checklist for creative writing

Writing Center: Checklist For Creative Writing

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Checklist For Creative Writing

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• Begins with an engaging opening sentence and opening paragraph
• Concludes with an impactful ending that makes the audience appreciative of the writing 
• The ending is plausible and fits in with the rest of the story
• Uses strong, descriptive language throughout the entire piece
• Contains a variety of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and nouns to add to descriptive language 
• Sentence structure is varied and helps create different moods
• Follows a logical order and a logical sequence of events
• Provides cues and transitions to the reader when there are changes in the timeframe
• Includes enough detail that the audience knows the looks, thoughts, and personalities of the characters
• Utilizes dialogue when necessary to add more depth to the characters 
• Feelings of characters are evident in the writing 
• The story is well-paced and developed
• Contains a clear, consistent point of view throughout the entire piece
• Does not contain too many details or descriptions that make the writing less effective
• Contains enough detail for the audience to understand the story, the plot, the setting, and the characters
• Utilizes literary devices that enhance the writing
• Suspense and tension are built and carried throughout the piece
• The setting is described in enough detail for the audience to know what the setting is like
• Mentions the five senses to add to the descriptions 
• Uses the same verb tense consistently through the writing 
• Free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors
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• Last Updated: Sep 14, 2023 10:30 AM
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Want to learn more about revising and editing? Check out our self-paced class  The Successful Novel , which gives you the tools to write, revise, and publish the novel waiting to be written inside you. 

Although the terms revising and editing are often used interchangeably, stylish writers know the difference between revising and editing. When it’s time to shape a first draft into a polished, publishable piece of writing, knowing how to both revise and edit your work is essential.

So, what is revising vs editing? Revising refers to global changes in the text—significant amendments to the work’s structure, intent, themes, content, organization, etc. These are, in other words, macro-level considerations. Editing, by contrast, focuses on changes at the word, sentence, and paragraph level.

These two concepts require different skills and attentions, but both are necessary to create a finished piece of writing. So, let’s dive deeper into revising vs editing, including a revising and editing checklist you can use for any passage of poetry or prose.

First, let’s dive a little deeper into these two essential skills. What is the difference between revising and editing?

Note: the revising and editing resources in this article are geared towards fiction writers. Nonetheless, much of this advice also applies to essayists and nonfiction writers, too.

Revising and Editing: Contents

• The focus of revision
• The focus of editing

Revising Vs Editing: Venn Diagram

• Revision Strategies
• Editing Strategies
• Strategies for Revising and Editing

Revising and Editing Checklist

What is the difference between revising and editing.

Revising and editing are different types of changes you can make to a text. “Revising” is concerned with macro-level considerations: the ideas of a text, and how they are organized and structured as a whole. “Editing,” by contrast, concerns itself with micro-level stylistic considerations, the words and sentences that get those macro-level ideas across.

Revising is concerned with the ideas and structure of the text as a whole; editing is concerned with stylistic considerations, like word choice and sentence structure. 

This revising vs editing chart outlines the different considerations for each concept:

Let’s go a bit deeper into these revising and editing concepts.

Revision strategies focus on:

The text as a whole. If revision focuses on the macro-level concerns for the text, then revision strategies for writing require the writer to think about what the text is accomplishing.

In large part, this means thinking about themes, ideas, arguments, structures, and, if the text is fiction, the elements of fiction themselves. You might also consider how the text is influenced by other writers and media, or what philosophies are operating within the text.

Here are some questions to ask when revising your work:

• Does the writing begin at the beginning?
• Are the ideas logically sequenced?
• How are different ideas juxtaposed? How does their juxtaposition alter the message of the text?
• What messages are present in the text?
• How do the characters of the text represent different ideas and messages?
• What do the different settings of the story represent? How does the setting impact the decisions that characters make?
• What core conflicts shape the plot?
• Who is the narrator? How does their point of view impact the story being told?
• What attitude do I take towards the various themes and ideas? Is that attitude present?
• Does the writing use scenes to showcase important moments, and summaries to glide over less important passages of time?
• What atmosphere(s) are in the text? Does the story’s mood complement the story itself?
• Does the story have a clearly defined climax? What questions does (and doesn’t) the climax resolve?
• What transformation occurs in the story? How are the characters at the end different than at the beginning?
• Does the writing end at the ending? Is the ending a closed door, or (preferably) an open one?

