So you know the nuts and bolts you need to include in your creative writing. But how do you bring it all together?

By showcasing an exemplar for all eight types of creative writing task a student might come across, and pairing it with in-depth commentary that discusses not just the techniques, but also the art of weaving everything together, this new guide from Accolade Press seeks to demystify creative writing at Key Stage Three.

Tasks covered include:

• Stories based on verbal prompts

• Stories inspired by personal events

• Stories based on images

• Descriptions based on images

• Formal letter writing

• Speech writing

• Advertisement writing

• Newspaper writing

A university lecturer and long-time tutor, Eoin Bentick spends his life working with the English language. With expertise in medieval literature, he enjoys the diverse ways in which language has been crafted over the centuries.

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Sample from the Text

INTRODUCTION

This book will help you through any writing task that you’ll be asked to do: creative, persuasive, informative, whatever it might be. 

Whereas other revision books guide students from the ground up, starting with the building blocks of sentences and working upwards, I am going to be guiding you through some model answers. This way, you can get accustomed to what makes a good piece of writing. I’ll be pointing out features that I use often and introducing you to some handy tips and tricks.

The best way to learn how to write effectively is through imitation. That doesn’t mean that you should copy my whole sample pieces word for word; it does mean that you should practise using the techniques, structures, and, yes, maybe even some of the words and phrases that I use. 

That’s how language works: we copy things here and there from different people. The more people we copy and learn from, the more sophisticated our language becomes. This book gives you a whole treasure chest to pick and choose from.

Structure is extremely important when it comes to extended writing; you need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That is why I have divided each model answer into these three sections. If you take time to think of a beginning, a middle, and an end in the planning stage of writing, your writing will be so much better. All it takes is a couple of minutes and the process is absolutely key to creating a sense of structure.

There are eight chapters to the book, each dedicated to a particular type of extended writing. The first four cover creative fiction writing and the second four cover different styles of non-fiction writing to persuade/inform:

1. Creative writing from verbal prompt (story telling)

2. Creative writing from verbal prompt (something that happened to you)

3. Creative writing from visual prompt (description)

4. Creative writing from visual prompt (beginning of a story)

1. Formal letter

2. Advertising email

3. Speech

4. Newspaper article

At the beginning of each chapter, I give some general advice about the type of writing under discussion. Then comes my sample piece. After that, I break the piece down into a beginning, a middle, and an end, paying particularly close attention to the ways in which I shift between sections. I highlight language techniques, punctuation, vocabulary and explain what works.

At the back of the book, there is a vocabulary bank and a list of language techniques that you can use for reference. Top tip: Keep a list of good words and phrases! You will find it so much easier to write impressively if you’ve got some great vocabulary up your sleeve. 

Beginnings of Sentences

One piece of advice that is important to keep in mind across all of your extended writing: change up your sentence structure. The following piece of writing is exactly the sort of thing that you should avoid:

There was a small cat in the field. The field was big and had corn growing in it. The sun was red. There was a boy called Juan in the field and he saw the cat. He was scared but he didn’t know what to do so just stood there. The cat just said miaow and it was fine. Juan sat down and texted his friend, Marlow. 

The problem with this paragraph is that each sentence either begins with ‘There was’ or with a noun (‘The field [...] The sun [...] He [...] The cat [...] Juan’). This is not interesting writing. If you catch yourself beginning all your sentences in the same way, throw in an adverb, or a fronted adverbial, or anything that takes away from the monotony of repeated sentence structure! 

Reworked, the above paragraph might sound more like this:

Hidden amongst the towering corn, a tiny cat lay peacefully in the wide, wide field, catching the last glimpses of the sun’s red rays. Nearby, a boy called Juan was strolling through the crops when he caught sight of the sleeping cat. He froze. With a yawn and a stretch and a lazy blink, the cat let out a little ‘miaow’ and padded away. Immediately, Juan whipped out his phone to tell Marlow all about his first feline encounter.

This is by no means a perfect paragraph and the subject matter is a little strange, but you can see the difference when I change up the sentence structure. Almost all my sentences begin with either an adverbial (‘Nearby [...] ‘With a yawn and a stretch and a lazy blink’ [...] ‘Immediately’) or adjectival (‘Hidden amongst the towering corn’) word or phrase. This brings added emphasis to the short sentence, ‘He froze’.

So, what is an adjectival phrase or a fronted adverbial? 

