This week, I was tasked with the question: What is the difference (if any) between creative writing, and interpretive writing?

I have always considered myself to be a champion of language. By that, I do not mean that I am particularly awesome or competitive or even accomplished. Rather, I am an active supporter – I believe in language, in its function to reveal and cultivate understanding and in its mystique. I am also steadfast in the power it holds. Language is the most powerful resource we, as humans, have. It is how we communicate, how we think, and how we experience the world.

I think back to my college days in Creative Writing. I sat at a desk in a windowless room, listening to the manifestos of my classmates, and hanging on the words in their imagination. THIS, I believed, was where language lived and thrived. The clever turns of phrase, the metaphors, the vivid descriptors, all designed to transform awareness and transport the reader to another place and time.

If you think about it, interpretive writing is not so different from its creative counterpart. Word choice is equally crucial, inspired, and illustrative. Knowing your audience, putting their best interests in your choices, and finding the most appropriate tools for the job – this is the makeup of a successful text.  The difference is, creative writing is aimed to transport the reader to another place and time, while interpretation means to open readers’ eyes, to enlighten the here and now. One relies on imagination to bring a world to life, while the other IS life.

A good deal of my professional education came from this book: Interpretation of Cultural and Natural Resources. Here, Douglas M. Knudson, Ted T. Cable, and Larry Beck explain the functions and goals of the interpreter, outlined below:

• Interpreters encourage people to see the world as interconnected and diverse.

• To provoke enthusiastic curiosity about our natural, historical and cultural environment.

• To enrich individual life experiences through education and inspiration.

• To develop intimacy with the past and enthusiasm for the future.

• To lift people beyond the basic levels of existence to inspiring self-actualization.

• To strengthen and sustain human society through social identification with the land and culture.

• To offer footholds of values and truths so we can live peaceably and productively with the other inhabitants of this planet.

Everything about this list screams CREATIVITY! And reading it, I am reminded of the one rule my writing teacher gave us: always answer the question, “so, what?” To do this well is more than a skill, it’s a talent. Our interpretive planner here at Taylor Studios is a remarkable talent. He has such a knack for his audience, that he can write about a red-winged black bird at a 6th grade reading level, and still appeal to the senses of adults. And he always ties it in to the big picture, always answers the “so, what?” and always makes it interesting.

Talk about creative inspiration – THAT is where language lives and thrives.