Editing strategies focus on:

The words and sentences. In contrast to revision strategies, editing strategies ask the writer to examine how the text is accomplishing macro-level concerns.

This means getting into the weeds with language. Small decisions, like the use of a synonym or the arrangement of certain sounds, stack up to create an enjoyable story. Moreover, good writing at the sentence level makes it easier to produce good writing at the global level.

Here are some questions to ask when editing your work:

• Is this the right word to describe a certain image, idea, or sensation?
• Do my sentences have enough variation in length and structure?
• Are the words I use easy to understand? If I use jargon or academic language, is the meaning of the text still clear?
• Do I use active vs passive voice with intent?
• Have I omitted any unnecessary words?
• How does it sound to read my work aloud? Does it flow like it should?
• Do I use sonic and poetic devices , like alliteration, consonance, assonance, and internal rhyme, to make the writing more enjoyable? Do those devices enhance the text?
• How does the text transition between scenes and ideas? Do these transitions enhance the logical flow of plot and ideas?
• Do I repeat certain words a lot? Do those repetitions contribute to the text, or do they become redundant?
• Have I employed the “show, don’t tell” rule consistently in my writing? Do I have a good balance of showing and telling?
• Do I use metaphors, similes, and analogies to illustrate important ideas in new and thought-provoking ways?
• Is the writing clear at the word, sentence, and paragraph level?
• Does the dialogue sound like it was spoken by a real person? Does each character have a distinct voice, separate from the voice of the author?

Note: editing does not include proofreading. Proofreading is something you typically do once the final draft is done. It is the process of making sure there are no typos, misspellings, misplaced punctuation marks, or grammatical errors. Do this once you’ve thoroughly covered revising and editing.

Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these skills.

Revising Vs Editing: Revision Strategies for Writing

In addition to asking the above questions, here are some revision strategies to help you tackle the macro-level concerns in your writing.

Revision Strategies: Take a break after drafting

Before you get to revising and editing your work, take a break when you’ve finished the first draft. It is much easier to revise and edit when you can look at your work with a fresh set of eyes.

How long should you wait? It really depends. Some authors give their work 2 or 4 weeks. Stephen King recommends a 6 week break in his book On Writing . Really, you should give yourself enough time to forget the finer details of your work, but not so much time that you lose passion for the project.

Revision Strategies: Write a memory draft

Here’s a crazy idea: when you’re done with your first draft, throw it out.

Right. Don’t save a copy. Don’t reread what you’ve written. Don’t give yourself any access to it. Once you’ve written the final word, delete everything.

Why would you do this? Some writers, called “pantsers” or “discovery writers”, don’t plot in advance, they just write from scratch and figure it out as they go. When you delete this draft, you’re forced to write it again from memory. This “memory draft” will be written from only the most salient parts of the first draft—the parts that were memorable, enjoyable, and essential to the work.

Of course, you can write a memory draft without deleting your first draft. Deleting the first draft just makes it easier to ensure you never go back. This approach is not for everyone, but for some writers, such as our instructor Sarah Aronson , it results in the strongest possible work.

Revision Strategies: Create a plot line

If you’re a pantser, or even if you plot everything in advance, return to your work by creating a plot line.

Go scene by scene. What is every action that drives the writing forward? Who are the characters involved? Are those actions consistent with the characters?

Also give consideration to different plot structures. What plot structure does the story use? Is there a main plot and subplot(s)? How do the subplots tie into the plot as a whole?

Plot lines help you zoom out. Seeing your work at the macro-level is the key difference between revising and editing; to revise your work, you must be able to see it from a distance before zooming in closer.

