The Creative Writing Exercises
There is not a lot of time in the school curriculum for
creative writing, particularly as students move into and through Key Stages 3
and 4. When there is some time, there is rarely enough time to allow the
students to complete work. Therefore, students will be a little nervous. It is
good, therefore, to start off with a warm up exercise, as described here.
A great strength of the Build
a Book Workshop is that it allows students to complete a piece of creative
work – or even several pieces of creative work – and to a good standard. It
emphasizes for them that reading and writing are really useful skills.
If your students speak another language, you might consider
doing some of the start-up exercises in that language. If this is simply
because they are studying another language at school, invite the Modern Foreign
Language teacher into the workshop. If it is because they are bilingual or
speak another language at home, invite them to produce some of their work in
that language. You might, however, have to think of a strategy for making the
text understandable to the readers of the book.
Students will not all work at the same pace. Consider
spending a few minutes setting up each exercise, allowing students to work on
the shorter ones for twenty minutes or so and on the longer ones for thirty
minutes, and then stopping them all and moving them on. However, do allow them
to backtrack and finish a favourite piece of work.
Alternatively, you could have a written set of instructions
about each type of exercise and ask students to work through them either form
the beginning to the end, or in an order they choose. Or you can set up tables
for different activities, and either let the students choose or direct them to
what you know they will do best.
This is where having your writer in the classroom, or even
some student / recent graduate help – perhaps from a creative writing student /
graduate – is really useful. You have another pair of eyes and ears to
encourage and troubleshoot.
Do remember to draw the students’ attention to common
mistakes and, even more importantly, texts that are working well.
A warm-up exercise.
This works best generally if students use lined paper.
First you discuss their theme with the students and decide
on two words to do with their theme that are opposites or diametrically opposed
in meaning. For example, you may have the theme “The Environment”. Your two
words may be “Winter” and “Summer”.
Ask them to fold the paper into four vertically, to produce
four columns. At the top of the column on the left they write the word
“Winter”. See figure 1. They then work for about five minutes on writing down
everything they can think of to do with winter. They may use odd words, phrases
or whole sentences. They never cross the vertical line, but go down to the next
line. See figure 2.
Stop them and ask them to fold back the column they have
been working on so that they can no longer see their words. See figure 3.
Ask them to write the word “Summer” at the top of the right
hand column. See figure 4. They then work for about five minutes on writing
down everything they can think of to do with summer. They may use odd words,
phrases or whole sentences. They never cross the vertical line, but go down to
the next line.
Now ask them to fold back the column as they did the first
one. See figure 5. If they now turn over the paper, the two columns will be
lined up. See figure 6.
They can refer to the collection of words throughout the
rest of the workshop. It’s also worth looking at some of the lines that go
across. They may have created some extraordinary language.
See these examples taken form figure 6. Here are some
interesting direct phrases:
Wearing ice cream
Hose-pipes frozen
I have no socks
Can’t sleep on my (fingers?)
Swimming lights
Everyday day
Aunt Lily’s people
No leaves in the car
New puppy… mince pies
Windy breath
Waves like a cloud
Here are some diagonal connections:
No school, dark days
No food for hay fever
Shops full of brown legs
And here are some connections that work with some extra
manipulation:
My Christmas bike
Baskets of birds
Figure 1
Winter |
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Figure 2
Winter |
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Cold |
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Snow |
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Frost |
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Christmas |
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Dark days |
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Wearing |
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gloves |
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No food for |
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Birds |
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Frozen |
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Lake |
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I have |
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Chilblains |
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On my |
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Fingers |
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Lights |
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Shortest |
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Day |
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Shops full |
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Angry |
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People |
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No leaves |
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No flowers |
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Mince pies |
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Seeing your |
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Breath |
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Like a cloud |
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Icicles from |
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roof |
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Figure 3
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Figure 4
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Summer |
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No school |
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Sunshine |
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Holidays |
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My bike |
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Seaside |
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Ice cream |
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Sunburn |
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Flower |
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Baskets |
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Hose-pipe |
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Ban |
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No socks |
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Brown legs |
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Can’t sleep |
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Picnics |
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Swimming |
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Pool |
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Every day |
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Hayfever |
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Going to |
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Aunt Lily’s |
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In the car |
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Carsick |
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New puppy |
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Cricket club |
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Windy |
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Waves |
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Hitting |
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Promenade |
Figure 5
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Figure 6
Summer |
Winter |
No school |
Cold |
Sunshine |
Snow |
Holidays |
Frost |
My bike |
Christmas |
Seaside |
Dark days |
Ice cream |
Wearing |
Sunburn |
gloves |
Flower |
No food for |
Baskets |
Birds |
Hose-pipe |
Frozen |
Ban |
Lake |
No socks |
I have |
Brown legs |
Chilblains |
Can’t sleep |
On my |
Picnics |
Fingers |
Swimming |
Lights |
Pool |
Shortest |
Every day |
Day |
Hayfever |
Shops full |
Going to |
Angry |
Aunt Lily’s |
People |
In the car |
No leaves |
Carsick |
No flowers |
New puppy |
Mince pies |
Cricket club |
Seeing your |
Windy |
Breath |
Waves |
Like a cloud |
Hitting |
Icicles from |
Promenade |
roof |
Whatever the outcome of this exercise, it will at least
have got the creative juices flowing. It doesn’t matter if the students don’t
use what they’ve produced here at all. Neither does it matter if they rely on
this work to help them with all of the other creative writing exercises.