These sound pretty complex, but actually they are easy to get your head around. A quick way to understand them is that they are the bits that you put at the start of a sentence to make it sound more interesting. To be more precise, the fronted adverbial describes how, when, or where an action takes place. The adjectival phrase describes the subject of the sentence.

Fronted adverbials: ‘Elsewhere...’; ‘With a spring in her step...’; ‘Above their heads...’; ‘All of a sudden...’; ‘Beyond the streetlight...’

Adjectival phrases: ‘Blackened and oozing with sap, the tree...’; ‘Proud of everything he had done, he...’; ‘Bored of the blathering bleats, she...’; ‘Glistening with gold, the dragon...’

Changing up the beginning of your sentences is a sure-fire way of improving your writing. Here is a really useful exercise that you should practise once a week:

1. Write a paragraph as quickly as you can.

2. Rewrite the paragraph, paying attention to the beginnings of sentences.

3. Note the differences between the paragraphs.

This way, you will start to feel the difference between a standard paragraph and one that is interesting to read. Remember: the form is just as important as the content. In other words, you could have a great idea for a story, but that would count for nothing if you did not use varied sentence structures to write it. In fact, often the simplest stories, beautifully written, are the best.

Put your energies into how you are telling your story, not what you are saying.

EXEMPLAR PIECE ONE

WRITE THE OPENING OF A STORY ABOUT A STRANGE BEAST

An imaginative writing question might ask you to write the beginning of a story based on a theme or a particular subject. In this case, you are being asked to write the beginning of a story based on a strange beast.

With creative writing, originality is key. But what exactly is originality? An original piece of writing is something you haven’t heard before. It is unexpected. The pressure to be original might feel daunting, but there are some simple tricks that you can use to make sure that you are writing originally.

Originality in creative writing ultimately comes from the ability to imitate while also putting your own personal spin on things.

Firstly, think about a beginning, a middle, and an ending. In the beginning, set the scene; in the middle, shift the focus, the tone, or the perspective; in the ending, shift once more and try to resolve what you have introduced. These shifts are very important as they contribute to the originality of your writing.

Secondly, take time to say something in a different way. Pause, and actively think as you are writing: “Can I describe this more vividly?” In these pauses, ask yourself if there is an opportunity to vary the sentence structure, to use a literary device, to show and not tell. It sounds obvious, but you’ll be surprised how often students just charge in and write the first thing that comes to their minds.

Thirdly, focus on descriptive detail. Take time to describe the sights, smells, sounds, atmosphere, weather. If the prompt asks you to talk about a beast, don’t jump straight in with “The beast was ...”. Set the scene. 

Finally, think about narrative voice. In this task, you have the opportunity to adopt a third-person narrative voice. Will you be writing within a certain genre? Does your narrator have a character and opinions? Is your narrator omniscient (all-knowing)? Whatever you decide, make sure that you are consistent throughout your response.

* * *

In the concrete badlands1 of Greater Siltington, West Saxonbury, life was scarce2. Husks of an ancient civilisation tottered on bending beams that had been threatening to snap for decades. These antique blocks of flats, pocked and gaping and crumbling into the barren waste, were surrounded by little but desolation.

The air was as unmoving as the rusted vans that lined the streets – thunk. A boulder from the top of the tallest tower narrowly missed the masked head of Patroller 35701. She looked up and saw the tower lit up in the awful majesty of the reddening morning sky. Patroller 35701 winced; rain was coming.

Sixty-six floors up, the beast was prowling, panting, cogitating3. Distant clouds thickened. He watched the human clamber over rubble and old pipes, scanning the building as she came closer, ever closer. For five days now, he had been sheltering from the unrelenting sun without food, without water. He was usually much better at boulder-hurling.  

No one wanted to survey the badlands, but Patroller 35701 was the kind of person who got the jobs that no one wanted to do. Back at headquarters, they received her scanned images over cups of tea and jokes about how grim it would be to be Patroller 35701 right now. But everything had to be surveyed. 

Rain started to fall. She had been scanning for an hour and was only on the fourteenth floor. “Patroller 35701. Come in Patroller 35701,” a crackled voice hissed in her ear. 

“Copy. I hear you loud and –”

Sat at the doorway, between the dumbstruck patroller and the staircase, piercing her with bright yellow eyes, was the beast. It was hard to tell where the shadows ended and the beast began. 

“Patroller 35701. Abort mission. I repeat: abort mission. We’ve detected movement in the building. You need to get out of there!”

