard.

As writers, we often come in contact with people who don’t always appreciate our skills, and they are skills. They don’t realize how much time actually goes into making a great piece great. Just as it takes professional athletes or musicians years of practice to hone their technique, so too must writers’ work to improve.

Now that I have had some space and time to think, I have thought of a few reasons why writing is tougher than he—and many other people—might think, as well as some tips to make it easier and more fun.

Physically writing is one of the hardest steps in the writing process.

Weird right? Many people think this is the fun part, but if you go into it feeling stressed, tired, bored, cranky, etc. the fun part can turn into the most frustrating part of the experience. Some days it’s easy enough to put it off, to tell yourself you’ll write tomorrow or the next day, but before you know it, a month has passed and you haven’t written two sentences.

This is why it’s important to set up a schedule that works for you. Maybe you work best at seven in the morning, or maybe you rock ten at night like nobody’s business. It doesn’t matter when you write—or even how long—as long as you make time to write.

Writers must constantly acknowledge that no first draft—or fifth for that matter—is ever brilliant.

Bad first drafts exist and they can bum you out big time. It can be discouraging to look at the first draft of a piece you worked hard creating only to see that it’s not very good. As much as you may want to give up at that point, it’s important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect draft. Yes, even your tenth draft will not be perfect, but you will continue to get better the more you work on your piece.

Getting feedback from peers is an important step in the writing process.

This includes feedback from your writer friends as well as your non writer friends. The first group can help you improve your craft, while the latter group can tell you if your piece is readable and enjoyable.

As helpful as receiving this feedback is, it’s not always fun. Actually, it’s almost never fun. There are no words to describe the feeling you get when everyone critiquing your piece tells you everything wrong with it. Believe me, it hurts, but it will ultimately help you discover your strengths and weaknesses. Once you know these, you can take the next step and begin revisions.

So there you have it. Writing is not just scribbling on a piece of paper. It’s challenging, thought provoking, and sometimes downright infuriating. In fact, I’d be willing to bet every writer has thought about quitting at one time or another. But even with all its difficult points, writing is one of the most rewarding experiences anyone can have. Nothing feels better than looking at your piece and realizing it didn’t exist until you wrote it.

Toiling Beyond the Myth of the Gifted Artist

There has always been a notion that gifted artists—be it poets, musicians, or painters—are blessed by the gods, performing their craft merely a perfunctory measure. So under this premise, the likes of Mary Oliver, Bruce Springsteen, and Vincent van Gogh wouldn’t be burdened with the boredom of effort; their immortality was, in a word, predestined.

So what does this mean to those of us who view our talents as merely “average”?
Are our creative endeavors inferior to or buoyed by the work of artists who have come before us? We would be wise to take comfort in the examples of those who have rehearsed and toiled in pursuit of perfecting their craft, who found solace in the mere expression of their truth as only they know it, not worrying whether awards and accolades would be the outcome.

Perhaps the expression of truth is the elusive reward. 

The son of a bus driver and secretary, Bruce Springsteen took up the guitar at 13.

An outsider and recluse in school, Springsteen frequently got in trouble at his Catholic elementary school. “In the third grade, a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that’s where I belonged,” he said. (biography.com)

Springsteen, whose songs capture his years in New Jersey, is now considered one the best-selling artists of all time.

Vincent van Gogh’s actual existence was wracked with suffering and disappointment that taunted him even as he created some of the greatest works of art in history. (empireonline.com)

Although he remained virtually unknown through his life, van Gogh is widely considered to be one of the greatest Dutch painters. His masterpieces include portraits, self-portraits, still lifes of sunflowers, and wheat fields (with crows, pictured above)—his unique perspective on the world in which he lived.

Mary Oliver, who the New York Times describes as “far and away, this country’s best-selling poet,” began writing poetry at 14. At 17, she visited the home of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, assisting Millay’s daughter in sifting through her deceased mother’s papers. In an interview with Maria Shriver for Oprah.com, Oliver says:

I often say if you could lay out all the writing I did in those years, it would go to the moon and back. It was bad, it was derivative. But when you love what you’re doing, honestly, you get better.

Any assumption that Oliver was christened by her association with Millay, or merely another example of an unexplainable divinity assigned to human form, does a disservice to Oliver and anyone whose goal it is to uncover their hidden talents. Her gift is better explained as a humble honing of a craft which, at its finest, describes the often overlooked beauty of the natural world, engaging readers in a devout and sincere way.

This is evident in Oliver’s latest poetry collection, Felicity, published in 2015 by Penguin Press. 

Her plainspoken observations are evident in every turn of the page. The first poem, “Don’t Worry,” could be construed as encouragement to writers everywhere:

Things take the time they take. Don’t
    worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow
    before he became St. Augustine?

The beauty of Oliver’s style is her ability to write without pretense, a noble gift allowing readers to digest her words without feeling inferior to her creative genius. If aspiring writers, artists, or musicians are intimidated to stretch their creative muscles, Oliver’s mastery of poetry reminds us it is as simple as being present in the world you inhabit, and paying close attention to the questions resonating in your own life.

Perhaps this secret ingredient dwells in each of us, if only we are brave enough to pursue it.