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1. GENERATING IDEAS

WHAT'S CREATIVE WRITING GOOD FOR?Creative writing tasks for assessment come with a variety of limitations. You may simply be given a topic—such as ‘discovery’—and asked to write a narrative about that. The topic might be more narrowly defined: a prompting statement, such as ‘To a great extent, we all share the same view of reality’ might limit your response some more. More specific still is the requirement to deal with a topic, like ‘Whose reality?’, and a particular statement about that topic, such as ‘We construct reality from stories we’re constantly telling ourselves’, and a prescribed text that explores that topic, like A Streetcar Named Desire.

This workbook will guide you through the steps of developing an imaginative response—whether that is a response to a topic (like ‘Texts of protest’), or a response to a prescribed text (like The View from Castle Rock), or a combination of both (such as ‘searching for identity in The Matrix’). Although the question and criteria will differ from task to task, imaginative writing involves a few fundamentals that every creative piece must satisfy. These include the following:

• Resolving what point you want to make in your narrative [‘argument’]

• Articulating that point clearly without breaking the textual form [‘theme’]

• Selecting a form that is appropriate to your purpose and consistent with your content [‘form’]

• Limiting the scope of the events or information that your text covers [‘scope/exploding the moment’]

• Arranging the order of events or information in your text in order to maintain relative importance and reader interest [‘plot’]

• Creating a protagonist or narrator who guides the reader through the text [‘protagonist’]

• Maintaining the reader’s interest and a sense of discovery through the text’s structure [‘climax’]

• Using the mechanics of language in an effective and aesthetically pleasing way [‘style’]

• Sustaining a writing voice that is engaging, appropriate, and consistent with the content [‘voice’]

Expository and persuasive writing also requires most of these elements, but an imaginative approach requires them all. Creative writing provides another way to consider a topic or text.

DEVELOPING IDEAS FROM A PROMPTA creative response can take many forms: emails, blogs or diaries, interviews, text messages, even a legal document like a statutory declaration, or a last will and testament. Some essays—not written under the constraints of exams—recount a narrative, which they then explore analytically as a way of making an argumentative point.

This section helps you to respond to a topic or issue, rather than a specific text. Your topic might be as broad as ‘Journey’ or as narrow as ‘Twentieth-century miscarriages of justice’. Here are some ways in to the topic.

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Denoting and connoting

Laying out the denotations and connotations of your topic can be a powerful way to generate ideas. Check which part of speech your prompt belongs to. For example, if your topic is about ‘Journey’ or ‘Insight’, make sure you know whether it’s a noun or a verb—or both. A word’s basic meaning, which you find in the dictionary, and which most people agree about, is called the denotative meaning. It’s what the word denotes.

There’s an important difference between what a word officially means and what it means to you. This is the difference between denoting and connoting. The connotative meanings of a word can override its denotative meanings, so that it’s difficult to use some words without attaching ‘baggage’ (whether emotional, cultural, historical) to it.

For example, the term ‘concentration camp’ originally described British camps for Boer families in South Africa during the Boer War (1900–02). Boers were interned in these camps during the war with the British; of those inmates who were not exiled from South Africa, most died in the camps. ‘Concentration camp’ denotes a place where there is a concentration of one social group, usually held arbitrarily by a hostile power.

However, the systematic use of the forced internment system by the Nazis in Konzentrationslager (or KZ) to exterminate certain groups of people has meant that the term concentration camp now connotes something historically specific for most people: the death camps of Nazi Germany in which Jews were confined and killed. It’s impossible to use the term without bringing all the connotations of genocide and systematic anti-Semitism with it. Understanding a term’s denotations and connotations means that you can use it more effectively, to achieve the impact you want in your writing.

Here’s another example. ‘Belonging’ is an abstract noun: it denotes a feeling. But the concrete plural noun ‘belongings’ is a colloquial term for personal possessions. We often talk about keys, phone, wallet and bag as our ‘belongings’. In certain situations, hearing the word ‘belongings’ might have extremely emotional connotations.

If you’re studying a thematic unit, such as ‘Imagined communities’ or ‘Justice’, it’s likely that you might have begun looking at it by unpacking all the things that the term can mean. Apply this technique to your prompt word or topic to kick-start some ideas.

