Safe and dangerous creative writing

Teaching students to write with effect is quite a tricky thing. Over the years, I have seen writing reduced to tick lists. The problem is that no two good pieces are really alike. You could create one tick list for one piece and then you’ll need a different list for the other piece. Both are widely different. 

Presion, subtlety and nuance are not things you can easily put on a ticklist. They don’t work in terms of easy to easy and therefore easy to mark aspects. You can spot a student who has used a simile. You cannot easily spot if a student has used a verb precisely and subtly in a sea of other words. The best writers might not use a simile, but the worst writers often do - continually. 

I have said for a long time that students are better writers when they are writing for effect. In the days of ‘Sexy Sprouts’, I approached non-fiction with this idea. The best non-fiction writing is written to make us feel. Emotions force students to make intuitive choices in their writing. They automatically make subtle and precise word or grammar choices when the effect is clear. Sadly, we often find that students are not so good when it comes to writing fiction. There are often the large few that read on a regular basis and have absorbed those nuances and specific elements of storytelling. 

We’ve recently been looking at creative writing with Year 8s. They are all planning to write a ghost story for an assessment. We looked at things in a much different way. We asked students to see if they could decide where the writer is making things safe and where the writer is making things sound dangerous. 

Extract from ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker  

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway ‘til we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket… The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from either side. 

  

We then asked students to decide on what percentage of the writing is safe and what percentage of the writing is dangerous. The problem often students face with writing is the balance between moods. It is either all dangerous or all safe. There’s none of that nuance to the writing. Students suggested that the percentage was 40% safe and 60% dangerous. What makes it safe? What makes it sound dangerous? Students were able to pick up that the ‘blanket’ of ‘powdery snow’ helped to contribute to this feeling. They picked up the ‘hemmed in’, ‘rising wind’ and ‘trees crashed’. They also picked up the ambiguous ‘frowning rocks guarded us’ as being something safe and dangerous. Students notice that the mood switched between the two and ended with a sense of danger because of the wolves. 

We then approached another extract. Where does it sound safe? Where does it sound dangerous? 

[1] In thirty-five feet of water, the great fish swam slowly, its tail waving just enough to maintain motion.  

[2] The boy was resting, his arms dangling down, his feet and ankles dipping in and out of the water with each small swell. 

[3] The boy stopped for a moment to rest.  The signals ceased.  

[4] The time it needed to lock on them, only an instant, for it was almost directly below the boy.  

[5] It rose, slowly at first, then gaining speed as the signals grew stronger. 

[6] The mouth opened, and with a final sweep of the sickle tail, the fish struck.  

Extract from ‘Jaws’ 

Interestingly, both of these extracts have safe and dangerous elements to them, but they convey them slightly differently and it is the balance between two moods that students need help on. Mood is never just one thing. It is far more complex. This complexity of mood needs spelling out and for the most a binary viewpoint of mood is helpful as you build up that complexity. Safe and dangerous. Superior and inferior. Calm and agitated. Confident and insecure. 

Students need to see that there are several ways to make things seem safe such as snow or a lack of movement. They need to see the different ways to make things seem dangerous. The reason why they tend to resort to cliches, when writing, is because of this lack of knowledge and experience. Plus, they also need to see things for themselves. 

From working on these two extracts, the students created a plan for their writing using the following questions: 

• What is going to create the elements of safety in the extract? 

• How am I going to suggest through clues that there is a danger lurking somewhere? 

They went on to create some really effective pieces of writing with the construction of two tones to their writing. With the mood / purpose in mind, their writing was much better than a previous draft they have done. Students love plot. In fact, the love plot more than anything and plot dominates the style of writing - and then… and then … finally …. I always say that the plot of a piece of writing should be small and powerful. The style around it makes it powerful. The opening of a letter can be more effective in storytelling than a group of zombies chasing some school kids. 

To be precise, detailed, subtle and nuanced, we need students to shift their emphasis in writing. We need to be more precise. Precise with ideas around mood. How many times do we ask students to write for a mood or moods? We need to shift their emphasis from plot and excitement to mood and feelings. 

Thanks for reading

Xris