4 Creative Writing Techniques for Winning Essay Contests

Winning a student essay contest can be extremely tough, as this requires solid writing skills and a great deal of creativity. We spend hours looking for an interesting idea that will attract judges attention, and wondering about the content and title of the paper. Often, writing an impressive essay takes a lot of efforts and time, so if you are a student struggling to find your muse here are a few tips on how to foster your creativity:

1. Forget everything you have been taught at school. Yes, we know - you have spent hours mastering your writing skills, learning how to use linking words and appropriately structure your essay. In student essay competition almost all of these skills are useless - what you really need to win is creative writing. According to the online survey by BBC phases like "to be fair", "to be honest", "the reason being", "actually" are among the most hated clichés. Try to come up with new expressions, or rotate the essay parts - for example start with a conclusion of your essay and then work backwards to show how you arrived to that thought. In this way you can surprise judges and avoid irritating clichés.

2. Make a great story. Simply putting your thoughts on list of paper can be valuable, but rarely will guarantee you a win at student essay competition. Instead, you can try to make a fictional story out of your ideas. Regardless of whether you write on the topic of religion or arts you can discuss them in the context of dialogue or narrative. This technique is especially useful if you have to write on such popular contest topics as friendship, love or society issues, as it allows to convey conventional message in an unusual way.

3. Write using real life experiences. You would be surprised to discover that most of the greatest ideas are already in your head. Often these are your school memories, travel experiences, impressions etc. Try to remember a moment in your life that would suit the topic of essay and would allow you to support your main message. In that way you will make your story more realistic and engaging for the reader.

4. Skip introduction. Often students get stuck with introduction, and spent loads of time trying to figure out what to begin with. Skip this step. Think first of the general idea of what you want to start with. Write down your ideas, arguments and try to structure them in a coherent way. Work on individual parts first, and once you have inspiration go back to the introduction part. Finally, make sure you come up with a memorable and interesting title

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