Understand the mechanics of the topic: topoi

When we talk about some very big topics, there are certain ideas that always come up. For example, when we tell a story about a hero, one familiar topos is the Moment of Discovery where the ordinary kid discovers that he’s actually someone with special powers or a special fate. Or in an action hero movie, there’s the Final Battle topos, where the hero and the villain slug it out (usually on a roof, so that the hero can throw the villain off it). When we read narratives about problems of personal identity, there is usually a Crisis of Identity where the protagonist crumbles because they don’t know where they belong or what their purpose is.

An abstract noun names something that you cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste.

Examples include: belief, perfection, bravery.

A recurring idea or con� guration

of elements in a topic is called a topos (plural topoi).

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It’s handy to know some of the common topoi in a topic because it can help you settle on an aspect to write about, knowing that your reader will probably recognise it from their own reading and viewing.

Imagine that the unit was about ‘Bravery’, and you had to respond imaginatively to this concept. Here are some topoi involved in the concept of bravery that you might have come across. Each one would make a very promising narrative.

• The cost of bravery or the transformation from an ordinary person to a brave one. Dietrich Bonhoeffer volunteers to take a young woman’s place in the gas chambers of Flossenburg. Although this is admirable, the moment of his transformation is when he realises how much he wants to stay alive.

• Bravery shown in ordinary situations. Twin boys are trying to save their dog during floods; one is unafraid of the floodwaters, the other is very afraid. Their mother reflects afterwards that the fearful one was the real hero because his fear generated bravery, whereas his brother wasn’t brave because he didn’t feel fear.

• The connection between bravery and modesty. An old lady reads a story about a pop singer who has donated the proceeds of their concert tour to the poor. The singer is acclaimed as a hero, but the old lady served as a nurse at Gallipoli—and nobody remembers.

• The truth about stories of bravery. A journalist decides to ‘tweak’ the truth about an ordinary man’s actions in a fire; the result is that the man is acclaimed as a hero.

Understanding your reading: dimensions of a text

Your writing should ideally draw on the text or texts you’ve read for the unit you’re studying. But texts are more than simply a plot-line and some characters. Understanding the different dimensions of a text allows you to respond creatively to a text as well as to a theme. The texts studied in school are often complex in their language, construction, and ideas. They have many angles from which you could springboard a creative response. The image opposite shows the different dimensions of a text.

Creative responses to a text must respond, not restate. Responses are answers to questions (actual or implied)—so it can be helpful to create a question that gives more direction to your response. You’re not expected to respond to the entire work: select one aspect of it and shape a question that you can respond to.

What does that mean, in practice?

1. Identify the aspect you want to respond to. Texts have many aspects. They’re constructed by a narrator, who recounts what the characters do in situations. The order of these situations is the plot, and the problems the characters encounter (plus the way that the narrator recounts them) gives us the themes, or ideas that the narrative deals with. Themes are big, overarching ideas but we’re often made conscious of them by the presence of motifs or symbols (e.g. if a set of scales appeared many

Context

Metatext

Pretext

Intertext

Subtext

Paratext

Text

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times in a story about the Civil Rights campaigner Rosa Parks, they’re probably being used as a symbol to point to the bigger theme of justice or equality). Narrators have a unique voice, which the reader gets used to as the narrative progresses—this voice is made up of technical elements like tense, vocabulary, dialect and so on.

Texts are produced in contexts, the historical and personal situations that give rise to them. There is usually a conscious aim, or pretext, which the author seeks to achieve with the text. Frequently, hints about the pretext are found in the subtext, the ideas and argument implied within the text (through elements of style like language, symbol, and theme). Sometimes we write a paratext to help readers understand these complex aspects of the text—paratextual apparatus includes things like glossaries, footnotes, bibliography, and forewords. Very clever texts even comment on how they’re being constructed, by creating ‘in-jokes’ or a metatext. Finally, when the text gives rise to another text, an intertext is created between them. An example of this is Pride and Prejudice (1813) and its intertextual relation to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009).

2. Be specific. Any of these aspects would provide a great foundation for a creative response. But you must be as specific as possible. Strong students are specific about what they want to achieve in a text and to which element they want to respond.

For example, you might decide to respond to the context of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (this tells the story of the Salem witch trials in 1692–93 as a loose allegory of anti-Communist activity in America during the 1950s). You can encourage yourself to be more precise by writing down exactly what you want to achieve, such as: I want to explore the context of The Crucible in 1950s America to show how Arthur Miller’s experiences before the House Committee for UnAmerican Activities made him recall the Salem witch trials. Miller’s experience of being convicted for refusing to name others who attended Communist meetings is turned into the character of John Proctor who refuses to name other people in Salem as witches.

