Wordsmiths

  Video Link HERE 42 – Alarm Clock – Describe the scene after your alarm goes off. This is probably my least favourite prompt because it’s a cliché. Having your character start their story by waking up is an easy way to introduce them, but it’s been done so many times before – and it takes a particularly interesting approach to refresh the cliché and produce a new alarm clock opener. Which is what we’re going to attempt this week. Starter Task– Finding the Hook The opening of a story is probably the most important part. When done right an author can hook their reader within the first page, some even get you in the first paragraph, or the first sentence. Take a look at these examples, “Marley was dead, to begin with.” A Christmas Carol , Charles Dickens This is a classic story, with an almost shocking opening line. It sparks all manner of questions – Who was Marley? Why is he dead? And why is that where we begin?  Dickens doesn’t start with a question, but he makes th...

  Reflections Reflections are not about beating yourself up for not being good enough, they are intended as a way of identifying where you need to improve. And – most importantly - to provide you with personalised targets to work towards. No one should finish a task and be completely happy, but you should be satisfied that you’ve done enough – for now, which is why my reflection questions are always a combination of positive and negative elements, ‘I did well with this,’ and ‘I could do better with that.’ You need to have done at least 3-4 of the prompts from this blog, more would be better, because then you can pick up on patterns of things that you struggle with and balance them against the things you do well. Now, here are some of the more common targets that I have set for my students, based on their work and reflections. I’ll give you a few tips on how to improve your work for each one. First – Use of correct and ambitious SPAG Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar are...

  182.          What’s in a name?  [Descriptive] Write down every name you have ever been called – at least 10. Pick one, how does it make you feel? Do you hate/like it? Does it fit you? Pick the one that is least like you and create a character to fit. Our prompt for this week is more of a personal reflection than a writing task, which matches this week’s theme of reflection. Look out on Wednesday for a bonus video on how we can use our reflections to improve our writing.  STARTER - Who am I? First, think back as far as you can remember and write down every name you’ve ever been called. This could include pet names that your mum or grandma used, nicknames and short names that your friends use, formal names, informal, what your dad calls you when you’re bad, what your bullies called you. This is entirely personal and private so don’t be embarrassed or worried about it, no one expects you to publish your list – I’m not going ...

  155 – Swinging in No Wind Write a narrative about a playground swing that is swinging with no wind. So, this prompt is the first time we’ve had to think about genre in a narrative because the idea of a swing swinging with no breeze falls quite nicely into the genre of horror, but not the monsters and jump-scares kind of horror. This prompt is about the uncanny and spooky techniques that help to create tension in good writing. STARTER – What is Genre? Before we start on the spooky stuff, we should really have a recap of genre. What is genre? Genre is a classification, it’s the way we group stories by their general theme or idea; Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Romance, Western, Adventure and more. Stories are rarely just one thing, so you CAN combine genres and have something like Fantasy-Adventure or Science Fiction-Horror. Each genre has particular themes or tropes, which are the expected elements. For example, a western will always have a dusty frontier town with a sa...