creative writing year7

CREATIVE WRITINGWhat is it to you?

www.chitrasoundar.com 1

Muscle Memory

• Creative Writing has two parts

• The creativity

• The writing

• Both these muscles have to be exercised. Just like going

to the gym to exercise your physical muscles.

• How do you exercise creativity?

• Look inside

• Look outside

• Do different things

• Take risk


Don’t Think. Anything self-conscious is lousy.

Ray Bradbury.

What does that mean?

• Try to do something that your inner-conscious registers and feels.

• Learn to love the process like Elizabeth Gilbert said. Don’t worry about results.

• Do it because you want to do it. You want to do it right. You want to do it differently.

• Trust your instinct. And put in the work.

So how do you do this?

1. Put your pen on paper. Start the clock and write. Don’t think about what you write.

2. Do this every day at least for 5 minutes. Write whatever comes. If nothing comes, write that – “I can’t think of anything to write” and keep writing and something will happen.


Let’s flex our creative muscles

• Write 5 sentences with repetitive synonyms.

For example – A boy, lad, young man leapt off a hill, a mountain, a

crest.

• Describe the following without using adjectives or

adverbs.

For example – The river meandered like a ribbon that the princess

wore.

A forest

A giraffe

Your friend

A post-box

The Shard or The Gherkin


Let’s flex our creative muscles some more

• On my way to the _____________________, I saw a

_____________________ that _________________ me.

I _____________ at the ______ ______________ until I

could no longer _________________.

• The church was hidden behind a __________________.

Its tall spires were ________________ under the

___________. From its windows, a ______________

looked out and said, “_________________________”.


Writing is a muscle memory too!

• Try different types of writing. Write on a computer, write on

a notebook with pens, with pencils, with crayons. Write on

paper, write on cardboard and type on a mobile phone.

Write on small notebooks and big posters.

• As you do it, Observe what you feel.

• What makes you go faster?

• Which method keeps up with the speed of your thinking?

• What changes in your content when you change the material?

• What restricts your words when you use one writing instrument vs

the other?


What is learning to write?

• Reading is the first step towards learning to write. If you

don’t read different things, you won’t know how different

things are done.

• Practice makes it habitual. Practice might never bring

perfection – because I’m not sure we are working towards

perfection. But practice will hone the skill.

• Keep practicing every day. If you want to be a writer, write

everyday. Doctors have to go to the hospital and treat patients

every day. Teachers have to teach everyday. So writers too have to

write everyday. Even if all the stuff they write is not for others.

• Practice every skill – learn to do different things. Exercise your

writing, challenge it and keep it sharp.


How do you practice everyday?

• You can do writing exercises – there are 1000s of places

where you can find them. Here are some interesting ones.

1. Pick a noun from the dictionary. And use it in the most ridiculous

way you can. Here are some words to start you off.

1. Peacock

2. Strawberries

3. Funeral

2. Now combine the noun with a verb and put them in an unlikely

sentence. Here are some verbs to start you off

1. Plead

2. Believe

3. Scowl


Practicing everyday

• Open a book. Read the first sentence of the first chapter.

Now that’s your first sentence. Write a story, a passage,

an essay, maybe even a poem. Here are some famous

first lines you could borrow.

• All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its

own way. Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina

• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Charles

Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities

• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking

thirteen. George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four.

• The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

L.P.Hartley – The Go-Between


What should you practice?

Choices

Character

When and Where

Circumstances

Can you think of

interesting

characters others

want to read

about?

Can you make

trouble for your

character? What

does he want and

why can’t he get

it?

When is this all

happening? In the

near past, distant

past? Or future?

Where is this

happening? In

sub-Saharan

Africa? In

London? In a

tower-block?

What choices will the

character make? Will

he be brave? Will he

give up? Why should

the reader care?


Characters – how do you study them?

• First think of a character and write a sentence about

him/her/it. Why is this character interesting for someone?

• Then describe the character physically – in 2 sentences.

Aliens or man or woman or tall or short? Does it matter to

the story?

• Then describe their quirks – do they pick their nose in

public? Does he/she eat with mouth open? Is he/she

elegant, wears white gloves and carries an umbrella?

What stands out?

• Now describe an object in their bag and why they are

carrying it.


Circumstances!

• Know what your character wants and make it really really

really hard for him/her to get it.

• If a character is rich, getting a taxi won’t be a difficult circumstance.

• If a character is blind, walking in the dark is not a difficulty.

• Take the character you built in the previous section and

write 5 difficult circumstances for them.

• Write 5 things that would make them smile.

• Write 5 people who might make their life difficult.

• Write about 5 places or things that upset your character.

• Write 5 memories from the past for this character that

make them happy.


Time and Place

• You need to set the story somewhere in some time.

• Knowing whether you are setting it in 2014 or 1914 makes a big

difference to the things you can do in the story. For example, if the

story is set in 1914, mobile phones and text messages can’t be

used. Unless of course your story is set in a magical place and you

have setup the universe.

• Whether a story is happening in Africa or the UK changes

what happens in the story.

• Be true to the place and time you have chosen.

• Make the characters ring true to the time and place you

have chosen.

• Even if set in contemporary London, make sure you don’t put the

character on Northern Line to go to Heathrow Airport.


Choices – we are the product of our own

choices.• So are our characters. Every character has to make a choice

and that choice has to match the characteristics you have portrayed.

• If a character is selfish, when things turn difficult, he should think about himself, not the universe.

• Be consistent.

• Give difficult choices.

• Do you want peach or strawberry milkshake is not a hero’s choice. It is just a menu.

• The choice between giving up something dear to you or saving someone.

• The choice between telling the truth and going to jail or hiding away.

• The story will be filled with small and big choices. The small choices will move the story along. The big choices will make the story take a turn you can’t turn back from.


Let’s Practice the Character Pyramid

• Pick a character you created earlier and define the time

and place where he/she is.

• Describe the time and place in detail.

• Give them some seriously difficult choices.

• Which one would your character pick and why?

Choices

Character

When and Where

Circumstances


Some useful books you can read….

• Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg

• Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

• Invisible Ink – Brian McDonald

• Poem Crazy – Susan G Woolridge


creative writing year7

Documents