This document discusses elements of creative writing and conventions used in creative works. It defines creative writing as fiction, poetry, or non-fiction that explores new forms outside standard genres. Key elements discussed include characters, plot, setting, theme, and style/grammar. Specific conventions around characters, primary and sub plots, and conflict are also covered. The document provides guidance and questions for students to consider these elements in their own creative writing.

2. Creative Writing
Learning Intention
 To be able to recognise the
elements needed to
produce a piece of creative
writing.
 To be able to use these
elements to produce your
own piece of creative
writing.
Success Criteria
 I can list the elements of
creative writing.
 I can define creative
writing.
 I understand the
importance of creative
writing.

3. What is creative writing?
 Any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes
outside the bounds of normal professional,
journalistic, academic, and technical forms of
literature.
 Works which fall into this category include novels,
epics, short stories, and poems.
 Writing for the screen and stage, screenwriting and
playwriting respectively, typically have their own
programs of study, but fit under the creative writing
category as well.

4. Hook ~ Jack-Jack Attack

5. GKR
In table groups, think about
the short film and list the
conventions you can think of
that are part of creative
writing.
Think about the characters:
1. What characters did you
like/dislike?
2. What made you
like/dislike them?
What does
the title tell
me?
What do I
predict the
text will be
about?
What can
the pictures
tell me?
What do I
already know
about this
topic?
What
words do
I expect
to see?
What
images come
to mind?
What will I
do as I
read?

6. Key Vocabulary
 character
 plot
 sub plots
 conflict
 setting
 theme
 style
 grammar

7. Creative Writing Conventions

8. 1 Character
 Every story has a main character.
 If you don’t have characters that make the reader care
about them, you might just as well throw out your story.
 There is a whole art to character writing. Sure, you can
slap up a name on a caricature, give it a few clichés
(qualities so well known that there’s nothing caring about
them) and call it a character. But that doesn’t make it a
believable and real character… and I’m not talking just
about cardboard cut-outs here.
 Unbelievable characters are… well there’s no strong
enough word in English to describe them. Pretty well
nonsense. Don’t waste your ink making them up.

9. 2 Plot
 Every story has a main character. But does every story
have a plot? The answer is not every story… but all the
good ones have them.
 If you want to know whether your story has a plot or not
(what a mouthful) is: what happens in it?
 Action is not plot. Plot is something different. Whether
you want to write a detailed plot outline or just start your
story, you must take care of plot.
 Your plot can be anything in the world. It can be happy, it
can be sad, it can be serious, it can be funny, it can be
realistic and it can be fantastical. Its only function is to
draw the reader in.

10. 2 Plot
a. sub plot
 If you include subplots in your story, you can
increase interest in your novel. But that’s only if you
carry it off well. What are subplots?
 A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a
supporting side story for any story or the main plot.
Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time
and place or in thematic significance. Subplots often
involve supporting characters, those besides the
protagonist or antagonist.

11. 2 Plot
b. conflict
 In your plot, you must introduce conflict between
the main character and his surroundings.
 Conflict is necessary to make your novel spicy.
Conflict between the protagonist (hero) and
antagonist (villain), conflict between the protagonist
and the side characters and so on.
 Without conflict there is no excitement in a story.
People hate to see everyone agreeing with each
other. Introduce some conflict.

12. 3 Setting
 Where is your novel set?
 It might be set in modern age India, it might be set
in ancient Europe, it might be set in a fantasy world
such as Middle Earth.
 Wherever, it doesn’t matter. But it must be
believable.

13. 4 Theme
 What is your novel about?
 Is it about crime, about politics, about realism or
about fantasy? What is the theme of the story?
 How will readers feel after reading it?
 If you answer these questions, you have a theme.

14. 5 Style and Grammar
 Writing voice, point of view, style and grammar
matter.
 If you break the rules, sometimes it’s for the better.
But it’s always better to know them before breaking
them.
 If you make a spelling mistake, be sure to correct it
with proof-reading.
 Nothing gives away the amateurishness of a writer
more than a spelling mistake.

15. Review
 3 conventions of creative
writing
 2 ideas I have for my own
writing
 1 question I have about the
task