Revision Strategies: Funneling

Funneling is a process for zooming into the work from a distance. It asks you to get progressively more in-the-weeds with your writing.

First, you need to look at the work as a whole. What are the overall themes and messages? What does the work accomplish, or try to accomplish? How is the work structured? Does the work feel essential?

Then, zoom in, and ask those same questions at the various sublevels of the work. Ask these questions by section, by chapter, by scene, by paragraph, and even sentence by sentence. Evaluating the purpose of each individual component helps you decide what to keep, what to cut, and what to revise and edit.

Revision Strategies: Look for discontinuities

Another way to decide what to keep, cut, revise and edit, is to spend time intentionally searching for discontinuities.

What are discontinuities? These are parts of the text where the writing is not continuous. They can be caused by the following:

• Sections of the text that don’t ultimately contribute to the plot, subplots, characters, character development, setting, etc.
• Plot threads that haven’t yet been tied up, but need to be.
• Subplots that ultimately do not impact the main plot of the story.
• Gaps in plot or characterization that need to be filled for the story to make sense.

Some discontinuities are intentional, and writers should certainly lean into ambiguity and interpretation. But your story should also say everything it needs to. Discontinuities hinder a story’s ability to do this. By snuffing them out and fixing them, you can prepare a text that is much more ready for editing.

Revising Vs Editing: Editing Strategies for Writing

In addition to asking the previous questions we’ve listed for editing your work, here are some editing strategies to help you tackle the micro-level concerns in your writing.

Editing Strategies: Read it out loud

Yes, even if it’s novel-length. Reading your work out loud is essential to honing your prose. (This is also true for writing poetry !)

The way that writing flows in your head is not necessarily how it flows when spoken aloud. As a result, your writing might sound good when you read it, but not when you say it. Writing that sounds good out loud always sounds good on the page; writing that sounds clunky or hard to follow out loud might be read the same way.

In addition to catching opportunities for stylistic improvement, reading your work out loud also gives you a chance to experience your work in a different way. You might gain a new perspective that helps you tackle major revisions.

Editing Strategies: Focus on specificity

Ambiguity has its place in literature. But, when it comes to giving good detail and description, specificity is key.

Take this passage, from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

“Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was still under a faint daylight. In other words, they passed down a midnight between two gloamings.”

Look at how the attention to detail in this passage paints such a dazzling image. I can see this picture moving in my mind’s eye. And, the phrase “a midnight between two gloamings” is both poetic and musical, making this excerpt an all around enjoyable read.

What would a nonspecific passage of text look like? Instead of the above, imagine Hardy writing “The road was shady.” Maybe you can picture that in your head, but does the image move? Do you know that the shade is provided by trees, as opposed to buildings? Does it even matter whether the road was shady or not?

You don’t need to make everything specific, but specificity helps draw the reader’s attention to what’s beautiful and important. Through specificity, writers can access something both stimulating and poetic for the reader. Use this tool whenever you want to draw the mind’s eye somewhere.

Editing Strategies: Omit needless words

Omitting needless words is central to the art of editing. If a word isn’t doing important work, or if there is a less wordy way to say something, cut it out of the text. Be heartless!

Your style will always be improved by concision. Not brevity, but concision —where every word does important, necessary work. A sentence can be 200 words long, so long as every word is essential.

Common words to omit include adverbs, undescriptive adjectives, passive phrases that are better off active, and prepositions in place of stronger verbs. For more tips, check out our article on this topic:

https://writers.com/concise-writing

Editing Strategies: Turn repetition into variety

Repetition is a useful stylistic device to emphasize the important ideas and images in a text. But, repetition should be used sparingly. To keep your writing fresh and engaging, try not to repeat yourself too much, and call out parts of your text where you do.

This is true at both the word and sentence level. At the word level, keep things visually interesting. If a lot of things in your scene are already yellow, then the building can be green, for example. Also be sure to vary your transition words. If you use “then” to move to every next scene, the reader will catch on and get annoyed, quickly.

