And another thing...
Creative writing is one of the most difficult things to learn and to teach. Some people would say that writers are naturally talented. Perhaps. Most people would say that you don't need HSC English to write the 'great Australian novel'. Probably not. Many novels read by teenager would probably end up in the C range at the HSC marking centre. Many people would say that a really excellent short story or piece of creative writing has an indefinable 'something' that sets it apart, and this elusive 'something' just cannot be acquired, no matter what. This may well be true.
However, for the purpose of getting a really good exam mark, creative writing can be taught and can be learned. It takes patience and practise, lots of drafts and re-drafts and the capacity to accept and apply criticisms without being affronted or offended. A high Band 5 or even Band 6 story can be crafted. It can be done.
How? I hear you asking.
There is so much information out there on how to write well, creatively, that I wouldn't presume to try to cover it all in this short commentary. As an experienced HSC marker, I can tell you that NOTHING is original and that cliches are almost inevitable so when we tell you not to be cliched, and to try to be original, we are really saying 'You won't be able to help being a bit predictable and a bit derivative but do your best, through your character, language, setting and atmosphere to minimise this as much as you can.'
Some of the things I have learned from marking;-
o
Creative writing is one of the most difficult things to learn and to teach. Some people would say that writers are naturally talented. Perhaps. Most people would say that you don't need HSC English to write the 'great Australian novel'. Probably not. Many novels read by teenager would probably end up in the C range at the HSC marking centre. Many people would say that a really excellent short story or piece of creative writing has an indefinable 'something' that sets it apart, and this elusive 'something' just cannot be acquired, no matter what. This may well be true.
However, for the purpose of getting a really good exam mark, creative writing can be taught and can be learned. It takes patience and practise, lots of drafts and re-drafts and the capacity to accept and apply criticisms without being affronted or offended. A high Band 5 or even Band 6 story can be crafted. It can be done.
How? I hear you asking.
There is so much information out there on how to write well, creatively, that I wouldn't presume to try to cover it all in this short commentary. As an experienced HSC marker, I can tell you that NOTHING is original and that cliches are almost inevitable so when we tell you not to be cliched, and to try to be original, we are really saying 'You won't be able to help being a bit predictable and a bit derivative but do your best, through your character, language, setting and atmosphere to minimise this as much as you can.'
Some of the things I have learned from marking;-
- A strong character voice is essential to a good story and this means you have to know your character so well, even down to the length of his or her eyelashes!
- Evocative language that creates atmosphere, builds suspense, invokes emotion is necessary to keep the reader engaged
- Plausibility is a must - the reader has to be able to suspend disbelief and become immersed in your story. As soon as we don't believe you, we lose interest in the narrative.
- Dialogue is a double edged sword. Used well, it can drive the story, but used poorly, it inhibits and detracts. Most students don't use dialogue well so I usually say to avoid it.
- The good stories are about some kind of change for a character - they are about people rather than events. Plot driven stories are not generally successful because they have no depth and no character development.
- Over-written stories with lots of adjectives, adverbs, exclamations and exaggerated events usually fall flat. Even though we may love movies where the hero gets shot in the chest, miraculously jumps up again to hop in a car and give violent and heart-stoppingly dangerous chase to another character, finally crashing the car in a shower of splintering glass, crunching metal and, finally, a burst of flames, walking away with nothing more than a dribble of blood where the bullet apparently just grazed his aorta, HSC markers really don't want to read about these.
- A short story is tightly constructed - it is not a novel, or the beginning of a novel and should not try to be.
- Mechanics matter. We seem to be getting more and more lenient with grammatical glitches but creative writing is still one section of the HSC paper where there is the expectation of fluent, flawless, seamless writing. So if your character is wandering in the desert, and you write 'dessert', the only image you are likely to convey is of a figure walking through rapidly melting pools of ice cream.
- Surprise endings or 'twists' are only effective if the reader can trace the development back through the story and see that clues have been left. Otherwise it is cheating, not believable and pretty annoying. Or funny, which can be worse.
- Language should be relevant to the context (and context must be authentic). This means that, even though in historical dramas we often hear characters say things like 'awesome' and 'sure, let's do it.' and 'whatever', if you're writing about WWII, this probably isn't going to work.
o