How to write/study for creative pieces (1 Viewer)

Greninja340

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My teacher gave us homework to write a creative piece and I just realised how shit i am at writing creatives does anyone know how to write a good creative in Yr12 and how to study for an exam which has a creative component in it?
 

idkkdi

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My teacher gave us homework to write a creative piece and I just realised how shit i am at writing creatives does anyone know how to write a good creative in Yr12 and how to study for an exam which has a creative component in it?
tbh, no idea. maybe read and write more? have a look at young writer's showcase? rip off a good short story you find elsewhere?
 

Lazzzzzyyyyyy...

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Lots of practice, get feedback (from teachers/tutors) and try to really think about the criticisms and make sure it doesn't happen again in your next practice. It would also be good to read a lot and draw inspiration from various author's writing style. Expand your vocabulary as well, having a large array of words to choose from makes creative writing more engaging and impactful (given that you're using the words correctly, if you're just opening up thesaurus.com each time and not 100% knowing what the words you pick mean there's a fair chance that it'll just sound over-written or really difficult to understand)
 

Jarjarbinx

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My teacher gave us homework to write a creative piece and I just realised how shit i am at writing creatives does anyone know how to write a good creative in Yr12 and how to study for an exam which has a creative component in it?

My top tips (my creative things usually operate in high band 6 territories)

1. read verrrryyyy niche things that you can pastiche or reference -- the teachers seem to take to high brow wanky stuff (I am Greek so I talk about integrating works of my own culture e.g. Yiannis Ritsos' works. Don't be afraid to exploit your heritage... lol)

2. take advantage of manipulating the actual form. This is something most people disregard. Research prose-verse, surrealism, Gonzo etc (this is especially helpful with Lit Worlds!!!!!). Talking about it in your reflecting will also give u points

3. plan before! Think of start and endpoints (not necessarily resolving plot). Once you have a plan it is so much easier to flower up your descriptions
 

sleepypanda232

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I often approach creative writing drawing inspiration from movies/tv shows that I watch (the best way to improve with creative writing throughout Year 12 is to watch A LOT of films, find ones that centre upon mood and character in an everyday setting – this way, you can emulate these characters, events and settings without having to spout some emo bs like I did in year 11, an absolute tragedy)

1) I find that integrating techniques is absolutely the most important thing in order to gain marks.

We had to write a persuasive for our third assessment task in a day, which is a very short time to form a sophisticated argument, so I just stuffed my piece with as many techniques as possible, especially more sophisticated ones (alliteration, polysyndeton & asyndeton, varying sentence lengths, internal rhyme, allusion, metaphor & simile, amplification, analogy, anaphora). I ended up getting 18.5/20 which is pretty good considering my school is very harsh with english marking:)

2) Practising english creatives – this is a bit of a hard one!

Do not simply mindlessly practice! The more practice you do doesn't necessarily equate to better marks / improvements in creative writing. I would suggest doing practice short creatives (maybe 500 ish words) that explore a technique or emulate a short story / scene in film.

During the HSC I wrote practice pieces for sentence variation (practices evoking suspense), imagery and figurative language (practice for setting), sentence fragmentation (for engaging the reader) and a couple of others.

3) After you feel confident in your creative writing skills, prepare for exams by writing 3-5 pre-prepared texts.

Like Jarjarbinx said, don't be afraid to tap into your personal life in these texts – draw inspiration from your culture or personal events or personal struggles and opinions you have on these. The marker can often identify and connect with a personal text, and they will award you for it! Make sure you centre each of these texts around a certain, general theme, mine were touching on gender, identity, nature, politics. Again, make sure you integrate as many techniques as possible!

Some final notes that might help:
  • What to do in an exam if your preprepared texts do not fit the stimulus?
    • ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WRITE YOUR PREPARED CREATIVES IN AN EXAM IF THEY DON'T RELATE TO THE STIMULUS. YOU WILL GET ZERO. During the HSC exam, the mod c stimulus was quite a curveball, and didn't fit any of my prepared creatives. This is where I used my bank of films that I had watched during the year. I based my text off a setting in a tv series I had watched, stuffed my piece with techniques, and made sure that it explored the key theme of the stimulus. I think I did fairly well in comparison to others that I talked to otherwards (let's hope I actually did!).
  • How do you write something that references the stimulus?
    • Read the stimulus multiple times, try your best to deduce an overarching theme or stance on an issue. This will probably become easier the more short answers in Paper 1 that you do.
Gosh, this took a long time to write! If you've made it to the end, I really hope this helps! Feel free to contact me if you'd like some more help and advice, I could always review your practice creatives:)
 

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