At the sentence level, vary your sentence lengths and structures. A series of short sentences will start to sound staccato. Too many long sentences will tax the reader’s attention. Sentences of any length can be used in any way. But, as a quick guide, you can often use short sentences to convey brief summary or information, medium sentences to advance the narrative, and long sentences for moments of introspection or important description. Again, any sentence of any length can do any of those things, but that’s an easy rule to start from.

Even at the paragraph level, try to have a mix of long and short paragraphs, where you can. Also, try to include dialogue at regular intervals. If your characters haven’t spoken for at least 3 pages, let their voices onto the page.

Editing Strategies: Ask yourself, who does your writing sound like?

This is an important question to ask when you’re editing your work. Who does your writing sound like?

It is important to define this, because you want the writing to sound like it’s coming from a real person. If you’re writing nonfiction, then you obviously want the writing to sound like yourself.

When writing fiction, the writing may sound like yourself, but remember, the narrator is not necessarily the author. So, the text should sound like whoever is narrating the story, even if it has some stylistic consistencies with other fiction you’ve written.

What you absolutely do not want is to affect a lofty manner. You can be artful, musical, poetic even, but you absolutely cannot Sound Like A Writer. Using elaborate sentence structures, academic vocabulary, or else trying to write High Literature will only make your writing sound pretentious. Talk to your reader, not above them.

Also, be sure to know the warning signs of when a passage of text is purple prose .

Revising and Editing Strategies

These strategies are useful for both revising and editing. As you revise and edit your work, consider doing the following:

Revising and Editing: Read like a writer

The best way to improve as a writer is to read other writers like a writer yourself. This is invaluable advice, especially for anyone learning how to write a novel . Paying attention to the craft skills that go into a work of literature will help you think about the decisions you make in your own work.

You can do this at both a revising and editing level. How did the author structure their text? Why does the chapter end here? What did they intend to do by using that specific word choice? Why is this sentence so long?

When you make a practice of doing this, it is much easier to bring that practice into your own work.

Learn more about reading like a writer here:

https://writers.com/how-to-read-like-a-writer

Revising and Editing: Print it out

Most people these days write using a computer. (I say most, because our instructor Troy Wilderson writes her novels freehand.) Whatever medium you use to write, try using a different medium to revise and edit.

So, if you typed your first draft, print it out and mark up the physical pages. If you happened to write freehand or use a typewriter, type up those pages and revise from there.

The point is to think about your work in a different medium. Revising and editing with different technology helps shift the gears in your brain, and it also encourages you to see your work with a different perspective. For whatever reason, you’ll think about your work with a fresh set of eyes if it’s sitting in front of you in a different format.

And, if you don’t have access to a printer, at least put your writing in a different text editor. Move from Microsoft Word to Google Docs, or even use a novel editing software like Scrivener . Anything to get you out of writing mode, and into revising mode, allowing you to see your work from a new angle.

Revising and Editing: Don’t do it all at once

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. The same holds true for revising and editing.

If you try to tackle it all at once, you will create three problems for yourself.

One, you will rush through a process that requires slow, methodical labor. Trying to tackle everything right away will result in a work that’s fundamentally incomplete.

Two, you will end up ignoring or neglecting important or powerful opportunities for revision. Taking things slow helps you think more clearly about your work. You might miss out on powerful insights by trying to accomplish everything right away. You might also force yourself to avoid the work that needs to be done, such as major revisions or a full scale rewrite.

Three, you miss out on the joy of revising and editing. This is a fundamentally fun experience. It is also an experience central to being an author. Let yourself have it.

Revising and Editing: Read in reverse

Try reading your work from end to beginning. Read each sentence left to right, but read the sentences from back to front.

This might seem a little strange. After all, won’t you lose the meaning of the sentences by doing this? Well, that’s exactly the point—reading in reverse allows you to see the text in a new light. You might notice a sentence that is far less musical when it stands on its own. Or, you might find information that’s been unnecessarily repeated. At the structural level, you might realize that certain passages, sections, or scenes are too close to the end (or middle, or beginning) of the text.

