Hey everyone!
As I’m sure many of you know, writing a creative piece for English Advanced or English Extension One can be a deceptively difficult task! So this week, I thought that I would offer you my three best creative writing tips and an example of my own work from my HSC year
Let’s begin with the plot of your story.
1) You need to be able to write your creative piece in quite a short period of time. This means that you can’t have too many characters. During the HSC I developed a format for my stories that never failed me. Essentially, I would have once character who begins the story in one setting reflecting on, for example, the situation I had placed them in, their family, a particular relationship, etc. I would introduce some sort of complication (usually something that challenged the protagonist’s morals/integrity or just generally gave them a topic to reflect on).
From here, I would give them some sort of flashback if it appropriate and relevant. Eventually my character would move scene maybe once or twice, which would allow me to insert rich visual and sensory imagery as well as a description of the physical world in which they found themselves. All the while, they would be introspectively reflecting on a particular issue or aspect of their life. Usually my story would come to a conclusion after the main character had epiphany of some description, hence imbuing my ending with catharsis. Below this initial section of advice, I have included on of my creative works that follows this structure fairly closely.
2) If you don’t know how to begin your story, an evocative description of the setting is always awesome and helps your marker mentally picture your character in that setting.
3) Usually it is helpful to have an allegory that can be seen to symbolise an important idea that runs through the piece. You’ll see what I mean in a second when you read my story below. Including a literary device such as this can be really helpful in the HSC, as BOS may ask you to write about hope (like the did in my year), fear, the unknown etc. Thus, by constructing an allegory you will be able to fulfil BOS’s marking criteria in a sophisticated and unique manner.
To provide some contextual background, my story below was written for an English Extension One Assessment for Ways of Thinking After the Bomb and is set in the German Democratic Republic – a communist state established in East Germany following World War Two when half of Germany was placed under the protection of England/America, and the other half fell under Russian influence.
My main character is being interviewed by a member of the GDR’s secret police (the ‘Stasi’), a group who often harassed ordinary people and functioned as an instrument of the totalitarian state.
Title: The PigeonsA sour scent of sweat permeated the room and clung to walls the colour of nuclear mustard. Back pressed against a chair’s metal skeleton, Ines Krieder chewed her lip and shivered in her coat. Above her, a faulty light, like the colossal eye of Marx, snapped on and off in bursts of fluorescent clarity.
All across Leipzig a thousand withered hands would be tugging open curtains and scooping chunks of knödel into gaping, hollow mouths. Frau Daecher from the apartment across the landing would be marshalling her children to school, their uniform pockets emblazoned with a hammer and a compass. Would she notice that Ines was missing?
What did I do?Like everybody else, Ines had heard the rumours - whispered snippets traded over cigarette breaks in the passageways and corners of dark alleys. As if by osmosis, stories of cameras and hidden microphones had seeped into her consciousness.
On every concrete crossing, in every grey-brick shop, she could sense a shadow in her tread.
Did I take a loaf of bread that was bigger than my share?A man that she once knew, and dated for a month, told her that all innocent men rage against their captors. They bruise their knuckles bloody banging on prison bars and lose their voices cursing God. But guilty men are silent. They know that God is dead.
Did I read a forbidden book? What do they want with me?“Ines Kreider.”
An accusation.
“Hands beneath your thighs.”
The command came from a man in military uniform, separated from her by a metal desk. Ines obeyed. A triumvirate of faces hanging on the wall gazed sternly down upon her. Bespectacled Honecker. Lenin with his beard. Mielke, a solemn warrior, readied for battle.
The man produced a note pad.
“I would like you to tell me about pigeons.”
Pigeons?
For an instant, Ines’ hands ceased trembling. Forehead creased, she stared blankly at her captor.
“Pigeons! Rats of the sky! Tell me what you know!”
“Pigeons, sir?” she hesitated, “Pigeons…they…they fly.”
“Correct. Nasty creatures. I’d like to have them culled in Leipzig Park.”
Ines flinched.
The man leaned forward with his pen poised.
“Does that thought upset you?”
Rats of the sky, he called them. Nasty creatures. Yet in her mind’s eye, Ines could see them gathered on the railing of her balcony, their soft, feathered bodies pressed closely together for warmth. Gently cooing and picking at the seed she had laid out for them, they took to the air with western wind on their wings and circled through the leafless Leipzig Park. An effervescent flash of metallic green and purple glinted on their chests as they flew towards the Wall and soared as one beyond its graffitied facade. Then, from mist and smoke that choked the city sky, they returned to her at twilight beneath distant, hazy stars.
