Ideas for imaginative writing
How to come up with ideas for Imaginative, Persuasive & Discursive Writing
How do you ‘show’ and not ‘tell’ for imaginative writing?
Key points to remember:
- Focus on description and setting, tone and atmosphere – not events happening
- Key writing techniques for imaginative writing:
- Show don’t tell in your description (examples of this are below)
- Pick a key moment to describe, don’t have too much action
- Minimise dialogue in your writing:
Senior HSC markers have said that:
- Dialogue should only be used to show: Character, Power, Emotion
- It must NOT be used to simply explain what’s going on
- It should surprise the audience
- Less is more – only have dialogue that is high impact and adds real value to the story
Define your Tone
Defining the tone of your writing will shape a lot of the descriptive language you use to create an atmosphere and draw readers into the story.
Exercise
Pick an object, and write a sentence that describes it in a sad way, and then an excited way.
In the images of waves below, identify what emotion they represent or ‘show’:
The cool waves crashed pitifully on shore, washing up the remains of dark seaweed and floating fish.
The waves glistened, roaring with invitation as I brought my surfboard towards the ebbing current.
Now, pick your own object, choose an emotion to describe it with, and write it below:
When you are writing, imagine you’re an actor in your story. As the person experiencing the story and feeling what the character(s) feel, be as descriptive as possible (that is, show an image) when detailing what is happening. Pretend you are behind a camera writing about what you see in a way the reader can see it – with emotion, colour or anything else that is central to that scene.
Starting with the actions that display emotions is a good start.
Below are a few examples to illustrate some emotions.
Sadness:
An example of ‘telling’ sadness would be you writing ‘I felt sad’ or ‘I feel depressed’.
These statements are not effective because they do not create any image in the reader’s mind. So, imagine how you would behave if you actually were sad. If you literally acted this out, here are some examples of what you might do:
- Head down
- Eyebrows furrowed
- Tears in your eyes
- Shoulders slumped
Once you have these images, then you can get a bit more creative describing them.
An image that displays sadness:
“My chin rested limply on my hand, as I stared at the ground and saw a salty tear drop from my eye splash in a small puddle on the ground.”
[Hint: See how you don’t need to be told this person is sad? You can just understand it from their body language. Similarly, we can often just tell how a person feels by looking at them, so describe what you see that indicates how they feel.]
Exercise
Pick one emotion, and write a sentence that shows the emotion rather than tells it
Writing techniques to use in creative writing
- Symbolism
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
– Harper Lee, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’
Exercise
Harper Lee uses the symbol of a ‘mockingbird’ in her writing to convey the injustice of causing harm to the innocent.
Reflecting on Lee’s use of symbolism, now choose a symbol for the central idea of your creative writing piece, and write a sentence incorporating the technique.
- Visual imagery
bundle of stuff that dropped,
and dribbled through the loose straw
tangling in bowels, and hopped
blindly closer. I saw
those eyes that did not see
mirror my cruelty
– Gwen Harwood, Father and Child, Part 1- Barn Owl
Exercise
Gwen Harwood utilises imagery in her poem, Barn Owl, in order to depict the violent nature of the scene being described.
Reflecting on Harwood’s use of imagery, describe a key moment in your creative piece using the technique of imagery.
- Extended metaphor/Motif
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
– Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Exercise
Robert Frost uses the extended metaphor of ‘two roads’ in order to convey how the decisions we make in life influence our individual journeys.
Taking inspiration from Frost’s use of extended metaphor, craft an extended metaphor to be used in your own creative piece.
Head HSC Marker Tip:
Have an artwork, book, poem, picture or painting as a motif in your writing – they stand as metaphors or symbols for someone’s life and will greatly help you use the stimulus given in questions.
- Olfactory Imagery
Lang pulled over by the creek. He parked in a wedge of sunlight between the trees and switched off the ignition. He listened to the soughing wind and the static surf of the two way. The van stank of sweat and puke and Pine-O-Clean… His mouth was chalky. His guts felt like hell.” (Tim Winton)
Exercise
Tim Winton uses olfactory imagery such as the stink “of sweat and puke and Pine-O-Clean” to convey an atmosphere of disgust and discomfort.
Taking inspiration from Winton’s use of olfactory imagery, craft a sentence that could be used in your own creative piece.
Senior Writing:
- 6. Motif/Imagery/anecdote
“I REMEMBER HOW, that night, I lay awake in the wagon-lit in a tender, delicious ecstasy of excitement, my burning cheek pressed against the impeccable linen of the pillow and the pounding of my heart mimicking that of the great pistons ceaselessly thrusting the train that bore me through the night, away from Paris, away from girlhood, away from the white, enclosed quietude of my mother’s apartment, into the unguessable country of marriage.” The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Exercise:
In the above extract, identify:
- The mood and how it’s created “delicious ecstasy of excitement”
Write your own example of a mood:
- How the reader is thrown straight into the story with an anecdote:
Write your own engaging anecdote:
- The detail of objects that are described eg. ‘burning cheek’ ‘impeccable linen of the pillow’
Pick an object and describe it in detail:
- Metaphor and symbolism ‘pounding of my heart mimicking’ ‘ceaselessly thrusting the train’
Pick your own symbol:
- Anaphora “away from Paris, away from girlhood”
Write your own example of anaphora:
- Self reflexivity – reflecting on the process of writing
“He had agreed to write a short story set in and around New Year’s Eve, but he found himself a little adrift, struggling. For a few weeks in late summer he cast about, chased ideas and paragraphs, left a few hanging, found himself abandoning them.” Colum McCann ‘What time is it now where you are’?
“Deadlines came, exhausting, and I forced myself up to meet them. Then, in the great spans of time between, I fell back to my vacant screen and my slowly sludging mind. I tried everything—writing in longhand, writing in my bed, in my bathtub.” – Nam Le ‘Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice’
Exercise:
Write one sentence that reflects on the process of writing:
Hint: Be careful not to ‘overwrite’
Example of ‘overwriting’:
“Tears gushed down my cheeks a waterfall drowned my face when I told this to mum” (A way to see where you’re ‘overwriting’ is when you use exaggeration)
Additional resources about using Set Texts to draw stylistic features for your writing
“Spotty Handed Villainesses” by Margaret Atwood: Module C Craft of Writing
Analysis of “Father and Child” by Gwen Harwood for Module C: Craft of Writing
“Father and Child” (Barn Owl) by Gwen Harwood – Module C Craft of Writing