This is another effort to see your work in a new light. Taking as many opportunities as you can to do this will inevitably result in a stronger, more satisfying story.

Revising and Editing: Get feedback

When you’ve reached the limit of what you can accomplish yourself, it’s time to get feedback on your work.

The important thing is knowing when you’ve reached this limit . Most people should not seek feedback when they’ve finished the first draft. Why? Because the work is in a far more vulnerable state. You need to give yourself time to revise and edit using only your own expertise.

In other words, you need to bring the work much closer to your vision for the work before other people see it. Letting people in too early could result in feedback that changes the story as a whole, and brings it further away from the vision you have for it.

Give yourself a few revisions before you start getting feedback on your work. Trust in your own instinct and artistic vision. Feedback should help you reach that vision; anything that alters it doesn’t belong in the final draft.

Here are some things to ask yourself in both the revising and editing stages of your work. 

• Does the writing begin where it should?
• Does the juxtaposition of different ideas enhance those ideas?
• Do the characters of the text represent different ideas and messages?
• Do the settings represent certain themes and ideas?
• Do the settings impact the characters’ decisions?
• Is the plot shaped by conflict?
• Is the narrator clearly defined?
• Does the story’s mood complement the story itself?
• Does the story have a clearly defined climax?
• Do certain characters transform by the end of the story? (If not, is that intentional?)
• Is every word the right word to describe a certain image, idea, or sensation?
• Does my writing flow when spoken out loud?
• Do I use sonic devices to make the writing more enjoyable? Do those devices enhance the text?
• Do transitions enhance the logical flow of plot and ideas?
• Have I employed the “show, don’t tell” rule consistently in my writing?
• Do I have a good balance of showing and telling?
• Do I use metaphors, similes, and analogies to illustrate ideas in thought-provoking ways?
• Does the dialogue sound like it was spoken by a real person?
• Does each character have a distinct voice, separate from the voice of the author?

Get Tips for Revising and Editing Your Work at Writers.com

Revising and editing your work isn’t easy. Make it easier with feedback from the instructors at Writers.com. Take a look at our upcoming online writing classes , where you’ll receive expert guidance and instruction from our roster of successful, stylish authors.

Sean Glatch

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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Jan 13, 2022

9 Editing Tips: How to Self-Edit Your Own Writing (+ Checklist)

While some projects require professional editing , there’s a lot that you can achieve through self-editing. As you become more familiar with grammar rules, good writing habits, and your unique voice. 

Starting your self-edit can be pretty daunting, so we’ve put together some pointers to help you along. Before you get started, we recommend downloading the below book editing checklist to follow along. 

FREE RESOURCE

Get our Book Editing Checklist

Resolve every error, from plot holes to misplaced punctuation.

And without further ado, here are the 9 tips for self-editing your own writing!

1. Get some distance from your writing 

2. choose a suitable style guide, 3. eliminate most instances of passive voice, 4. cut out filler words where you can, 5. replace adverbs with stronger verbs, 6. vary your sentence structures, 7. be intentional with your tenses and povs, 8. always read it one more time, 9. ask someone else to give it a proof.

Whether it’s just an hour during your lunch break or a week off working on another project, stepping away between your first draft and your first edit will help you view it as a reader would. You may need to cut out some of what you thought was your best writing, so some objectivity and distance between you and your work will make this much easier. (And if you want to keep your mind active without thinking about your writing, try some of these editing-related podcasts !)

Top Tip: Changing the font can help you see your work in a new light!

A professional copy editor will always follow a certain style guide depending on the project. While you’re self-editing, they’ll help familiarize you with grammar rules and ensure you stay consistent throughout. 

For example, the Chicago Manual of Style is typically used for novels. The AP Stylebook, on the other hand, is common among copywriters and journalists. If you’re writing something truly out-of-the-box, you may develop a stylesheet specific to the project that lays out any unique spelling and grammar rules.