“Who are the messages for Fräulein Kreider?” The military man’s sharp question shattered her reverie.
“Messages? I don’t understand, what messages?”
“You are not trying to contact anyone?” He held her gaze, watery blue eyes searching her face, though Ines could not fathom what he expected to find. For a moment, he waited, fingers tapping out an executioner’s drumbeat against the desk. Then, in one swift motion, he swept a file from a drawer and began furiously scrawling across its pages.
“I will release you from temporary questioning…for now. You will regard this interview as a formal warning.”
“But I haven’t done – ”
The man held up a hand to silence her.
“You will return to your place of residence – ”
“But why was I called here?”
“Do not interrupt me! You will not discuss what has transpired here today.”
As if by a silent, unseen signal, a young guard appeared on her right to lead her from the building through an alley door, out into the open. The city was an elderly man, wheezing and sucking in what oxygen it could. Ines leaned against a nearby wall. Bizarre. What could it all mean? In recent months she had heard whispers that the regime was growing more paranoid, like an ageing beast lumbering in circles, mistaking the flick of its own tail for a fleeing rat.
Passing through a crowd of sallow, empty faces that bore shadows of defeat, Ines clenched and unclenched her freezing hands. Dull fires throbbed in her exposed fingers where air cold enough to burn had crawled beneath her skin. Ice, ice, a thousand eyes grown sharp with fear, or was if something more sinister? She hurried on.
There had been a time when East Berliners celebrated the GDR and its impressive wall – an indomitable affront to the encroaching Western fascists. For a moment, vague memories of posters and proclamations that had filled the streets with the cry EQUALITY FOR ALL flickered in her mind.
Of course, sacrifices had followed.
As time went by, the triumphal music that accompanied television announcements and egalitarian promises had disintegrated into ever-present white noise, a blurred backdrop against which Ines followed her routine. Somehow, she had found a way to survive, unpicking the seams of her hopes and her dreams and fashioning an existence from the spartan ambition that remained.
Like a spreading stain, darkness now seeped into the grey fabric of the sky. At the thought of the pigeons waiting for her, pecking fruitlessly at the window ledge, Ines quickened her pace, hurrying inside her dilapidated apartment block.
Instantly she froze. A light was emanating from beneath her door. Good citizens were expected to save power at all times. Ines never left on lights. Hands trembling she fumbled for her key, but when she turned the handle the door was unlocked.
Papers and clothing were strewn across her floor amidst pile upon pile of torn and ravaged books. So they had come.
Her gaze fell upon her kitchen table. There, wings spread to reveal each individual feather, lay a dead pigeon, neck wrung, eyes opaque.
Frantically, she rushed to cradle its limp body in her arms.
“No, no, no, no, no! I’m so sorry, I couldn’t protect you.”
A creaking sound out in the hallway pierced through her sorrow. Vision blurred by tears she turned to stare vacantly over her shoulder. For an instant, the face of her neighbour Frau Daecher hovered in the faint light, like a grotesque balloon, twisted with bitter distrust, before receding into the gloom as she slowly, deliberately, closed her door.
Further Explanation:As you can see, in my story, the Stasi believe that my main character is using pigeons to send messages to western countries, however in reality, she simply finds comfort in feeding them and watching them soar over the Berlin Wall.
The ending is a little confusing if you aren’t familiar with the period of time, but essentially, it becomes apparent that Ines neighbour ‘informed’ on her, meaning that her neighbour told the secret police that Ines had pigeons coming to her window sill (which was considered a highly suspicious activity at the time, as GDR officials were incredibly paranoid and were determined to use extreme forms of surveillance to exercise control over their country’s citizens).
In this piece, the pigeons themselves are an allegory for hope, hence at the conclusion of my story, the action of a Stasi agent killing and discarding a pigeon in Ines’ apartment is symbolic of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ and is employed to reinforce the dystopic tone of my work. Thus, as previously mentioned, the inclusion of an allegory such as this strengthens the creative piece and functions as a way of ‘tying’ together the many ideas explored in the narrative.
Overall, although many students find the creative writing section of the English exams to be quite challenging, but by paying close attention to the syllabus guidelines and also developing your own style of writing, you will be able to maximise your marks while gaining greater confidence in your own ability!
Good luck!
Other Guides:How to Write a Module C EssayHow to Write a Module B EssayHow to Write an Area of Study EssayWriting an English Advanced Module A EssayHow to Write an English Extension Ways of Thinking Essay
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Topic: Creative Writing - Advice from a Cambridge Uni Student (Read 31321 times)