Imagination is an essential quality of any writer. From an academic perspective, imaginative essays provide the students with a platform to express their creativity and write a vivid and interesting story that their readers can enjoy. In most cases, imaginative essay is often based on fiction, implying that the students can come up with anything and be able to mold it into a story. However, just because imaginative essays are not based on factual events does not mean that they cannot be structured. It has to be noted that structure is a critical component of any story because it enables the student to present their ideas and gives the reader a sense of flow and continuity. Furthermore, understanding how to write an imaginative essay teaches one to rely on the imagination and the ability to translate the imagination successfully into written concepts. Moreover, besides the necessity of a vibrant and active imagination, imaginative essays also require other elements of writing such as characterization and a logical flow, which help bring the story to life.

The first step in writing an imaginative essay is choosing a topic/prompt or theme that the writer wants to present. For example, a writer can choose to write a love story in imperial China. The existence of such a topic and/or theme will help the writer to get other ideas that can shape the body of the story. However, despite imaginative essays being reliant on fiction, the writer must try to mirror reality as much as possible to make the story more believable. Furthermore, the student can explore a variety of issues and utilize the creativity to address societal problems indirectly through imagination. In other instances, imaginative essays consist of the students being given an introductory scenario and asked to build upon it to create a story. In this regard, the students can employ their imagination or their experiences to help them build a story through the development of scenes and narratives.