Take the sentence: 

He found a ten year old copy of The Hunger Games.

With Chicago , ‘ten-year-old’ would be hyphenated as a compound adjective, and the book’s title would be in italics.

He found a ten-year-old copy of The Hunger Games.

In AP, only numbers up to nine are written out in full while book titles should be in quotation marks.

He found a 10-year-old copy of “The Hunger Games”.

Free course: Self-Editing

Learn the skills to copyedit your own writing with this 10-part course from ProWritingAid's Lisa Lepki

Knowing the difference between active and passive voice will help keep your prose strong and engaging for your readers. Writing teachers commonly recommend active voice — this means that the subject of your sentence is performing the verb’s action, making your sentence more direct and active. 

The sentences in the example below mean the same thing, but the first is much more direct and packs more punch than the second.

This doesn’t mean you should never use the passive voice, but keep an eye out for it and ensure you don’t overuse it. 

When we give presentations, we’re taught to avoid filler words like ‘like,’ ‘okay,’ or ‘so’; this rule also applies to writing. Fillers crowd your sentences without adding any extra meaning. Just like overusing passive voice, they reduce the impact of your work and tax your readers, so they are pretty much always found on editing checklists suggesting ways to finetune your writing. 

Reading out loud or using text-to-speech functions often helps you hear unnecessary words. You can even ask someone to read your work to you, giving you a second pair of eyes before you move on to the next stage in the editing process .

Adverbs are another type of word that often weakens your writing. In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King recommends removing them entirely, claiming that they’re just a quick-fix solution for when you can’t quite find the right verb. Instead, seek out that perfect verb which will make your writing more dynamic.

Adverbs are commonly overused in passages that are pretty heavy in dialogue :

‘She said quietly’ →  ‘she whispered’

‘He said loudly’ →  ‘he shouted’ 

Of course, you don’t have to follow King’s advice to the letter, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for ‘ly’ words as you re-read and edit your work.

Too many short sentences can make your prose look like one long list, while too many long sentences become confusing. Varying your sentence structures and finding a balance is difficult but well worth the effort. Keep your eye out for consecutive sentences that start the same way — they can have the unintended effect of sounding like you’re droning on and on and on.

Once again, it can help to read your work aloud — if you find yourself struggling for breath, it could mean that you’ve hit upon a sentence that’s too long. See if turning your run-on sentences into two (or more) shorter ones would be better.

For example:

Carrie told Alan about the time she went to Europe and returned a stranger’s wallet perched on the edge of Rome’s Trevi fountain only to be rewarded with an invitation to a dinner party that night, hosted by the delighted owner.

You may wish to split this mouthful up into:

Carrie told Alan about her time in Europe. She had returned a stranger’s wallet that she found perched on the edge of Rome’s Trevi fountain. Delighted, the owner invited Carrie to a dinner party he was hosting that night.

Work out whether past or present tense is best for your work and from which point of view you’re telling it. If you inadvertently switch between tenses and viewpoints, you’ll confuse many of your readers. Of course, some stories are purposefully written across multiple timelines or perspectives and if this is the case with yours, make sure you’re absolutely certain you’re using the right one at the right time.

‘Tom goes to the cinema. He saw the new Brad Pitt film.’

‘Tom went to the cinema. He saw the new Brad Pitt film.’

Try mapping out your story as a whole, in chronological order, from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, and then work out which parts will use each tense or point of view.

When you think you’ve done all you can, put your work down and take another break from it — again, this can be anything from a couple of hours to a few weeks. When you’re ready, go back and read through it one last time.

With this newfound distance, you’re almost sure to spot mistakes you missed the first time. You could find anything from spelling mistakes to chronological inconsistencies that you didn’t catch when focusing on some of the ‘bigger picture’ issues. 

True objectivity is hard to achieve, try as you might to create distance between yourself and your work. Roping in a friend or family member to read it through is a great last step. They’ll spot mistakes you didn’t see and question things that might only have made sense to you, the all-knowing author. Plus, they’re likely to deliver the feedback without being too harsh. 