The beast, not quite animal and not quite human, lurched towards her. Cowering, she held her hands up to protect herself and as a sign of submission. Again, the beast pounced, pinning her to the floor. He was panting heavily, thirsty and tired. As Patroller 35701 turned her head from the hot stench of his heavy breathing, she thought she heard him growl something that sounded uncannily4 like, “Leave. Me. Alone!”

Before she knew it, he was bounding down the stairs and out into the early morning shower. Shakily, she stood up and dusted herself off. The red sun, still low in the one chunk of unclouded sky, blinded her as she stumbled to the window. Below, the beast bounded out from the building. He stood tall, threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and screamed at the falling rain.

* * *

1 Badlands – dry, rocky waste land

2 Scarce – in low supply

3 Cogitating – thinking 

4 Uncannily – in a strangely unsettling manner

Second & Fourth Image: Designed by stories / Freepik

Image Directly Above: (‘Dystopia’) Copyright © Nick Vidal-Hall. Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode.  Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132918212@N04/21718244812

Exemplar Piece One: Guidance

Beginning

In the beginning, I set the scene. I focus primarily on the landscape. A scene is not set with one sentence, or two, or even three. Try to focus on one aspect of the scenario that is not necessarily linked to the verbal prompt. This will make your writing seem multi-layered. I decided to focus on the dilapidated buildings and the scarcity of life.

In the concrete badlands of Greater Siltington, West Saxonbury, life was scarce. 

• Avoided starting with the beast

• Invented a placename, adhering to the genre of science fiction

• Vocabulary (‘badlands’)

• Inverted sentence structure 

>>  It is important to demonstrate varied sentence structure. Since we might expect the sentence to read ‘Life was scare in the concrete badlands of Greater Siltington, West Saxonbury’,  this sentence structure is ‘inverted’.

Husks of an ancient civilisation tottered on bending beams that had been threatening to snap for decades. These antique blocks of flats, pocked and gaping and crumbling into the barren waste, were surrounded by little but desolation.

•  Alliteration (‘bending beams’)

>> Alliteration refers to the repetition of consonants.

•  Metaphor (‘Husks’, ‘tottered’, ‘threatening’)

>> These are metaphors because the buildings are not literally the outer shell of seeds, not literally staggering around, and they don’t literally threaten anything. This is a more subtle and interesting way to use metaphor than simply saying, “The buildings were husks”.

•  Polysyndeton and rule of three (‘pocked and gaping and crumbling’)

>> Polysyndeton is the use of lots of connectives in close proximity ( ... and ... and ... and ... ).

•  The rule of three is a list three items, often the third item is longer or more descriptive (the rule of three technique is also called the tricolon)

•  Extended physical description

Middle

Remember that the movement from beginning to middle requires a ‘shift’. The shift that I have used is a shift in perspective, to that of Patroller 35701. In order to create a layered effect to my writing, I also introduce a new theme that will recur throughout the whole piece: the changing weather. Peppering your response with the changing situation of something seemingly separate from your main action is a particularly effective technique. 

My middle section is characterised by changes in perspective. This is to give you some examples of how to ‘shift’ effectively. I move from Patroller 35701 to the beast to headquarters and then back to Patroller 35701. This is probably the maximum number of ‘shifts’ you should allow yourself in the middle section.

I have also included a limited amount of direct speech towards the end of this section. Do not write much more direct speech than this. Once your imagination runs away with you, it is tempting to write as if you were creating a film script. You are not. Avoid ‘He said’ and ‘She whispered’. Keep focussed on the physical, the senses, and the action.

The air was as unmoving as the rusted vans that lined the streets – thunk. A boulder from the top of the tallest tower narrowly missed the masked head of Patroller 35701. She looked up and saw the tower lit up in the awful majesty of the reddening morning sky. Patroller 35701 winced; rain was coming.

• Simile (‘as unmoving as the rusted vans’)

>> A simile compares one thing to another using ‘like’ or ‘as’.

• Onomatopoeia (‘thunk’)

>> Onomatopoeia recreates a sound.

• Punctuation use (‘–’)

>> Using a variety of punctuation will be rewarded.

•  Change of perspective (‘narrowly missed the masked head of Patroller 35701’)

• Vocabulary (‘awful majesty’)

>> Here, the word ‘awful’ is being used in an uncommon sense. Traditionally, the word ‘awful’ meant ‘full of awe’, and so ‘awful majesty’ comes to mean ‘awe-inspiring grandeur’. 

