Creative Writing Introduction

Creative Writing Journal Prompts (encourage students to invent stories or use

day-to-day experiences in writing)

Instruction:
Each week, make a journal prompt to explain a situation or a question.

Example:
What would you do if you woke up and saw a dinosaur in your backyard?

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Six-Word Stories

Instruction
Read the following stories. Each is only 6 words long.

Like rain, I fell for you.

-Anonymous writer

People wrote because no one listens.

Even in silence there is chaos

-S. Ajna

“Who hurt you?”

“My own expectations.”
-Anonymous writer

“I love you
You love her.”
-Anonymous writer
(https://www.pinterest.com/explore/six-word-story/)

Now you are about to write your own six-word “hugot” stories.

Top tip
Don’t forget that you can use as much (or a little) punctuation as you like!

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Imagery Activities

1. PARTNERS IN CRIME

Instruction:
Look for a partner in the class and analyze closely the poem below.

The phrases and expressions in italics below are taken from a poem about a
group of people going to a market or a fun fair. What do you think they mean?
Make a paragraph of your analysis or understanding after reading the piece
below:

They had ringing pockets.

A girl put lipstick wounds
on a man’s face and throat,
which were small and diagonal,
like red doves.
A man woke up in a ditch,
his mouth full of ashes.
Another man swung
through the air
and ate sweet fog from a stick.
A man fought three rounds
against a black boxer
and got an eye loaded with thunder.
One man found religion
and was all flame and blood.
A gypsy predicted great fortune
to a man who wintered in the poorhouse.
They drove home under the stars,
but the drunk man lay in a ditch,
his mouth full of dying fires.

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2. OLD FOLKS

Objectives:
To construct an experience either from what one knows or from what could be
imagined about someone

1. Think of an old person (or old persons), either someone you know well or see
from time to time. You should give a brief description of the person focusing on a
physical feature or features that make the person in question remarkable.
2. Concentrate on something about this person that is striking or unusual or
funny or weird or unsettling. This can be an object the person always carries
around, a mannerism, a quirk, an obsession.
3. Make a note of something this person does habitually and to describe this as
graphically as possible. For this you should be encouraged to use similes or
metaphors, e.g. to think of your subject as an animal, a plant, a house, a time of
day or year, etc.
4. Then you should imagine an event or a period in the person’s life that has had
a shaping impact on how this person now is.
5. Incorporating all or as many of the aspects assembled in steps 1 to 4, try to
write a text (a short story, a prose vignette, a poem or possibly a monologue).

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Diction Activity

The Devil’s Dictionary

Instruction
Read the definition of these two words from The Devil’s Dictionary.

SATIRE,n. an obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies
of the author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this
country satire never had more than sticky and uncertain existence, for the soul of
it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like
all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although American are
“endowed by their Creator” with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally
known that these are reprehensible qualities; wherefore the satirist is popularly
regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim’s outcry for co-defendants
evokes a national assent.

Hail Satire! be thy praise ever sung

In the dead language of a mummy’s tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well –
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.

CHILDHOOD,n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of

infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three
from the remorse of age.

Choose two of your favorite words and rewrite the definitions, don’t forget to use
a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Top tip
The more familiar a word the more fun it is to redefine!

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READING AND WRITING POETRY
Tone Activity

Instruction:

Think about your country. The Philippines has been going through a lot
nowadays.

If you were Dr. Jose Rizal, what do you want to say and how will you want to talk
to the Filipino people?

Take note of the consistency of tone throughout the three-stanza poem.

Remember: It is our National Hero talking to the Filipino people.

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HAIKU ACTIVITIES

1. THROWBACK HAIKU

Organization:
Individual work
Material
Cue cards as suggested below

Note
This activity can be very short and may be useful to round off a session when
there is not enough time to do a full-fledged activity.

Instruction
1. Pick a card and decides on an experience that would best fit the description on
the cue card.
2. Brainstorm as many ideas about the experience as they can in five minutes
3. Pick out the one that is most intriguing or amusing or unsettling and write
about the experience from that point of view.
Condense the

4. text into a haiku.

Cue cards
 something that happened to you
 something that has always puzzled you this morning to someone for a long
time
 something that you have wanted to say
 an important memory
 a thought you would like to pass on
 a thought about a borderline experience (e.g. before falling asleep)
 a loss
 a gain

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2. PHOTO HAIKU

Instruction
Look at the photo you picked.

Look at the details, the color, the scenery. Write a haiku, a three-line poem with
five syllables on the first line, seven on the second and five again on the third.
Bring the photo to life.

Top tip
Remember to count your syllables!

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Free Verse Writing

The Scarlet Letter

Instruction
Think about the color red. How does it make you feel? What do you associate it
with? Write a free verse poem about the things you connect with the color red.

