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 

A question of tone and not techniques

In the time I have been teaching, I have seen the teaching of English compartmentalised in so many different ways. And, dear reader, you cannot put it solely at the hands of the GCSE exams. We’ve had the National Curriculum and APP grids along the way. They all attempt to make the subject an easily digestible tick list. When you do that, you see the general focus is one making the abstract concrete. You see limiting writing structures for analysis. You see an emphasis on concrete knowledge like facts around historical context and identification of techniques. We see students able to repeat facts and spot techniques, but they cannot explain why they are used. This then leads to the teacher having to explicitly teach why a technique is used. And, this repeats on and on. 

Tone is the single biggest thing that improves writing and reading across all levels. It is everywhere in our subject yet it is nowhere at the same time. Tone is something that glues words, sentences, techniques and paragraphs together. It is something that connects the reader to the writer. It is something that links the context to the writer’s purpose. It is hidden below the subject of a text and it is the seam of gold that helps students unlock meaning and understanding. Yet, it is something so hard to compartmentalise. Yes, you can name it for sure, but you can’t really define it fully because it sits across so many domains and processes.  

Look at how tone is everywhere in the AQA English exams: 

English Language

Reading 

Paper 1 - the narrator’s tone, the individual tone of characters, the writer’s own tone 

Paper 2 - the tone of the writer is both extracts 

Writing 

Paper 1 - the tone of their characters, the tone of their writing 

Paper 2 - the tone of their writing 

English Literature 

Shakespeare 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Pre1914 Novel 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Modern Text 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the character, the tone of the writer. 

Poetry Anthology 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the voice,  the tone of the writer. 

Repeat for the other poem 

Unseen poetry 

The tone of the extract, the tone of the voice,  the tone of the writer. 

Tone is everywhere in English, because it is literally everywhere in life. If students are receptive to the concept of tone, we have a seam of gold to mine in the English classroom. 

The problem in English lessons is that the questions become focused on the microdetails. Specific words. Specific techniques. Why did Dickens describe Scrooge as an ‘oyster’? When exploring that question, we are exploring quite precise knowledge. What is an oyster? What is the symbolism of oysters? If you know nothing about oysters, then you are stuck. Not many students know what an oyster is, so you are on a losing foot from the start.  

When we move the questioning away from microdetail, we focus more on the interconnectivity within a text. Take the following question: How does Dickens create a sympathetic tone in Stave 1? To respond to that question, you have to join parts of the text together, whether they be plot detail or writer’s methods. But, there’s also a personal aspect. The evidence to support the point can vary from student to student. The questioning can then be layered up. Why is Dickens so sympathetic here? What isn’t he sympathetic about? Interestingly, what is empathic about? 

Teaching tone in literature texts is paramount, but it isn’t a concrete thing. There’s more than one technique to show pity. More than one technique to show anger. And so. I’d argue that instead of using pretty empty verbs around the writer when exploring intent, there’s more legs in talking about tone. Instead of talking of what Dickens is challenging in the story, talk about what makes him angry. Anger, of course,  leads to ‘challenging’.  

From a language analysis perspective, starting with tone means you are already joining up parts of the text. How is this extract comical? The use of exaggeration. The word ‘blubber’. The repetition of ‘again’. Then, analysis starts with what makes the exaggeration comical, rather than the tumbleweed moment of ‘What is the reader supposed to feel with this exaggeration?.  

From a writing perspective, teaching students about the subtle types of tone they can use is highly beneficial. The default tone for transactional writing is usually Facebook rant or end of the world apocalypse. The better writers have a breezy and light tone that knows when to pack a punch and when to understate things. 

The starting point is to talk about tone. Talk about awe, frustration, sarcasm, irony, bitterness and so on. Talk about when tone changes. Talk about why tone changes. Talk about why that tone then. Don’t just give a wordbank of tone words. Actually, talk about tone and teach about tone. 

You’d think we’d give tone the same level of respect as full stops and capital letters given that they are in every piece of writing, but we don’t. There’s so much time given to techniques with the hope that students can spot it in the rare occurrence of it appearing in an exam. I can guarantee the text will have a tone. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

Problem solving in creative writing

Over the past term, I have been working on quite a bit of creative writing with students. And, I always find with each year that there’s something different I notice or explore with students. As I ease back into blogging, after taking a bit of a holiday, here are some problems I’ve faced and some possible solutions. 

Problem 1: Too much action and not a lot of description 

We’ve all had it. A student feels the need to write the equivalent of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy on two sides of A4. Every sentence is an explosion, a death or a plot twist. And, everything is so dramatic. You could model the balance of description till you are blue in the face, but still within two sentences a man has discovered his long lost mother, divorced his wife and robbed a bank. 

