Three big mistakes to avoid in your English creative

And of course, what to do instead.

Okay, so here’s the lowdown on your Discovery creative writing. Everyone has to do one in the HSC, it makes a lot of students stressed AF and it’s an awesome opportunity to nail your Paper 1 English exam.

See, if you have a killer English creative up your sleeve or a really solid plan, you can adapt to any stimulus/instruction you’re given, bang it out in 30 minutes and give yourself 10 extra minutes for your essay. Win.

But for some reason, we basically see the same mistakes made over and over again. So, you know, maybe we should stop making them?

Here are the three biggest mistakes so lock them into your memory and make sure they aren’t happening in your creative!

1. Not writing about discovery

Look, this seems obvious but it’s the biggest make or break and people still forget to do it properly. Heaps of students write out their story and then just tack on some kind discovery in at the end (this ends up being really obvious to the markers and you’re defs going to lose marks).

So, just like an essay has a thesis, your creative should too. Before you really get started on the whole writing bit, come up with one solid idea about discovery (simpler than your essay) and use it as the foundation for your story. If you’ve got 0% inspo right now or just some major writer’s block, this kind of approach will also help you find the idea for your writing.

So, if your thesis is something like: discovering new things about the world around us is significant for discovering new things about ourselves, then hey, there’s a story. Your idea might end up looking like this: a person goes to a new part of town (or the world) and discover something about themselves. Boom.

Your job obviously isn’t over yet but this is a good start. Let’s keep going.

2. Trying to fit a novel in the space of 1000 words

As much as you like to think that NESA can be kind of unfair sometimes, they do actually know that you’re school students and are only asking you to write a piece of creative writing, not a novel and not even a full short story.

So basically, you shouldn’t try and do too much to seem impressive because you just don’t have the time to do it well in 40 minutes.

Instead of writing a creative that covers a massive chunk of history, try and just focus on one snapshot in time - you’ll be able to do a lot more with your ideas and writing techniques. Instead of trying to dig deep into the mind of 5 different main characters, try and keep it to one (or at most, two) character’s internal thoughts and feelings.

It’s also usually a bit too ambitious to write a plot that’s all about the action. If you spend all your 1000 words writing about what people are doing, you’re probably not putting out any ideas on discovery or creating any kind of emotion to your piece.

So check your crazy ambition at the exam door and focus on what you can pull off really well.

3. Taking crazy risks

Just go sky-diving or something, your English creative isn’t the time to take a crazy risk.

See, just like you shouldn’t use super pretentious words in your essay to try and sound fancy, you shouldn’t be taking crazy risks in your creative because you want your marker to be able to really clearly understand and appreciate your work (because it will obviously be amazing).

So, unless you’re 100% confident, don’t try and experiment with any weird genres, crazy fantasy worlds or a super weird post-modern format. Non-linear structures are sweet but try not to make things too confusing by switching between different times or viewpoints without making it really clear to your marker.

It’s also a bit of a risk to write about something you just don’t know that much about. Whether it’s a different culture, a specific job or a really niche historical event, if you can’t capture the context perfectly, it’s going to detract for the other things you’re doing really well.

Obviously, there are no rules in creative writing so you can definitely write about a historical event and try an interesting genre or structure but the secret is to make it much less of a risk but being as clear as possible and doing a lot of research so you know how to pull it off!

Remember

English creatives are so important because basically every single one of us has to do it and because it’s English, this subject is going to count towards your ATAR. So, if we keep seeing the same mistakes made over and over again, now is the time to wake up to those mistakes and just stop them. Remember to check your essays for: a discovery theme, a manageable idea and an idea that you are 100% you can nail. 👊