For example, this is an excerpt from a poem by Nicki Heinen ‘l4 Ways of Looking
at the Color White’:

Around you a necklace of teeth

To put it in, a thin plastic bag, just emptied
Ripped feather, light wind
At the edge of the road, December
Street lamb blinking, 5am
Fog that gets in your nostrils

Top tip
Try to think of less obvious images people associate with the color red.

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Poem Making Activities

1. ACROSTIC POEM (Shipwrecked)

Instruction
You’ve been shipwrecked on a desert island with your worst enemy and you’re
very, very hungry. What are your thoughts toward them? What are you planning
to do?

Write an acrostic poem where each line begins with the letters C-A-N-N-I-B-A-L.

Top tip
Just because it’s a poem doesn’t mean it has to rhyme!

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2. ‘LOVE IS…’

Instruction:
Participants are encouraged to begin each of their descriptions with a repetition.
1. Imagine a person who means a lot to you, a lover, a partner, a parent,
somebody who’s let you down, etc.
2. Put this person into the center of the piece of paper with enough space
underneath to write a phrase or a line.
3. Make a list of the things in your relationship with that person that you find
memorable. These can be experiences that nobody else would share in a similar
situation.
4. Group these in mind map-fashion around the name.
5. Add to this mind map ways in which this person affects your five (or more)
senses; try to find at least one example for each one of the senses.
6. Go through the points and mark the ones you think somebody else would have
had as well. These may be excluded later.
7. Under the name write a phrase which could open every statement you may
make on the basis of the points that you’ve got in your mind map.
8. Write a poem in which each line or each stanza begins with the phrase from 7.
9. Extension: Go through your poem and consider knocking out all the
comparison words such as ‘like’, ‘as’, etc.

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3. SONNET (Lover’s Leap)

Instruction
Read this sonnet (130) by Shakespeare

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lip’s red;
If snow be white, why then her breast are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that my from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet will I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

You have fallen in love with someone unexpectedly! Write a sonnet about how
you feel about them. Remember, a sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with the rhyme
scheme a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.

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4. Onion Love

Instruction
Read ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
Like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
Like a lover.
It will make you reflection
A wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
It’s platinum loop shrink to a wedding-ring,
If you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy has an unexpected take on what love means to her. Write a poem
about love, but compare it to an object that some people might find unexpected!

Top tip
Be daring! Every poet takes risks; you never know you might strike gold.

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5. Portrait a Hero

Instruction
Read the following excerpt from ‘The Gladiator’ by Lord Byron.

I see before me the gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand; --- his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low ---
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him --- he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

Write your own 9-line poem about someone famous. It could be a:

footballer
singer
celebrity
or anyone else you can think of

Top tip
You could write about them falling from grace, if you like. A tragic end to the
poem would be a really interesting direction to take it in.

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READING AND WRITING FICTION
Introduction Activities

1. Cringe Exercise
1. Write ten things you have done in your life that literally make you cringe when
you realize that you actually did them. (Just a brief one-line description.)
2. Choose one of these events and write a two- to three-page prose story around
it. Remember, your reader has never met any of these people, so use all your
storytelling skills. All of your five senses. Put your audience in the world.
Construct a real emotional truth around the event and character.

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2. THREE GENERATIONS

Objective
To use experience and imagination to explore the same issue at different points
in family history

Organization
Individual work

Remarks
The motto for instruction 5 should be that every word must be made to count.
Some memories stirred up by this activity can be quite painful. It may therefore
be sensible to advise students that the experiences can be fictitious.

1. Try to imagine yourself as one representative of three generations in a family

(which can be theirs): grandparent, parent or child.
2. Think of a feature, an experience, a conflict, that all three generations have to
go through.
3. Try to envisage the ways in which these features, experiences, or conflicts
change with the times in which you take place for each of the three generations.
4. Write a text which features the elements developed so far: the three
generations, the mutual feature (etc.) and the differences between the ways in
which these affect the representatives of the three generations. 5. This text is
now edited into a very concise prose vignette.

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Building Good Characters

1. CHARACTER GRID

Instruction
Come up with a Character Grid for your characters, their development, and their
personal conflicts in the story. You may use the following sample grid.

Character JIM SALLY MAX

Role Central character/ Love interest, 2 nd Main opposition
hero opposition
Occupation Investigative Animal rights Circus owner
journalist advocate
Goal Exploit Blimpo, the Save Blimpo from Become #1 Circus
elephant, for a story exploitation Act in U.S.
Need Be more caring Trust and love Jim Respect animals
Flaw Anything for a story Only trusts Inhumane
animals
Fired but then gets Only trusts
last chance animals
Dumped by Sally Dumps Jim; can’t Whips Blimpo
trust him
Kidnaps Blimpo; Chases Sally
is chased
Hides Blimpo in
Jim’s yard
Next morning: Finds
Blimpo
From David Trottier, The Screenwriter’s Bible, David Trottier (Silman-James
Press, 2005), p. 106.

