Creative writing is scary (2 Viewers)

Houjuunue

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The past 2 modules for english has been soul sucking and god awful. The only part of english that I can deal is short answer responses. After starting my new topic on english for the craft of writing i'm already questioning the reason why this topic is even in the school syllabus. I'm extremely uncreative and I hate creative essays. I got 60% on the creative writing module in year 11 and I believe my mark will be even worse this year. Does anyone actually genuinely enjoy this and how??
 

Hehehe22

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Don't worry, the majority of people that I've talked to irl or on BOS hate English. Some people are just built different. They're probably professional yappers and English doesn't bother them. Ngl, some things in English are conceptually pretty interesting though, it's just the way it's assessed is awful
 

killer queen

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The past 2 modules for english has been soul sucking and god awful. The only part of english that I can deal is short answer responses. After starting my new topic on english for the craft of writing i'm already questioning the reason why this topic is even in the school syllabus. I'm extremely uncreative and I hate creative essays. I got 60% on the creative writing module in year 11 and I believe my mark will be even worse this year. Does anyone actually genuinely enjoy this and how??
out of curiosity what texts are you doing for the modules? 'cause in my experience the texts reallyyyyyy make or break my enjoyment of English (but then again, I'm a certified yapper, so what can I say?)
 

iloveeggs

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imagine if i give a selected sample of everyone doing eng adv (in different ability levels) 5 hours to write a 1000 words creative with a relatively open-ended prompt. catch is they get no internet or books or sources of inspo, just tons and tons of time to think and introspect. some people's end product will still be quite horrible.

not always bc of time pressure (a lot of ppl can do 1000 word critical essays in 1 hour) but just bc creativity is hard to force without a baseline exposure to varied texts, philsophical and aesthetic thinking, and the sense of reflection or our surroundings, state of mind and social phenomena. i think its bc as a society we have less and less of a need to think imaginatively about fantasical worlds, speculate about our world and daydream in our day to day lives (at least for most people) in a creative way.

a lot of us have a very closed off life and we live in our little bubble or circle. esp year 12s bc a lot of ppl ik have quit extracurriculars and things that give them a creative outlet so by now a lot of us are losing those skills imo bc we never put them to use. obv a lot of more of us are good at the critical part (from my experience) and i think we develop that more throughout highschool than we do those creative skills. this is obv just my opinion.

the reason why i still enjoy and do well in creative writing (im not the best but i am relatively good) is because firstly i want to be able to create a lens through which someone can look into my mind and my imagination and take away something from it, maybe somethign they realise about me or somethign that made them rethink their perspective or whatever. the reason why my writing is pretty decent is bc im decently well read but also an avid daydreamer and a pretty philosophical thinker.

conveying is always the hardest part in creatives (more so than the actual ideas and for that you need a lot of practise and again have to read wisely to observe how authors convey and speak. i like to think my narrative voice is an amalgamation of the voices of my favourite authors or at least what i interpret their voices to be (not trying to be cocky bc i dont sound like an author but more so talking about literary techniques and the way they use language to convery points).

i have an eng ext exam on monday that is an unknown creative response literally based on literary worlds that authors build. my prep for it is basically sitting on the train as i go to turoign tmr, put on some music, zone out and think smth up. my teacher tells us that for open-ended tasks like this you should develop a few personas and a few different types of worlds so i try to flesh out a few of those. my friend actually likes to sketch her personas as well and another one pretends to interview hers (really weird but works for her). someone ive met before says they also force themselves to dream about a specific type of world and dream up a plot and it works really well for him.

and then when you go into the exam your prep of an adaptible persona or world can be emplyed and the plot you firgure out using your prompt given. the language part, like i said, unfortunately has to come from you innately bc you cant memorise the words you say and have to be able to produce them on the spot.

again im not the most englishy person but this is just my take. i would say dont beat yourself up abt being bad at it but try to read more and observe different ways of conveying meaning that authors use and do LOTS of practise.
 

killer queen

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@iloveeggs you make such a good point tho! if op is seeking advice, my old eng ext teacher told us a story about a student who hated creative writing, and just memorised settings and personas in order to get the good marks. he said they literally opened google maps and plotted out a route for the protagonist to take, and then did some research in order for the character to feel authentic. it can be hard to adapt smth like this in an exam situation, but it's definitely doable, and ik it works for some people.

