Creative Writing Help

[workingmom]

Hi All,

if you would recall, i had written about this before, but as I am not able to make much of a difference, i have come back to ask for advice...

My daughter loves to write stories and enjoys creating a world of her own when she writes.
However, she is not able to concentrate on structure sometimes. If I ask her to concentrate on her structure, she looses her plot and/or goes overboard with adjectives and 'show,not tell' strategies.
And worse, sometimes I know what is needed to be corrected in her writing, but sometimes I fail too. Because I look for a flow in her story, or a peak in a plot - which sometimes is missed.
Her story is great if we look at each sentence, but from one sentence to the other, does not quite have a flow.
I am not sure how I can help her. She gets frustrated as she thinks she is doing what is being asked i.e. each time I ask her to concentrate on a particular aspect, she does that, but either looses her plot or goes a bit over board.

I am struggling to explain her how she could do both together.

I wonder if a tutor at this time of the year can help. And if so, what should I be looking in the tutor.

[PurpleDuck]

Hi Workingmom,

Have you spoken to your DD's school teacher about what story-writing techniques they teach them at school? I remember my DS told me about a 'story mountain' a while ago, which was useful for giving his stories a structure.

Have you tried mind-maps/spider diagrams to organise ideas, or even simple bullet-point planning? It may also help talking to your DD about what she wants to write, and why, before she starts writing; that might help her think it through properly. What you want her to write is an interesting, nicely flowing story, ideally organised in a few paragraphs, with a clear beginning, middle and end. Maybe you could give her a few examples of what those sections may include.

From what you've said, it sounds as if your DD is trying to think about too many things at once and ends up trying to do too much, resulting in confusion.

With my DS, I would read his story, talk it through with him and ask him to think if there were any changes he wanted to make in terms of the words used, e.g. use a better word, add an adjective or an adverb, or simply things making (or not making) sense. Once we did that, he would write the same story again with the improvements he decided on, but also paying attention to the structure if it wasn't right the first time. Writing stories in draft, talking them through, thinking how he could make them better and then writing them 'in clean' was what helped his creative writing a great deal.

As for a tutor, you could try to find one but it's hard to tell what to look for. The only thing I can think of is recommendations from other parents who say that their DCs' creative writing improved dramatically thanks to a given tutor. But it really is practice that makes a difference. Good luck!

[workingmom]

Thanks PD for all the advice.

I shall try to help her using your advice around 'Writing stories in draft'. She might find it useful.

[Daogroupie]

I sent you a pm about this on Monday but it is still in my outbox as an unread message.

If you just go to the top of the screen and click on unread message it will come up. DG

[workingmom]

Apologies, Daogroupie.

Thank you of the pm. I have sent you an email to your personal address on Saturday.