3. Now create a question around it. It doesn’t have to be a hard question, just enough to get you started. Look at the statement and choose a part of it to interrogate, like this: Would Arthur Miller have thought of the Salem witch trials while he was being questioned and convicted, or would it only have occurred to him later?

A question like this generates a solid foundation for your response, and has the merit of being very clearly connected to the text.

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INVENTINGDon’t stress if you hate coming up with ideas for stories. Here are three exercises to help. You can choose one, two or do all three, depending on which way of generating ideas suits you.

Unstructured brainstorming

Some people are fluent brainstormers—they can put everything down on a big sheet of blank paper, then highlight the most interesting ones and develop an idea from there. Some people find it useful to put a stimulus image such as this in the centre of the page and scribble all the thoughts that occur to them around it.

Use the image as literally or as figuratively as you wish. Asking the ‘5 Ws’ is always a good way to generate ideas, for example:

• Who is in this image?

• What is happening?

• When was it made?

• Where is it set?

• Why is this connected to the topic?

• How has it been captured?

You can also use a stimulus statement about your topic, instead of an image, such as:

Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct. (Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop)

You can either take a position on the statement—whether you think it’s true or false, and why—or describe where you’ve seen or experienced it. If you only agree with part of it, your response could show where and how it’s faulty.

Structured brainstorming

The Six Thinking Hats are good if you like a routine to get you thinking laterally about your topic. You can do this exercise alone, in pairs, or in groups.

The white hat of objectivity. Write down as complete a definition of the key word as you can. For example, if you have to respond to the theme of ‘Conflict’, give a really comprehensive definition of this term.

The red hat of emotion. What are the emotional connotations of your topic? For example, if your topic is ‘Race and prejudice’ you might think of emotions like pride, hatred, or hostility. If you’re responding to a theme in a text, like ‘the cost of protecting those whom we love’ in Death of a Salesman, the emotions that come up might be frustration, love, exhaustion, and incomprehension.

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The yellow hat of positivity. What are some positive aspects of your topic? Try to be as specific as possible—if the unit explores ‘Imagined worlds’, a positive aspect might be ‘places to escape when social or emotional pressures overwhelm the individual’.

The black hat of negativity. Give some negative aspects of the topic. Again, try to be as specific as possible—one negative of ‘Imagined worlds’ might be ‘that some characters can become lost in the imagined world and forget their obligations to the real world’.

The blue hat of metacognitivity. This is a tricky one. Metacognitive thinking is thinking-about-thinking. You’re conscious of it only when you really struggle to understand something. When your brain bends itself around a difficult new concept, you become conscious of how it did this. By understanding how your brain learns and thinks, it’s easier to control your learning processes, which makes you a better student.

For this exercise, think about how you have read the text—what’s your personal way of reading? Why have you selected this aspect to respond to rather than another one? If your narrative responds to a topic, think about how you’ve explored the key concept. Which is the most natural way for you: to set out definitions or to work from instinct? Are your ideas about the concept more logical or emotional?

The green hat of creativity. Consider the ways that your topic, or the aspect of the text to which you’re responding, could generate something new. For example, if you were responding to the idea of ‘Protest’, think about the ways in which protest can be creative, such as creating songs, art, new ways of living, even relationships.

Transforming questions

Transforming questions can produce interesting variations on a source text. This is particularly helpful if you must respond to a text as well as a theme. First, select the part of the text that is most interesting to you—a single scene is usually a good unit with which to work. It helps if you photocopy or scan the text, so that you’re only working with this part.

Read through it carefully, and mark four or five places at which to ask a question that explores your reaction or transforms the situation.

For example, in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ferdinand is washed up on the beach of Prospero’s island. Prospero has magically caused this so that Ferdinand will meet Miranda (Prospero’s daughter) and fall in love with her at first sight. Reading this scene (Act I, scene ii), might generate these questions:

• The most interesting part is the importance of Miranda finding Ferdinand attractive.

• What if it weren’t there? Ferdinand would be in a very awkward situation, and Prospero’s plan to escape the island in triumph would be scuppered—and Miranda would be much more interesting.

• How would it be different if Ferdinand saw Caliban first and fell in love with him?

• Suppose that Ferdinand also had magic powers?

• What would change if Miranda wasn’t as obedient to her father?

• How would it look differently if it took place in a city, rather than on a desert island?

Clearly, asking transforming questions not only uncovers important aspects of the text, but also generates interesting possibilities for creative responses.