• Sentence length and punctuation use (‘Patroller 35701 winced; rain was coming’)

>> Using a mixture of short sentences and long sentences is highly recommended.

Sixty-six floors up, the beast was prowling, panting, cogitating. Distant clouds thickened. He watched the human clamber over rubble and old pipes, scanning the building as she came closer, ever closer. For five days now, he had been sheltering from the unrelenting sun without food, without water. He was usually much better at boulder-hurling.  

• Rule of three with alliteration (‘prowling, panting, cogitating’)

• Vocabulary (‘cogitating’)

• Repetition (‘closer, ever closer’ and ‘without food, without water’)

• Varied syntax (short sentence; very short sentence; medium sentence; medium sentence; short sentence)

• Humour (‘He was usually much better at boulder-hurling’)

>> This sentence refers back to the fallen boulder in the paragraph before, altering the reader’s expectations of what has happened. The tone is informal and is suggestive of the beast’s disdain for people.  

No one wanted to survey the badlands, but Patroller 35701 was the kind of person who got the jobs that no one wanted to do. Back at headquarters, they received her scanned images over cups of tea and jokes about how grim it would be to be Patroller 35701 right now. But everything had to be surveyed. 

• Shift in perspective

• Shift in tone (‘kind of person who got the jobs that no one wanted to do’ and ‘cups of tea and jokes’)

>> The change from an ominous tone to a jovial tone releases some tension, allowing for the eventual meeting with the beast to be even more menacing. This particular type of humour is known as ‘gallows humour’ – a phrase that refers to the dark strain of comedy that stems from people’s suffering.

• Varied syntax

Rain started to fall. She had been scanning for an hour and was only on the fourteenth floor. “Patroller 35701. Come in Patroller 35701,” a crackled voice hissed in her ear. 

“Copy. I hear you loud and –”

•  Description of weather continues throughout action

•  Short sentences increase tension

•  Direct speech

•  Punctuation use (‘–’)

>> This is a great way to indicate an abrupt break in speech.

Ending

The ending is the climax of the action. Even though you are only writing the ‘beginning’ of a story, it is important that you give a sense of closure to your reader. In my story, we realise that the beast, who initially seems aggressive, just wants to be left alone. There is a confrontation between the beast and the main character. However, I decided to end the piece with a stark and vivid image that is somewhat ambiguous. Is the beast man or animal? Why does he scream? Such ambiguity is encouraged.

Sat at the doorway, between the dumbstruck patroller and the staircase, piercing her with bright yellow eyes, was the beast. It was hard to tell where the shadows ended and the beast began. 

•  The use of the word ‘dumbstruck’ explains the use of the dash in the previous sentence

•  The ‘beast’ comes at the end of the sentence, heightening tension

•  Rather than saying ‘The beast was difficult to see’, I took a second to think about darkness and shadows and came up with a more original way of saying the same thing

“Patroller 35701. Abort mission. I repeat: abort mission. We’ve detected movement in the building. You need to get out of there!”

The beast, not quite animal and not quite human, lurched towards her. Cowering, she held her hands up to protect herself and as a sign of submission. Again, the beast pounced, pinning her to the floor. He was panting heavily, thirsty and tired. As Patroller 35701 turned her head from the hot stench of his heavy breathing, she thought she heard him growl something that sounded uncannily like, “Leave. Me. Alone!”

•  Repetition (‘not quite animal and not quite human’)

•  Verb use (‘lurched’, ‘Cowering’, ‘pounced’)

•  Focus on smell (‘hot stench’)

>> Always remember to think about the five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch).

•  Ambiguity (‘thought she heard’)

>> You want your story to make sense, but well-chosen moments in which the narrator or a character cannot make out what is happening can come across as sophisticated writing. 

•  Adverb use and vocabulary (‘uncannily’)

>> Adverbs are an easy way to make your writing more vivid. However, because they are easy, they can be overused. Learn some interesting adverbs and use sparingly.  

•  Punctuation use (‘“Leave. Me. Alone!”’)

Before she knew it, he was bounding down the stairs and out into the early morning shower. Shakily, she stood up and dusted herself off. The red sun, still low in the one chunk of unclouded sky, blinded her as she stumbled to the window. Below, the beast heaved out from the building. He stood tall, threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and screamed at the falling rain.