Easy poem 1 Opposites.
This type of poem comes straight out of the warm-up
exercise described above. It can be as
long or as short as the student likes. Here is a very simple one based on my
lists above:
Hello cold Goodbye sunshine
Hello Christmas Goodbye summer holidays
Hello mince pies Goodbye ice cream
These simple poems can be happy or as sad as the student
cares to make them. The student can also make several choices about how to set
the work out on the page. However, also read the chapter on word-processing.
Easy Poem 2 Acrostics
These poems are very easy also. The students simply
think of a word to do with their theme. Perhaps the theme is joy and they
decide to write about winter. They set the word “winter” out vertically so:
W
I
N
T
E
R
They then think of words or phrases beginning with each
of the letters. The creative trick is to make sure that the words and phrases
are in-keeping with the theme. So, we might get:
Waiting excitedly for Christmas
Ice like shining diamonds
No place for frowns
Tomorrow he’ll be here
Eating our minecpies
Reindeer loving their carrots
Just as acceptable is:
Weak sunlight
Icy breath
Nuts for birds
Tinsel
Evergreens
Rays of life.
Students may like to refer to some of the words they thought
of in the first exercise.
Haikus
A haiku is a three line poem with five syllables in the
first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third
line. There should be a “turn” usually between second and third lines. We can
interpret this as a change of tone or pace. Haikus should also contain a strong
image of nature. Aren’t we all natural? They should be written near the objects
they are about.
Students should be encouraged to:
·
Collect words to do with topic. They may like to
use the words they discovered in the earlier creative writing exercise.
·
Play with them: Which go together well? What do
they sound like?
·
Write their haiku.
You will probably see a lot of counting on fingers as the
students work on this. Some may not really understand exactly what a syllable
is and may confuse them with words. Regional accents can make a difference
also. None of this matters. The final sound and atmosphere of the poem are all
that count.
Here is my summer haiku, made up from the words discovered
earlier:
Summer pool, no school,
Ice cream sunburn hose-pipe ban
Hayfever picnics.
A slightly less positive one, perhaps, but it makes a point.
If working with less able students, you or your helper can
write the words they think of on cards, which the whole group can rearrange
over the desk until they find some good combinations. This way, they can write
a few group haikus.
Quincains
These will cause similar counting on the fingers
activities to those you may see as your students write haikus. Quincains are
five lines long. The first one is just two syllables. The lines then get
longer, increasing to four, six, then eight syllables. The last line is two
syllables again.
Here is my effort:
Summer
Wearing sunshine
No ice frozen chilblains
Holidays
Writing by numbers
You could ask students to make up their own rules for
writing a poem. This may appeal to the more mathematical amongst them. They
could base their rules on the number of lines, words or syllables perhaps
relating to some familiar number – their date of birth for example.
Writing to a set of rules makes us more creative. We have to
make our work interesting and engaging despite the constraints.
If you would like more ideas to play with yourself, look at
the work of the OULIPO poets. If you google OULIPO, you will get many links and
many descriptions of their exercises – people are adding to them all the time.
The snow-ball one is always good fun.
Writing for shape
Students may like to make poems into a shape that looks
good on the page. A poem about a mouse might look a bit like a mouse. Or the
words might fit into a geometric shape. Students might play around with
different fonts and different sized letters. Just a little word of warning with
the latter, though: they must limit themselves to Word fonts and even some of
these may have to be changed slightly as the book goes to design.
Alternatively, they might consider presenting their poem as a picture, saved as
.jpg. More will be explained about this in the chapters on word-processing and
illustration.