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2. What a Character!

Instruction
Read the extract below from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

“I turned to see a girl standing in the garden on the other side of the alley. She
was small and has her hair in a ponytail. She wore dark sunglasses with amber
frames and a light-blue sleeveless T-shirt. The rainy season had barely ended,
and yet she had already managed to give her slender arms a nice, smooth tan. She
had one hand jammed into the pocket of her shorts, the other rested on a
waist-high bamboo gate, which could not have been providing much support…
Then she took a box of hope regulars from her pocket, drew out a cigarette, and
put it between her lips. She had a small mouth, the upper lip turned slightly
upward. She struck a match and lit her cigarette. When she inclined her head to
one side, her head swung away to reveal a beautifully shaped ear, smooth as if
just made, its edge aglow with a downy fringe.”

Write a couple of paragraphs introducing a character of your own. What do they

like? What are they wearing? Do you want the reader to like or dislike them?

Top tip
If you’re stuck for ideas, why not try describing a friend? Many writers use their
own experience as inspiration for their work. But, remember to make interesting
characters!

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3. MAKING CHARACTERS MEET

Objective
To develop a character and to learn to see the world through this character’s eyes

Organization
First plenary, then pair work

Material
One card per student (A5 or A6), a smaller card per pair

Remarks
Suggest students to keep the characters they are to create, and the locations
where the characters meet, not too outlandish or surreal.
The dialogue between the two characters can be done orally or in writing.

1. Brainstorm on the board what pieces of information would be of interest if one

wanted to get to know a person well. Go beyond that which you would have on a
passport form and to include things such as ‘ambitions (fulfilled and frustrated)’,
‘biggest disappointment’, ‘proudest moment’, etc.
2. Create a character on the card using the categories brainstormed.
3. Two students together agree on a location. (Keep this location fairly mundane:
a bar, a living room at the end of a party, etc.) 4. The cards are collected, shuffled
and redistributed. Each pair gets two character cards and one location card.
5. In pairs they improvise a scene between their characters on the location they
have been given. Care should be taken that you are ‘in character’.

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Point of View Activity
ECHO A STORY

Instruction
1. Find a story you can retell using a new point of view, an added event or new
circumstances. You could retell, for example, the story of Wedding Dance by
Amador Daguio (if the second wife were the narrator in the story, how will the
story be written?)

2. Write this story using a new perspective.

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COOPERATIVE STORY WRITING

A pair works on developing s story. They write a story together by completing

sentences using a dice. First student rolls the dice think of words (depending on
the total count of the dices) to begin the story.

The teacher may limit the activity to a specific number of rolling the dice or
number of minutes in completing a story.

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READING AND WRITING DRAMA
Character Development

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Form a group with four members. Each member will create a sketch for every
character for the one-act play that you are going to develop. To do this more
effectively, identify the following that will complete your character’s qualities
and attributes:

Physical appearance and way of speaking

1. Age
2. Height and weight
3. Color of hair, eyes, complexion
4. Posture
5. General appearance
6. Clothing and hairstyle
7. Defects
8. Way of speaking: tone of voice, vocabulary

Social and family history

1. Economic level or status
2. Occupation
3. Education
4. Religion
5. Race and/or nationality
6. Amusements or hobbies
7. Likes and dislikes

Inner life
1. Moral standards
2. Ambition/goals
3. Fears/disappointments
4. Temperament: easy-going, pessimistic
5. Attitude towards life:
6. Qualities
7. Good and bad traits

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Dialogue Development Activities

1. SOLILOQUY
Write a 1-page monologue for your character in which he/she tells the audience
(or another character) about an important event in his/her life.

Bubble conversations

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2. TELL ME
Instruction
Read this classic example from Ernest Hemingway’s story ‘Hills Like White
Elephants.’ In the story, a man and a woman sit in a train station bar talking. As
the scene progresses, it becomes clear that she’s pregnant and the man her to
have an abortion.

“The beer’s nice and cool”, the man said.

“It’s lovely”, the girl said.
“It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”, the man said.” It’s not really an
operation at all.”
The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.
“I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.”
The girl did not say anything.
“I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then
it’s all perfectly natural.”
“Then what will we do afterward?”
“Well be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s the only things that bother us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.”

Note how the abortion is only alluded to- since it’s the main subject of their
conversation why would they mention it directly? See how refraining from
spelling it out Hemingway keeps the conversation realistic. Write your own
conversation about a sensitive subject trying to do the same.

Top tip
Remember you don’t want to spell it out too explicitly but the reader still has to
understand what they are talking about!

REFERENCE:

Materials compiled by Mr. Ernesto C. Collo, Jr. and modified from:

The British Council. (2001). Creative Ways: Starting to Teach Creative Writing in
the English Language Classroom (Teaching Materials from the Literature
Department of the British Council). The British Council.

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