Creative Writing

Today we are looking at creative writing.

We made mind maps of the organising of a story.

1. Openings
2. Setting
3. Endings
4. Events
5. Characters

Then we looked at openings (as a mindmap). Have you ever drawn mind maps. It works quite well for summarising notes and helps you remember as its more of a picture that words.

It works like this:

You place your central thought/subject in a box in the middle of the page and then you draw lines outwards from it. Each line ends in a shape like cloud and you write the keywords about your topic in these clouds.

We looked at 4 of my books in my bookcase and how the authors started their story's:

1. Dialogue - conversation
2. Action - exciting event already in progress
3. Description - setting the scene

When you study the opening of a story its easy to see how some types of openings lead you into the story and some make it dull to continue reading. I even skip the beginning sometimes if its boring.

Out of the 4 books we looked at, the most exciting opening was:

Aquila by Andrew Norris

EXTRACT

It all began when Geoff disappeared.

The last words he said were, ..............................

With this opening I was hooked into reading further.

The next book Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo

started like this:

EXTRACT

On a Thursday afternoon, just after tea, Charlie Bone saw smoke.....

That sounds interesting, and I read more:

He happened to be looking out of his window when a dark cloud lifted above the autumn trees. The wind blew it south and it moved through the sky like a great, floating whale.

Somewhere on the other side of the city, there was a fire.....

The third book started like this:

EXTRACT

The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor' farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens........

Can you guess which book this was from?

Its from the PAWN OF PROPHECY by David Eddings

The most boring opening of the four books we looked at was from a very famous author and its a fantastic story, which just goes to show that the opening is not everything. I am not even going to mention the books name or the author as three books is really enough for this study.

Reference: http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/creative-writing-activities-for-kids.html

http://www.midlandit.co.uk/education/writing-openings.htm

http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/create/index.cfm