Writing with the senses
This exercise can lead to prose or poetry. It always
produces good writing. If everybody did it all of the time, we’d all be
brilliant writers.
Ask your students to close their eyes and imagine a scene to
do with your theme. For example, they could be asked to think of a warm, sunny
day when they feel happy. It can be an imagined scene or they can think back to
a scene from their own lives.
Ask them:
·
What do you see?
·
What do you hear?
·
What can you smell?
·
Can you taste anything?
·
What can you feel?
·
How do you feel?
Now get them to open their eyes and write. One word of
warning: some will write, “I saw a lake and I smelt some flowers.” You can get
them away from this by asking them to tell you what the lake looked like and
what the flowers smelt like.
The students write freely to start with. A structure may emerge spontaneously. If not,
you might ask them to see if they can put a bit of a story into it.
And even without a structure, there is every possibility
that you will have some usable and very engaging prose or poetry.
Flash Fiction
This is a very short story, with just one plot point.
However, you can reduce a more complicated story to flash fiction.
Here are some examples taken from stories students know
well:
The clock struck twelve.
“I have to go,” she said pushing him away.
She ran down the stairs.
Who was she? Why the hurry? The ball would not end until
two.
Then he saw the gleaming shoe. Something of her. He smiled
to himself. He would find her.
Her grandmother
seemed very hairy.
“All the better to eat you with.”
The girl recognised the wolf. The red cape might stop the blood showing.
The wolf’s sharp teeth would rip into her soon.
“No you don’t,” shouted a voice. The woodcutter with his
strong axe stood in the doorway.
The fairy had been right. Those brambles were like
trees.
Now, all of them here, fast asleep. A hundred years! All
because of some girl pricking her finger on a needle.
Then he saw her. The kiss was the easy part.
She looked even more beautiful when she was awake.
How to do it:
Students should think of their story. Then they go to the
most important point. They then write the story in as a few words as possible.
They should count their words until they have exactly 50. They should be
careful, though, not to lose their meaning.
It’s actually quite effective to do this one straight on to
the computer.
Let your students try this out on well-known stories to
start with. With a little imagination they can choose ones that fit their
theme. Later, when they work on their own fiction, they might choose to present
it this way rather than write a longer story, especially if your time is
limited on the workshop.
Stories
It’s useful to ask your students to think of their
stories in terms of their being some conflict and tension between four basic
characters:
·
Hero (Harry Potter, Cinderella)
·
Enemy (Voldemort, Ugly sisters)
·
Friend(s?) (Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, others,
Buttons, mice)
·
Mentor (Dumbledore, fairy godmother)
The enemy may be a set of circumstances instead of a person.
The mentor often has supernatural powers and always gets out of the way towards
the end to allow the hero to be in charge of their own adventure. The mentor is
sometimes not a person – it may be a computer programme, a pet or a favourite
book. If a person, they are generally wiser and sometimes older than the hero.
The friends are powerless to help, other than offering the
odd bit of advice now and then, but they are always absolutely on the hero’s
side.
Your students must really know their character well. They
should know what they look like, how they think, what they like and dislike,
what their personality is like, what they most desire, what they are most
afraid of and what is the big deal in this particular story. They should be
able to answer a set of questions such as these about each of the four key
characters.
1.
How old is your character?
2.
What is their name?
3.
What do they look like?
4.
What do they like?
5.
What don’t they like?
6.
Which books do they like?
7.
Which TV programmes do they like watching?
8.
What sort of school do they / did they go to?
9.
What do they like doing at school?
10. What
are their hobbies?
11. What
do they fear most?
12. What
do they want most?
13. What
type of personality do they have?
14. If
their fairy godmother gave them three wishes, what would be the first?
15. What
is most important to them in this story?
Note that even if students are inventing fantasy characters
they can imagine which TV programmes their characters would like watching if
they came to our world.
It may be a little tedious for your students to write
answers to all of these questions. Consider allowing them to jot down notes as
you read the questions out, write notes on question sheets or allow them to
work in pairs and discuss their characters. They can keep these questions near
to them as they write.
Once students are confident about their characters, they can
start designing their stories. They can work out plot.
This is a good shape for a story:
Opening
Complexity 1
Complexity 2
Complexity 3
Crisis (life will NEVER be the same)
Climax=gap between crisis and resolution
Resolution n.b. one other nasty thing happens just as hero
is about to solve the problem
So, for Cinderella we
might have:
Opening - Cinders
sweeping the floor
Complexity 1 –
sisters invited to ball but she can’t go.