• Adverb use (‘Shakily’)

>> Try to distance your adverb from the verb it is describing. ‘Shakily, she stood up and ...’ sounds better than ‘She stood up shakily and ...’.

• Verb use (‘bounding’, ‘blinded’, ‘heaved’)

• Multi-clausal sentences (‘The red sun, still low in the one chunk of unclouded sky, blinded ...’)

>> Using clauses adds depth to a description and shows off an ability to construct complex sentences.

• Asyndeton (‘He stood tall, threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and screamed at the falling rain’)

>> The opposite of polysyndeton, asyndeton is the use of lots of commas or semicolons without the use of connectives such as ‘and’ and ‘or’.

Alternatively, you can purchase and download an electronically delivered PDF directly from us here.

FURTHER CUSTOMER REVIEWS

This is an extremely user friendly resource to help students learn how to improve their creative writing.

Exemplar texts are the perfect length to analyse in one sitting with each technique clearly explained from showing not telling, using metaphors and frontal adverbials, how to build tension, creating a beginning/middle and end, how to describe effectively etc. Supporting pictures are also very effective to explaining how creative writing is all about painting a picture and using all the senses to describe a scene.

Excellent book - I will definitely be using this resource to help teach my students.

This book truly delivers. It is well-written to aid students who want to work independently at home and to strengthen their writing skills. This book stretches and challenges students breaking down the key elements of creative writing. It has excellent exemplars which not only teach the students how to write effectively - but expands vocabulary and its usage – a key skill required for GCSE English Language (Paper 1: Section B). In addition, this resource – instead of just listing what the student must do; encourages and supports students to practice by modelling what they have learnt.

As a teacher/tutor of KS3, KS4 and KS5 students (English Language and Literature) this resource prepares the groundwork for KS4 English Language.

This is a great option that fills a distinct gap in the market. Although there are many places you can find practice papers to try and prompts for creative writing, there are very few step-by-step guides like this one that show the student what he or she needs to do to improve the pieces they are writing. The exemplar pieces are an excellent opportunity to see what works well and what doesn't and, in many cases, they give the students something to emulate when writing.

I am a tutor, and have been looking for a resource like this for years. It is definitely for a more able candidate, as it sets off at quite a sophisticated level, and there's certainly lots to read, but it will certainly be sitting at the centre of my KS3 writing classes from now on. Highly recommend.

The Creative Writing Guide for KS3 is an outstanding resource for both tutors and students. This guide covers a plethora of different writing tasks ranging from storytelling (verbal prompt) to formal letters and even newspaper articles. The array of exemplar pieces is both impressive and useful – I am confident that young writers will really enjoy using this wonderful guide!

A helpful feature is the vocab key at the bottom of each page which aids students with sophisticated vocabulary, so this guide can even be used for increasing students’ vocabulary.

As with all of the Accolade Press guides, this is exceptionally good value for money because of the quality and quantity throughout the book. I will be bold and state that this is quite possibly the best KS3 Creative Writing Guide on the market right now!

This is a great guide to really help students develop their writing skills - the use of the model responses really helps and it is a fantastic book to help stretch their writing to a higher level.

This book uses a transparent format to show students of higher ability how to appreciate good writing and how to fine-tune their own writing. The stories and texts are engaging and excerpts are dissected to reveal their linguistic component parts, enabling students to understand how a piece of writing is crafted. The analysis of techniques is accessible but thorough, avoiding onerous lists of terminology; instead the linguistic terms are interwoven usefully into the analysis and exemplified.

I'm very impressed with this book. It moves on from 11+ and onto the next step for sons writing. This is a great addition for the library. It is one of those books that you can dabble in and out of for many years to come.

My son has only been using it for a little while but what we have found useful are all the examples it includes of all the possible homework/exam possibilities he is likely to be set over the next few years. As there are examples included it is great to see what the expectations are in order to achieve those top marks.

I doubt this is a book you would read all in one go but use and when needed. It is all clearly marked and certainly a great help.

A great little find.

This guide is packed full of great examples which demonstrate the skills needed to challenge and push students towards the higher levels. Each example is broken down and the students can see the thought process and the reasons behind the structure and language used; which will help them create their own answers to the tasks.

This is a very useful tool to support students to develop their skills. My children love it

This book is a must. I received a free emailed version of it & it was great but I decided it was well worth Investing in a proper copy. It really helped my daughter with her end of summer English creative writing she hit a super mark. So I would encourage you to buy. It’s written in a really clear way & easy for children to just review & learn.

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