How much more difficult do I find “creative” writing, that skill which necessitates a wild and free imagination, a poetic way with words and a wish to escape the rules.

The preparation of words for publication in a magazine or newspaper is much easier than that.

At the centre of a news report or article come facts, facts and more facts. Of course, these facts must be presented in an interesting way so that the article is easily read and understood. This often necessitates a higher skill in English language than a flair for imaginative writing.

This shouldn’t be too difficult, however, as we are using the words of everyday language, not those from the world of myths and monsters, murders and mayhem, manipulation or malevolence.

The difference in approach between journalism and creative writing is that, in the former, the reader need not know who has written the piece. It should have no input from the writer in a creative sense but merely carry the message.

To me, it depends on the writer having no opinion on the matter. The reader should not be able to discern what the writer thinks about the topic on which the article is written. The writer’s thoughts should be secondary to the presentation of the facts.

However, once that writer has attained a certain level of competence such that his editor allows him his own column, it’s then that things change. Then the reader is definitely interested in what the writer has to say, as an individual and not just as a writer. For instance I enjoy Keith Waterhouse’s column for what he writes about rather than how he writes it. But I’d like to bet that his column contains very few literals, grammatical errors or bad phrasing. That’s because he learnt to be a journalist first.

This report could have come from the sports pages of any local newspaper:

Fastport Rovers beat Billingsgate Fishporters by three goals to one on Saturday. Their centre forward, Bill Jennings, scored a hat-trick, including a penalty. The penalty was disputed by the visitors but the referee pointed to the spot with no hesitation.

These are the facts, just the facts. They have been assembled in such a way that the reader should find them interesting and truthful.

The following piece, I argue, has much of the reporter included. It is not a report of the match but a report of his version of the match; it’s his opinion.

Fastport Rovers won a thrilling game 3-1 on a ground badly in need of renovation. Vastly overpaid centre forward Bill Jennings hit a very lucky hat-trick, one following a highly dubious penalty. This followed a red-carded high tackle on striker Jones, who, as usual, dived to perfection.

Surely the reader of the newspaper is not interested in what the reporter thought of the match, but merely wants to read what happened.

I find it particularly disturbing that many writers find it impossible to write such a report in the third person without any personal side whatsoever. In some non-fiction writing competitions, the winner has written a piece from personal experiences. Where were all the pure journalistic efforts? Those which tell of events at the other side of the world, or at the other side of time?

This piece is, for instance, written from a personal view. It has my name to it and therefore I can state my view.

However, in some areas of journalism the personal view is definitely not acceptable. How on earth could the writers of the winning pieces above have written the report of the 911 tragedy for example without resorting to “I think . . ,” “It seems to me . . ,” etc.

Even in the world of creative writing, there must be a place for those able to write dispassionately about the world and its events.

A category for non-fiction writing does not feature in the NAWG competitions for 2004. Why? A poor entry this year. Plus the fact that many entries this year were not the articles expected by the judge but personal anecdotes and reminiscences.

If you want an exercise, try creating your own cv as if someone else has written it. Treat your name as that of a third party and write about that name with no “I” or “me” in its composition.

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