Is Creative Writing Dying?
By: Sarah Hampton
September 16, 2025
Image taken by Aaron Burden
Every time I look at the news or I open social media, there is always something that is discussing the prominence of Artificial Intelligence. As someone who is a creative, a writer, this is an innovation that scares me if I am being honest. It is a very useful tool, but I think I would be lying to myself and to others if I didn’t say that I am fearful of AI completely replacing jobs in the future and diluting creativity. I find it ironic that we have created such a powerful tool yet fear it’s potential. However, I have recently read Lisa Dush’s article, “When Writing Becomes Content,” and I have found a new sense of hope for the future of writing and content creation in a world with AI.
In the article, the idea is presented that much of the writing produced today is meant primarily to be consumed. This mindset, explored throughout her essay, reflects a shift toward a more professional-based writing agenda. In other words, in today’s society, professional writing, or content, is often valued over creative writing. Dush identifies the main characteristics of content as “conditional, computable, networked, and commodified” (174). Her point is that the “content” produced today is designed to be consumed by markets, businesses, and algorithms. Content must be “marketable” and ready to be “repurposed.” Dush continues to define content as “writing—or composed texts—also conceived of as digital assets, conditional in their shape and value, that are assembled within and pushed out to networks, where human and machine audiences will assess them, assign value to them, consume them, appropriate and repurpose them, extract from them, and push them into other networks” (178). While this definition is accurate, it also raises questions. What is the importance of creative writing? Where does creative writing fit into all of this? Is creative writing even a desirable market anymore? These questions are answered throughout Dush’s article.
Image taken by Jonathan Kemper
Due to society moving towards consuming more professional-based writing, Dush argues that content creators must acknowledge this shift and incorporate it into their production practices. At the same time, she advocates for preserving creative writing. When discussing the integration of more professionalized content, she brings up careers that have become increasingly sought after in order to support this market. Specifically, she discusses content marketing, content strategy, and content management. Her purpose in raising these careers is to warn writers and content creators of a potential risk: “Writers can’t be experts at everything related to content: Content development has become too complex to be left solely in the hands of writers, especially those writers who focus only on editorial issues and ignore the foundations that make it possible to implement a content strategy” (Bailie & Urbina 184). Writers cannot know everything about content creation, but Dush stresses that ignoring the direction society is moving in would be a mistake. Her main point is that writing studies should not reject the realities of content creation and its demand but should instead play a role in shaping the field critically. My favorite quote from the article reflects this idea: “writing is connected to many things we value, and perhaps even love: books, authors, pens on paper, memories. Not so content” (191). With the rise of artificial intelligence and the continued expansion of the digital market, it is more important than ever to understand the demands placed on writers. Writers, or content creators, risk losing career opportunities if they do not adapt to what the market requires. Still, this shift does not mean the end of creativity. According to Dush, writers can help shape the digital market by incorporating sustainable practices, social justice, ethics, and human participation into the workforce of content creation.
“Writing is connected to many things we value, and perhaps even love: books, authors, pens on paper, memories. Not so content.” - Lisa Dush
Dush concludes her article by stating, “As a single word, a metaphor, and a set of related practices, content offers a memorable way to keep some of the most important aspects of digital writing at the forefront of our teaching and research. Ultimately, the risks of ignoring writing-as-content or, likewise, dismissing it, are that we may miss an important opportunity to expand the conceptual, research, and pedagogical purview of writing studies in ways that are appropriate to the digital age” (193). The world of writing will continue to change. As stated before, with the rise of AI, the growth of the digital marketplace, and the rapid increase in innovation, the creative process will need to adapt in order to keep up. But there is hope. Humans are not going to stop being creative anytime soon. In a world where AI seems to replace many careers and abilities, it still lacks one essential quality, and that is human creativity. AI will never compare to the innate abilities that humans possess to imagine, innovate, and create.
Works Cited:
Dush, Lisa. “When Writing Becomes Content.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 67, no. 2, Dec. 2015, pp. 173–196.
Schwanke, Axel. “Generative AI and the Illusion of Originality: Can Machines Ever Truly Create?” Medium, 19 July 2024, medium.com/@axel.schwanke/generative-ai-never-truly-creative-68a0189d98e8.