This is especially for my cousin, Gareth. and one of my own boys, Isaac; year 11, both. But I can take this off if you just died of embarrassment. No, I will.
So. You have to write a creative piece somewhere in your two English language exams. You might be writing a descriptive piece or a story. What are some useful tips to help you manage this in an exam? You will probably have done lots of creative writing in primary and possibly less at secondary and, frankly – you did want me to be frank, yes? – creative writing may not get much space plus, unless your teacher is a copious reader or maybe also a writer, it is hard to teach. So here are some pointers because there are plenty of people out there who feel stuck on this one and think, ‘It’s not my thing.’
NOT SO FAST.
Right. Choice of tasks; do one. You’ll get story/writing titles, probably a first line and maybe also a last line of a story and, depending on the board, you might get given a picture or photograph to use as stimulus. The exam may ask you to write a ‘story’; it may also simply say ‘write about’ (in which case you could do a narrative, descriptive OR reflective piece) but you need to crack on in prose – continuous writing – even if you were to include a poem in there.
Before we start, what about your nuts and bolts?
- Check your high frequency punctuation errors: capital letters; clauses (parts of sentences) separated by commas (ask me if you don’t know what I am on about). Promise me you will not commit CRIMES AGAINST APOSTROPHES? I’d rather not see them at all then see them plastered everywhere there is an s. Simple plurals do not have them. You use them before the s if you’re showing possession and after the s if you’re showing possession by more than one person. You use them in contraction where the missing letter or letters are – do not becomes don’t. CHECK THIS OUT: IT’S meaning it is has an apostrophe BUT ITS meaning something that belongs to IT does not. Ever. Neither do his, hers, theirs, whose or ours.
- Check your homophone spelling errors. Touched on them there. Words that sound the same but are spelled differently. So who’s/whose or they’re/their/there. Go online and google LIST OF HOMOPHONES and print it and stick it up somewhere. It’s one of the things that makes you look less literate fast. Too/to and also near homophones, like off/of. AAAAARGHHHH. Wait. What’s this?
- High frequency spelling errors. A lot is two words; definite has a FINITE in it. Necessary is like you in the old school uniform there: it has one collar and two socks. Do you get it? Again, google COMMON SPELLING ERRORS, print off and observe.
- Please check for errors. Are there words missing? Do you have a sentence which doesn’t make sense? Plan five minutes and check five minutes WITHOUT EXCEPTION. The plan can be simply a list of the main ideas you want to cover, but make one because your writing will be better. And remember, in your plan, that if it’s going to be a story, you need to aim for a beginning, a middle and an end. Plot that out.
- NOW CREATIVE CONTENT. Be bold and brave in your choice of words and language and do not panic about using 27 metaphors and similes but, instead, focus on using a beautifully chosen verb. Use adjectives and adverbs judiciously and word combinations in unexpected ways.
- Dialogue. It enlivens a piece of writing so practise writing it and be sure you know how speech punctuation ought to be handled. Check with your English teacher if you are using a computer on this because you could use italics for speech if need be.
- Look at these pictures. Imagine that you can feel their texture. Really imagine that.
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Photo by trashhand on Pexels.comWell now, that’s what you are aiming to do in a descriptive piece or story. You want to magic up the texture of that place and how it feels, looks, smells and tastes. Bring it alive.
- Perspective. You might think of where you are; above or within. Up in the air or below; to one side and unobserved by others. Perhaps you’re not even supposed to be there. OOOOH. Your perspective – the place from where you are seeing events and things – radically changes how you and your reader observe or experience things. Also, shift it within your description or narrative. Like a camera angle, moving from a wide angle observation of a crowd scene to a zoom in on one particular detail or person; their thoughts, feelings – what you read in their face as you look very carefully at them.
- Vary your line length. So, you might have a small number of very short paragraphs – perhaps of one line each, contrasting with your longer paragraphs. You might do this with the first and last line. It might actually be the same sentence; say, an intriguing rhetorical question.
- And finally, have faith in your imagination. Here is a great piece of ongoing homework. Be more observant. People watch wherever you are. Discreetly, mind. Notice how extraordinary the everyday is; observe and watch and think about how you could weave and extend a story or a piece of descriptive writing from a conversation you overheard or an unexpected encounter you saw. and go forth, storyteller.
Anna Vaught Writes 