Solution: class stories 

This does push students out of their comfort zone, but it does help to get students listening to one another when telling a story. Simple start the story with a small bit of context. Tom is walking back from the football game when he notices something strange. Then, I allocate students a letter - A or B. Each letter represents if they are focusing on action or description. We go student by student and line by line telling a story. 

Student 1: He noticed that the pitch was empty and while he was focusing on tying his laces everyone had gone home. [Action] 

Student 2: The pitch was surrounded by inky darkness. [Description]  

Student 3: White light shone down from the pylons above. [Description] 

Student 4: Tom moved quicker and scooped up his bag and coat. [Action] 

Depending on your classroom layout, you can place emphasis on the start and end being about description and so on. I love it as an approach because it forces them to work on problem solving on storytelling and looking at how things connect together. Why would he be the last one there? What has he got in his bag? 

I do this often because the students love it and it builds their confidence around storytelling. Starting with nothing is daunting, but this approach models to them how to build action and description into their writing and how to use the two elements for impact. If for example I am working on a horror or ghost story, I’d purposefully have more description students than actions students. 

The beauty of this is that you can question the effectiveness of choices. One action we had in the story above was a strange sound. Another student revealed it was a donkey. Now that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it spoiled the effectiveness of the ending when this donkey moment happened. It punctured the tension.  We then discussed where best it would go. 

Problem 2: Marvel movie storytelling 

We do seem to have a glut of identikit films. The fact that the sequel is more popular than ever shows us how rigid the storytelling has become. If students see endless ‘Fast and Furious’ films, then they see that rigidity in their writing. There’s none of the exploration or nuance we like to see. I want cars. I want fast cars. I want them to race.  Like the phrase ‘you are what you eat’, in storytelling ‘you write what you see.’ 

Solution: The Repair Workshop 

That show is a mastermind in storytelling and weaving the past and present narratives. I watched a clip of the show to see how they repair a piano. Then, pull out the narratives. There’s the narrative about the fixing of the object. There’s the narrative of the person wanting it fixed. There’s the narrative surrounding the person who used the object in the past. For example, granddaughter wants the piano fixed because she has no grandparents left and she wants the piano so she can teach her daughter to play it like her grandmother did when she was a child. 

The beauty of ‘The Repair Workshop’ narrative is that it is usually so precise, personal and emotive. You can start anywhere in the story. Past, present or the moment where the object is fixed. Plus, the narrative has a fixed core: the object. 

I’ve seen students really play around with ‘The Repair Workshop’ narrative.Starting in the past and then showing the ageing of the object. I’ve had students look at the object in the present and then tell the story of why it is in that person’s hands. It forces students to think about narrative structure and emotion in quite a precise way. They are not looking for hundreds of characters and plot points, but simply two people linked over time by one object. 

Problem 3:  Pace 

We live in a fast world and sadly writing seems to be influenced by that.Storytelling is always fast with students. They are in the rush to get to the next bit. For this reason, description disappears. Speed. Reading creative writing pieces can be like Sandra Bullock on a bus. If one bit of this story is not tense, then the paper will explode.  

Solution : Music 

Well, this is a cheat. There’s more than one solution to this. For a start, I ask them to write for an old codger like me. My heart can’t take anything dramatic or racy. I need sedate and slightly slow pieces of writing, which say something clever in one event. I use the exam texts as an example. My heart can cope with things like that. 

I get students to write a piece inspired by some music. I use incidental music from movies and avoid the Spice Girls. To get the idea across to students, I play the Jaws music and then show them an extract from Jaws so that students can see how the two work together. How does the writing match the style of music? 

Then, I get students to write a story around a piece of music.  It is best to use music that isn’t familiar. You can give the context, if necessary. They change their emphasis in writing, matching the pace of the music structurally. 

Problem 4: Dialogue 

Dialogue is lazy writing. Students know that. We know that. Yet, there will alway be one student that insists on writing something along the lines of … 

“Hello,” said Tom. 

“Hello,” said Roger. 

“How are you?,” said Tom. 

“I am fine. You?” said Roger. 

“Good thanks. How is the wife?” said Tom. 

“Good. ,” said Roger.

Solution: Get students to use body language to reveal what has been said. 

I love this because, again students are working on problem solving in narratives. I give students a small context for the story. Two people meet in a shop. One person says one of the following lines:  

“I am pregnant.” 

"I can't believe you said that!" 

"It's not what it looks like, I swear!" 

"I never thought this day would come." 

“I am sorry.” 

"How can you just walk away from us?" 

"I saw you." 

"Please, just stay with me." 

“The test result has come back positive.”

The students cannot use the line of dialogue in their writing. They have to use body language to show it. We know the people are speaking in real life, but we are silent observers working out what is being said. For me, this is great because it gets students to work on forming their own inferences around things and work on making explicit narrative implicit in the text. Automatically, it forces students to describe actions, eye movements, facial expressions or hand gestures. 