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ACTIVITY 1: GENERATING IDEASNow that you’ve completed the brainstorming activity, answer the following questions about your ideas.

1. Looking at the ideas you’ve listed for your topic or text, which one seems the most interesting?

2. Suggest a title.

3. Who is your main character?

4. Imagine you had to incorporate this prompt statement into your response. ‘The stories we tell ourselves shape our attitude to’ [insert the name of your topic, such as ‘conflict’ or ‘identity’]. How might you do it?

5. What is the high point or climax of your response? It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it should be identifiable as the biggest point of change.

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6. What do you think you could do well in your response (e.g. write a good description, realistic dialogue, convey a memorable point)?

7. The climax has just occurred, and the protagonist is now different in some way. Write one sentence that describes what happens immediately afterwards.

8. Think of one language technique that you might use to engage your reader. It might be a rhetorical question, your use of voice, a shocking scene, comedy, or a contentious topic.

9. If you are responding creatively to a text, how does the idea you’ve outlined here respond to that text?

10. You should now have an idea for a response. But it should be pretty flexible if you’re preparing for an exam. You may have to incorporate an unexpected stimulus. Open the newspaper and find an image, then briefly consider how you’d adapt your response if you had to incorporate this as a stimulus image.

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WORKED EXAMPLEHere is a plan for a creative response to the non-fiction text Every Man in this Village is a Liar, for a unit on ‘Encountering conflict’. The student used the ‘Transforming Questions’ strategy to generate ideas. Look at her notes:

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Here’s how the student answered the worksheet questions after her brainstorming exercise.

1. Looking at the ideas you’ve brainstormed for your topic or text, which one seems the most interesting to you?

I came up with three small ideas that work together to make a complete idea for a response.

2. Suggest a title.

‘Jerusalem Consumed’ (because consumption is the name of a bad wasting disease, which is like the war in Jerusalem).

3. Who is your main character?

The main character is Jerusalem herself.

4. Imagine you had to incorporate this prompt statement into your response. ‘The stories we tell ourselves shape our attitude to’ [insert the name of your topic, such as ‘conflict’ or ‘identity’]. How might you do it?

‘The stories we tell ourselves shape our attitude to conflict.’ I would maybe say that the stories that both Jews and Muslims have told about Jerusalem always show the culture that is telling the story as triumphant—if it’s a Jewish story, they win Jerusalem, and if it’s a Muslim story, they win it. Jerusalem herself can only bear the war that is going on because she tells herself that she will win in the end, even though she doesn’t know which army will win. Basically, Jerusalem is deluding herself.

5. What is the high point or climax of your response? It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it should be identifiable as the biggest point of change.

Maybe that there is a possibility that the war could end, and this makes Jerusalem really unhappy because although it is killing her, the war means that someone wants her and she can’t live without being wanted by someone.

6. What do you think you could do well in your response (e.g. write a good description, realistic dialogue, convey a memorable point)?

I think my idea for Jerusalem being personified as a beautiful but sick and probably mad woman is original. I could do this well.

7. The climax has just occurred, and the protagonist is now different in some way. Write one sentence that describes what happens immediately afterwards.

I didn’t think dying would be so hard, or so beautiful.

8. Think of one language technique that you might use to engage your reader. It might be a rhetorical question, your use of voice, a shocking scene, comedy, or a contentious topic.

I think probably showing Jerusalem as mad and really fickle is a bit contentious.

9. If you are responding creatively to a text, how does the idea you’ve outlined here respond to that text?

Megan Stack talks a lot about storytelling and the power of stories even if they’re not true. She shows a big variety of experiences across the Arab world, and she understands how beautiful places can become so important that people are willing to

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die for them. I think my response would suit her text well because it implicitly uses this point, and gives the place a voice of its own—and also shows that the beautiful places are not necessarily good for the people who love them so much.

10. You should now have an idea for a response. But if should be pretty flexible if you’re preparing for an exam. You may have to incorporate an unexpected stimulus. Open the newspaper and find an image, then briefly consider how you’d adapt your response if you had to incorporate this as a stimulus image.

I found an image of a big rally in Europe against immigration. The image showed many people holding banners and flags and historic buildings all around them. Clearly there is conflict involved in this. I would incorporate it as a comparison—compared to the agony of Jerusalem for thousands of years, small and orderly European protests are like the protests of a baby, while Jerusalem suffers from a wasting sickness like ageing and death.

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