I'm also kind of an englishy person ig, and I've found that whatever I read also really rubs off on me - I adopt the patterns of the authors I read. finding a style that flows for you also really helps!!
 

RWQFSFASXC

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find a structure that just works
take a story, slap it in the back of your head and you'll always have something to go off of in times of crisis
just remember that pletri dolisal (the exemplar 0/48 naplan text) exists, having your characters be flat or a loose story is nothing compared to a garbled mess
if your teacher talks about something in class, make sure to try and use it in your writing, stitch together the examples in a way that coexists without tearing each other to shreds
trying to sound more profound and deep than you really are in your writing usually works, you don't have to make the story long. go full goth mode for just an hour. be on the same shit that burialgoods smornks every day. think about your weekend, some incredibly embarrassing moment that happened 10 years ago, or the last shitpost you've seen if you can't come up with anything else, i'm sure the grinch's ultimatum is an acceptable topic
taking a prompt literally may make you feel really shitty inside, but your teacher could not be bothered less about how you interpret the prompt
certified yap complete, enjoy your six pack of canned advice for 5.99, thank you for shopping at the fresh food people
 

iloveeggs

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find a structure that just works
take a story, slap it in the back of your head and you'll always have something to go off of in times of crisis
just remember that pletri dolisal (the exemplar 0/48 naplan text) exists, having your characters be flat or a loose story is nothing compared to a garbled mess
if your teacher talks about something in class, make sure to try and use it in your writing, stitch together the examples in a way that coexists without tearing each other to shreds
trying to sound more profound and deep than you really are in your writing usually works, you don't have to make the story long. go full goth mode for just an hour. be on the same shit that burialgoods smornks every day. think about your weekend, some incredibly embarrassing moment that happened 10 years ago, or the last shitpost you've seen if you can't come up with anything else, i'm sure the grinch's ultimatum is an acceptable topic
taking a prompt literally may make you feel really shitty inside, but your teacher could not be bothered less about how you interpret the prompt
certified yap complete, enjoy your six pack of canned advice for 5.99, thank you for shopping at the fresh food people
a lot of teachers will give you something that is so random whatever story you have memorised is most likely not gonna match lmao. a real hsc internal in my school worth 30% of our grade included a creative prompt abt sewer rats and another one was finish the story in relation to some really specific scenario.

also make sure to acc respond to the prompt in some sort of coherent and meaningful way, sometimes if youre not that good of a writer but youre trying to be cool and think of something totally unrelated but interesting to respond to a q and link it somehow it doesnt work as well as if you just pick some simple scenario or persona in relation to the prompt and flesh it out.

but i agree with your advice to get inspo from random ass things
 

bowlofkatsu

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The past 2 modules for english has been soul sucking and god awful. The only part of english that I can deal is short answer responses. After starting my new topic on english for the craft of writing i'm already questioning the reason why this topic is even in the school syllabus. I'm extremely uncreative and I hate creative essays. I got 60% on the creative writing module in year 11 and I believe my mark will be even worse this year. Does anyone actually genuinely enjoy this and how??
my tip is to have a couple of random objects or concepts at the top of your head and jump off those. it can be anything lol like a book a lamp a item of clothing etc etc just use it as an extended metaphor/symbol and close off your creatives with it. the objects also have associated settings, eg blankets or fireplaces are domestic and warm. from here you can kind of brainstorm some kind of setting, then the plot and characters etc. by describing the setting or external surroundings a lot can be said without explicitly stating it
 

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