Complexity 2 –
she does get an invite but she still can’t go because she has nothing to wear.
Complexity 3 –
the fairy godmother makes it all right
Crisis – she
loses the shoe and prince has not arranged to see her again
Climax – will the
prince find the owner of the shoe or not
Extra nasty thing –
either: sisters hide her when the prince calls or they cut off their toes so
that the shoe fits.
Resolution – the
prince finds Cinderella and they marry.
Once your students are ready to write, give them a few tips
that will make their writing stronger. If not checked, many students will write
wonderful openings and then squash everything else into the last 200 words of a
1000 word story. Here are a few suggestions:
·
Give them a word limit. They should then try to
write a certain number of words for each section e.g. 150-200 words for each
part will produce a story that is about 1000 words long.
·
Start the story mid-action. A conversation is often a good starting
point.
·
Make sure that every sentence, very single one,
either pushes the story forward or shows us character. Even better if it does
both at once.
·
Keep description to a minimum. Most of the text
should be dialogue and action. Where there is description, students should
write with the senses.
·
Don’t tell us, show us. Don’t tell us the ugly
sisters were cruel to Cinderella. Show us them bossing her about.
It’s a good idea to have a few stories to hand so that
students can look now and then at how other writers have managed all of
this.
It is also possible
to work with less able students on a story. You or your helper can talk them
through this story- writing exercise and then write down their ideas. Get them to decide on the four characters and
what they’re like. They can also decide on the main plot points. Depending on
their ability, you could get them to work in pairs on the various sections, and
then reconvene the group to go over what has been produced. It will probably be
your job or your helper’s to make sure that the text runs smoothly.
Writing non-fiction
Consider giving your students an article-writing
template. Start off by giving them a word limit. This should probably be no
more than one thousand words, depending on how many students you have involved
and how much time you have.
Their opening paragraph should say what the article is
about, perhaps redefining the title.
The rest of the article should be divided into five to seven
chunks. The last but one chunk should say the most important thing.
The final paragraph is reserved for the conclusion, with
which they should aim to finish the article neatly.
If the article is serious, there should be something funny
in the paragraph second from the end and if the article is funny, there should
be something serious here.
Most of the time, non-fiction is cloned. We all recycle our own
knowledge or somebody else’s, or we just regroup some already quite well-known
information. It would be great if your students had time to do some original
research but this may not be possible.
There are, however, a few tricks that can make new articles
more interesting.
Ask your students to:
·
Write the article as if it were a story e.g.
they could follow the cocoa bean on its whole journey instead of just telling
us how it gets made into chocolate.
·
Write
with their senses – like they did earlier. Get them to really take us into a
different place and / or time.
·
Invent a character who is reporting the facts
and give that character a voice. Get one of the palace maids to tell us the
story of how Victoria was crowned.
Less able students might like to collect facts about a
certain topic e.g. animals with nasty habits. They could write these onto pieces
of coloured paper. This can either be word-processed later and presented as an
interesting list or the actual work can be scanned and inserted into the
book.
Trouble-shooting
As the students work and you and perhaps a visiting
writer or guest graduate in creative writing wander around the classroom, you
may be able to offer some advice on what the students are producing. Your guest
can be invaluable in this and offer even more expertise. Here are some of the
issues you might deal with:
Pace
Is there enough pace in the story? Does every sentence
bring the story forward? Is there variety in the pacing? You actually need very
active times followed by quieter ones. Pace is faster when you describe lots of
actions and often scenes like this have short sentences. It slows when you have
some description and character’s inner thoughts, or scenes including dialogue.
The trick is to get the balance right.
Dialogue
Do make sure your students know how to set out
dialogue. Give them a tip-sheet on this, photocopy a page or two from a book
that has plenty of conversation and / or have a few books handy for them to
refer to.
Dialogue should not be too natural. If we write down
conversations exactly as they sound they are very boring. There are lots of
words that don’t give much information and lots of extra ers and ums. Dialect
should be kept to a minimum as should special quirks of a particular speaker.
On the other hand, characters should sound like themselves.
They should only say what that character would say and what they say should be
convincing.
Take care that every word of dialogue carries the plot
forward, shows character or creates an atmosphere. Ideally it should do all
three at once.
It’s all right to write “said” frequently. The reader needs
to know who is saying what. “Said” is better than “demand”, “exclaimed” or
“cried” and even “whispered” or “shouted” should only be used if the character
whispers or shouts.
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