Problem 5: Purple Prose 

I have Purple Prose with a passion. It is the worst thing about English teaching.The chuck everything at the teacher kind of writing. My favourite writers all use crisp prose. Not a word is wasted, yet there’s an expectation that we are producing mini Charles Dickenses all the time. 

Solution: Focus on one word changing the meaning of a line 

The best creative writers are quite precise with their writing. They will use one word to add so much meaning to a story. A student wrote about a child receiving a present from his father. The child has not seen his father since his parents divorced.  

 

What does the word highlighted do to the sentence?  

1. Each present he unwrapped lazily as he realised who had sent it.  

2. His face was blank.  

3. His mother gave a pained smile as she looked on.  

4.The last present looked like it had been wrapped in a rush.  

5. His mother’s eyes were cold.  

6. The boy’s eyes lit up when he discovered who had sent the present. 

 

We then work on the following lines. We look at change or add one word in each line to add more meaning. 

 

[1] She sat eating her packed lunch.  

[2] The boy sat opposite her and greeted her as he usually did.  

[3] She smiled.  

[4] He opted for a cooked dinner instead of the sandwich prepared by his mother.  

[5] She felt jealous. Her sandwich was nothing compared to the meal on his plate.  

That construction of stories is often neglected by students. This simple approach gets them to look at how one word can add meaning. We are working on constructing inferences, clues about relationships and subtext with just one word. That means that when they do use a simile it is one good one that sings. 

I hope that helps and, of course, there’s more than one way to cook an egg, but I hope that has given you some ideas or some inspiration. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

Can’t use a simile without using two

I detest purple prose. Nothing grates when you’ve read your fifteenth example of personification by the third sentence. Especially when the setting is full of people already. The problem is that students haven’t learnt about the versatility of a technique. They haven’t reached a stage of proficiency to use a technique in a variety of contexts and purposes. By the time students reach Year 7, they can spot similes and use them freely. In fact, most of the issue stems from stopping them using more than one. 

What are the main problems students have with similes? 

• Resorting to tired similes or cliches 

• Stacking similes on top of each other

• Extreme effects and over exaggeration - His anger was like a volcano going off. 

• Similes sitting alone without any further development 

• Lack of cohesion with the rest of the writing    

Recently I read an interesting simile in Ann Sei Lin’s ‘Rebel Skies’. 

‘Despite its name, the building was neither blue nor did it look anything like a peacock. It stood in the middle of a narrow street on the outskirts of Tomuri like a sagging cake. The raising blocks had cracked on one side so that the inn stood at a tilt, the doors were battered by the wind and the clay tiles on the roof slipped dangerously, splitting onto the ground…’ 

We can see how a simile can be constructed for impact very simply and it seems effortless. 

[1] The simile is used to change the mood. We know something isn’t right about ‘The Peacock’ but the simile identifies what makes it wrong. The simile is a pivot in the structure of the writing. 

[2] The simile itself contrasts with the original image we are presented with. The place is called ‘The Peacock’ and it would, for most of us, make narrative sense and provide an alternative avian simile. A plucked turkey. A dumpey cuckoo. A fat hen. Yet, we are given a simile related to food and not birds. 

[3] The simile is extended and clarified in the sentence after. The ‘sagging’ connects to the ‘cracked on one side’ and the ‘tilt’.  

For students, a simile is just a simile and that’s where the problem lies. They don’t see it as a structural choice. A pivot to change the mood. A cohesive device that connects elsewhere. A simile simply exists on its own and in isolation in a student’s mind. Instead we need students to see the impact and how like a hydra a simple simile can be. 

I think we need to do more on the structural position of a simile in a paragraph. Students throw similes like confetti into their writing so that they stick to everything and appear when you least expect them. They need to be used like an engagement proposal instead. Carefully measured ensuring that the moment is perfect. Of course, you can throw a simile wherever you want, but having a simile hold the structure together is much more effective. Better writers structure their writing around anchors. Why not make the anchor a simile? 

[1] A simile at the start 

Simile 

Sentence 1 

Sentence 2 

Sentence 3

Like a cold winter’s day, the classroom was lifeless and lacked any colour. Grey walls waited for work to be keenly stuck to them with staples, pins or blue-tac. The windows stared impassively at row and row of empty desks and chairs. Coldness slowly seeped in.  

[2] A simile in the middle 

Sentence 1 

Simile 

Sentence 2

Sentence 3 

The garden’s greeness boasted itself to the rest of the street. Bright, bulging flowers thrust themselves forward like an ageing actor fearful of being replaced by a much younger, and cheaper, model. They were in the autumn of their existence. The colours were not as colourful as they once were in spring. They were not as tall as they once were in the summer. Their time was close to the end, but they would not give up without some kind of fight. 

