Creative writing challenge number 1

The aim of this Creative Writing Challenge 1 is to stimulate writing with images, narrative openings and a series of questions to expand your ideas

Creative Writing Challenge 1

Tasks: 1. Read all the slides.

2. Create a document to save your work in called ‘Home Learning’.

3. Answer the questions.

4. Use the images to inspire your own creative writing.

Ghostly Shadow

Story Starter

One second you saw it, the next you didn’t. She wanted to turn around and leave this strange place, but curiosity got the better of her.

The fog seemed to be alive. It danced amongst the trees: smothered, slithered, sneaked, in and out of the branches. The trees lining the road, sentinels of the night, seemed to sway in the breeze, their branches reaching up like tentacles clawing for the sky, yearning to escape the cloying fog.

One second you saw it, the next you didn’t. The ghostly shadow vanished once again into the mist.

She had come too far to turn back now. Goosebumps prickled on her cold, clammy skin, and she was sure she could hear her heart thumping inside her chest like a fluttering bird begging to be let out of its cage.

Pulling her scarf tightly around herself, she stepped forward into the woods, towards the place where the shadow had been…

Question time!

• Who might the character in the picture be?

• Do the trees remind you of anything?

• Why do you think there are fences either side of the road?

• Where might the road lead to?

• What time of day do you think it is?

• What sounds might you be able to hear if you were there?

Queen Bee

Story starter!

It was late into the evening when the magic happened. The forest was the perfect place for a story to unfold. A sense of mystery filled the secluded wood, as a swirling, grey fog mischievously crept its way between the trees.

After days of waiting, her transformation was complete. The Queen Bee held one of her many children in her outstretched hand; the moment she’d been waiting for had finally arrived‌

Can you continue the story of the Queen Bee?

‘...as a swirling, grey fog mischievously crept its way between the trees’ is an example of personification.

Sentence challenge!

• Can you explain why?

• Can you use personification in your writing?

• Consider using it to describe the trees, fog, moss or the wind.

Answer the following questions: • Who is the Queen Bee and what are her intentions?

• What is the significance of the cage?

• Who are the other bees in the picture?

• Will they transform as well?

• Will the Queen Bee stay in the forest?

• What will happen when the bees come across people?

• Are these ordinary bees?

Queen Bee

Reshaping the World

Story starter!

Snip..Snip‌Snip‌The scissors began to tear the countryside apart. Towns, fields, rivers and oceans.

Forests, valleys, mountains and lakes. The world began to unravel piece by piece, strand by strand.

This was to be a new beginning. What would this new world look like?

Sentence challenge!

• Can you use adverbs in your writing to describe how something is done?

• Can you use adverbs before nouns?

• Can you use adverbs after nouns?

Sentence Stems • Viciously, the scissors snipped their way through the endless fields.

• The scissors methodically snipped their way through the abandoned countryside.

Question time!

• Who is controlling the scissors?

• Why do you think the World is being re-shaped?

• If you could change the World what would you change?

• What would you keep the same?

Reshaping the World

The Hidden Temple

Story starter!

The humidity was unbearable. Perhaps when they entered the temple it would be cooler?

The group had been travelling together for days, fighting their way through the jungle. They had exhausted themselves wrestling with vines and branches, drenched in sweat as the heat attacked them.

All around them the air was heavy; each breath was a gasp. The jungle climate was oppressive, and they were in need of rest.

As the group hacked their way through the dense foliage with their machetes, they had glimpsed the hidden temple. Approaching the door with a sense of growing trepidation, they knew they had to go inside; curiosity and desperation had got the better of them‌

Question Time • What does ‘trepidation’ mean?

Why might they be feeling it?

• Who are ‘the group’? Why are they in the jungle?

• What does ‘curiosity and desperation got the better of them’ mean?

• Would you venture into the temple?

• What might they find inside?

The Hidden Temple

• Do you think all of the group want to go in?

• Why is the floor green?

Sentence challenge!

• Can you make a list of feelings to describe how you might feel before entering the temple? • Could you start a sentence with 1,2 or 3 of these emotions?

E.g. Nervous and shaking, I stepped through the doorway, preparing myself for the worst.

The Mountain Pass

Story starter!

The mountain of High Hrothgar had stood proudly for thousands of years, casting a solemn shadow for miles around.

Few dared to venture close to its base, let alone scale its heights, fearing what awaited at the summit. For one brave adventurer, the folklore surrounding the mysteries of High Hrothgar provided an opportunity just too tempting to resist.

Some called him courageous, others foolish, but it mattered not to him now.

Bracing himself against the torrent of icy wind that rushed towards him down the narrow pass, the lone figure prepared himself for the challenge ahead. He took a deep breath, feeling the frozen air rush into his lungs, and took a bold step onto the path to High Hrothgar‌

Question time!

• Who is the adventurer in the story?

• Can you think of a good name for him?

• Why does he want to climb High Hrothgar?

• Why are people afraid of the mountain?

• What do you think awaits him at the top?

• What might the adventurer be carrying with him?

• What would you take with you on an expedition such as this?

The Mountain Pass

Floating Citadel

Story starter!

It was the moment they had been dreading.

Chains had bound their citadel; link after link of brutal, cold steel.

As they poked their heads out of their windows, they drank in the view through eyes squinted against the icy, punishing wind. The world they knew appeared as insignificant specks, hundreds of metres below.

They had been banished. It was time to find a new home.

Can you continue the story? Who are ‘they’? Why had ‘they’ been banished?

Question time!

• How big do you think the citadel is?

• Who lives inside?

• Where do you think the palace will land?

• What does ‘banished’ mean?

• Why have they been ‘banished’ do you think?

• How do you think the people inside the palace feel?

The World in your hands

Story starter!

This wasn’t supposed to happen at Christmas.

The deep lines of my hands gazed on in amazement as the bauble began to glow, dim at first but then brighter and more intense. Slowly yet surely, a warm sensation began to radiate from the sphere as wispy, translucent clouds began to swirl around inside the plastic casing.

As the moments passed, my eyes (although at first deceived) began to recognise the shapes forming inside the shimmering orb. Firstly, the familiar shape of Africa appeared like a ghost from the mists, then the outline of the Californian coastline and finally the famous shape of the British Isles. My home.

Forgetting for a moment the mind-blowing scene unravelling amazingly in my hands, I suddenly remembered what the voice had said to me only minutes before. “Just one wish Ben. Just one wish, and one consequence.”

It was then that I realised what I had done…

Question time!

• Whose hands do we see in the picture? Why do you think this?

• If you held the world in your hands like this all day, what would you need to do to make sure it stayed safe?

• Do you think there are beings out there in the universe who could hold planet Earth in their hands?

Sentence challenge!

• Can you use semi-colons in your writing to replace a conjunction?

• e.g. Cautiously yet carefully, I held the precious globe in my hand because I still daren’t place it down.

• Cautiously yet carefully, I held the precious globe in my hand; I still daren’t place it down.