Creative Writing with Marvellous Minds Tuition
Posted on 23rd September 2020 at 13:30
At Marvellous Minds Tuition we are passionate about developing our student's writing skills. That's why we cover Creative Writing as part of our in-house English curriculum and also run regular Creative Writing workshops with local schools and libraries.
Recently our students have been busy using fun and imaginative ideas and literary devices to help add flair to their writing. We have listed some ideas below for writing tasks your child can enjoy getting stuck in to!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie is adding a new room to his chocolate factory and you have the golden ticket to see this new and exciting room!
Describe the weird and wonderful inventions you can find in this room. Remember to think about the five senses. What can you see, smell, hear, taste and touch?
We would like to see you use some lovely adjectives and descriptive writing. Please also use some literary devices such as similes. *
*This exercise can be adjusted depending on a student's age group and level. It can also be linked to relevant learning objective such as use of grammar like verb, adverb, conjunctions, punctuation or watever else you would like your studens to develop and use.
Making our writing "un-put-downable"
What are stories made of?
Stories are PLOT(S)
Made up of SCENES
Scenes contain OBJECTS and CHARACTERS
Characters TALK
They THINK
They ACT (and REACT)
Stories are also made up of WORDS and SENTENCES
Today we are focusing on CHARACTER!
Character descriptions
If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild — long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins.
A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
She's the twelve-year-old, the one who reminded me so of Prim in stature. Up close she looks about ten. She has bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin and stands tilted up on her toes with arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound. It's impossible not to think of a bird.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Her name was Mrs. Pratchett. She was a small skinny old hag with a moustache on her upper lip and a mouth as sour as a green gooseberry. She never smiled. She never welcomed us when we went in. By far the most loathsome thing about Mrs. Pratchett was the filth that clung about her. Her apron was grey and greasy. Her blouse had bits of breakfast all over it, toast crumbs and tea stains and splotches of dried egg yolk. It was her hands , however, that disturbed us most. They were disgusting. They were black with dirt and grime. They looked as though they had been putting lumps of coal on the fire all day long. The mere sight of her grimy right hand with its black fingernails digging an ounce of Chocolate Fudge out of the jar would have caused a starving tramp to go running from the shop.
Boy by Roald Dahl
Creating Characters
The Pick ‘n’ Mix approach
Write good and bad character attributes and traits on two separate pack of cards. Shuffle them. Pick three from each pack.
“Let’s Go Shopping!”
Your character goes shopping. Describe what they buy and why.
School reports
Write a school report for your character.
Character through dialogue and action
Character name
What do they say?
How do they say it?
What do they do?
How do they do it?
What does what they say and do make us think about them?
Using some of the character creation exercises above, start developing a character to appear in your next story. Drawing inspiration from the famour character descriptions outlined earlier write the opening passage about your character. How will you draw your reader in?
Happy writing!
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