[3] A simile at the end

Sentence 1

Sentence 2

Sentence 3

Simile 

As the garage door opened, light gently woke up the room. Piles of long forgotten boxes and cartons slept silently, hoping not to be disturbed. Dust blanketed everything and anything it could. The room held its secret like a murder hides his intent behind a smile.    

Now I don’t think I will win any awards for writing these examples, but they serve to prove a point: how a simile can be used to structure writing and have an impact. Able students often use devices to structure their writing while other students simply throw in similes without thought on how they can aid meaning. Students need to see and learn the versatility of a device. Too often we focus on the construction and not the use of a device. The fact a student can use the device in the first place shouldn’t be a source of amazement. How a student uses the device should be. 

Of course, simile usage isn’t simply the domain of fiction. In fact, the use of simile to turn the flow of the discourse is common in non-fiction. A serious article can flip into pantomime with one simile. Where to put the simile is the real  skill.  Where should I put the simile  ‘like some inflated sausage made of more sinew and fat than meat’ to describe the supposedly returning Prime Minister?  

Thanks for reading, 

Xris

One word drafting

Drafting is a very tricky aspect of teaching. Rarely do students draft effectively. They are usually in one of two camps. ‘The tickle brigade’ likes to dot an i or add a comma or apostrophe in one place.  ‘The blunderbuss gang’ likes to scribble everything out and start again. There’s no happy medium. It is either all or nothing.  

I find the process is problematic as a teacher. What do you do? Do you give students a list of things to check in their writing? Or, do you show it as a stepped process? Right, people, let’s start by checking we have used capital letters correctly!  Rarely does the process of drafting link to effect and impact. The drive is always on making it look or sound better, but it is never on making the impact better. 

For that reason, that’s why I have been focusing on one aspect of drafting: one word to improve a sentence. Very simply I give students a sentence and they have to add /change a word to lift it or make it better. Basically the same thing. 

Example: The mist surrounded the gravestones. 

I am not a fan of purple prose and, in fact, I’d rather read concise, crisp prose than anything else. Drafting always focuses on turning writing into purple prose. Add a simile. Add a list. Rarely, does it ever focus on reducing and condensing. Good writers do that. They say so much in one sentence that there’s no need for a paragraph. Students, on the other hand, say one thing but use fifty sentences instead of one.  

The example sentence can become one of the following: 

[1] The mist swallowed the gravestones.  [A sense of power and something destructive]  

[2] The mist silently surrounded the gravestones. [A sense of unknown danger] 

[3] The cold mist surrounded the gravestones. [A negative atmosphere] 

What I love about this is that as soon as it becomes focused on one word, the student is focused on meaning and effect. Students don’t often think about the effect when adding a technique like a personification. They don’t go: I need to add a piece of personification because I want to create an unsettled atmosphere. They just throw some personification at the text with the hope that it will work. 

Focusing on one word helps them to get under the bonnet and look at the mechanics of the writing. All too often, the techniques are the drivers for improvement and rarely do they do much in a piece. No English teacher has gushed over the use of alliteration, but they have gushed over an interesting choice or word or combination of words. If we want students to be better at analysing language, then we need them to be better at using language themselves. In the beginning was the ‘word’. 

Look at how the approach can be easily used for non-fiction. 

Example: Taking a holiday in Britain has its benefits. 

Taking a holiday in sunny Britain has its benefits.   [sarcasm]  

Taking a holiday in Britain has its rewards.  [emphasis on positivity]  

Taking a cheap holiday in Britain has its benefits. [emphasis on money]  

Taking a vacation in Britain has its benefits. [makes it seem better than it is] 

So you can see with one word the meaning can be changed and the impact of the text changed. This thoughtful exploration of word meaning is valuable for students to get better with language and language analysis. All too often, we focus on the techniques and not the word choice. Everything, for me, begins with words. 

Students already have this thoughtfulness to language composition. We see that when they message their peers. They know that the wrong word in a sentence can destroy a relationship. Because the consequence is largely immediate. With writing in lessons, the consequence isn’t immediate. The teacher isn’t going to have a strop if the wrong word is used. That’s why I think we need to attune students to drafting the word choice. We need to teach them the importance of considering and pondering a word in a sentence. We know they can write, but the best writers consider and ponder the words they use. They don’t throw everything in. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

P.S. Here are a few sentences we are using with students this term. To get them in the ‘zone’, we are giving them these sentences and asking them to lift them up with one word. And only one word! 

[1] Light appeared through the cracks in the door.  

[2] He paused for breath. Unsure what to do. 

[3] The footsteps could be heard upstairs. 

[4] Light fell from the window and revealed a figure in the corner. 

[5] The scratching started behind the door. 

[6] The silence was painful. 

[7] The shadow moved slowly. 

[8] The trees slowly tapped the window.