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Editing your own work isn’t easy, whether you've got an editing checklist to help you or not. Finishing your first draft is already a huge accomplishment and it can be hard to admit that something you’re so proud of isn’t perfect. An editing checklist can't beat a professional edit , but starting with a self-edit is an empowering way to start the process and will only make your work better in the long run. 

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Cheat Sheet for Grading Creative Writing

A cheat sheet for grading creative writing can be a useful tool for teachers and instructors who are looking for a quick and easy way to assess the quality of their students’ writing. By providing a set of guidelines and criteria to follow, a cheat sheet can help instructors quickly and consistently evaluate the creativity, organization, and overall effectiveness of a piece of writing. This then allows them to provide constructive feedback and support to their students as they work to improve their skills.

Why is Grading Creative Writing so Difficult?

Grading creative writing can be challenging for instructors. It’s often very personal and subjective, which makes it hard to assess using traditional grading systems. Plus, creative writing can be complex. It can involve a lot of emotions, which can be difficult to capture in writing. Additionally, the field is constantly changing, making it hard for instructors to stay on top of new styles and techniques. Overall, grading creative writing requires a careful and sensitive approach.

Cheat Sheet for Grading

Here are six quick and easy tips to keep in mind when grading your students’ creative writing.

Tip 1: Focus on the Overall Structure and Organization

• Does it have a clear beginning, middle, and end?
• Does the plot flow smoothly from one event to the next?
• Does it pull you along, or do you lose track of what’s happening?

Tip 2: Pay Attention to the Characters.

• Are they well-developed and believable?
• Do they have distinct personalities and motivations?
• Does the protagonist have any flaws or are they perfect?
• Does the antagonist have any redeeming qualities?

Tip 3: Look for Strong Descriptions and Sensory Details.

• Does the writer use vivid language to bring the scene to life?
• Does the writer use more senses in descriptions than just sight?
• Do the setting descriptions help set up a mood for the writing?

Tip 4: Consider the Use of Dialogue.

• Does it sound natural and add to the story?
• Does it give insight into the personality traits of the characters?
• Is it written correctly, following punctuation and paragraphing norms?

Tip 5: Evaluate the Writer’s Style and Voice.

• Does the writing have a unique and engaging tone?
• Could you tell which student wrote the piece just by reading it?

Tip 6: Look for Creativity and Originality

• Does the writer have fresh ideas?
• Is there anything unique about this writing from that of other students?

Final Thoughts and Freebie

Overall, the key is to provide constructive feedback that will help the writer improve and grow. It’s important to remember that creative writing is a form of self-expression, and everyone has their own unique voice and style. As a grader, your job is to help the writer hone their craft and develop their skills.

If you have any advice for grading creative writing, please put it in the comments below. Also, here is a free checklist to help you have a grade for each student’s creative work. It’s available in both an editable PowerPoint and a quick print PDF.

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Editing Checklist for Self- and Peer Editing

About this printout

This helpful tool will give your students the opportunity to edit their own writing and then observe as their peers edit the same work.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try, related resources.

Before you begin, be sure to model and discuss each step of the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing), preferably using a whole-class story or class newsletter article. Please note that the revising stage precedes editing. Student should have already worked through content revisions before reaching the editing step. When they are ready for the editing stage of the writing process, students should edit their writing and then meet with a partner to engage in peer editing. Prior to having students use this tool independently, it is important to model its use. To do this, display sample text on an overhead projector, document camera, or SMART Board so that all students can view it. Model the use of the self-edit column with the displayed text, with you assuming the role of author. Then have a volunteer fill out the peer-edit column so that all students can hear and view the process. Finally, discuss what went well and what could be improved in the editing steps that were modeled. This tool serves multiple purposes, including:

• The self-edit step

encourages students to evaluate specific features of their writing, increasing self-awareness of writing conventions keeps the pen in the writer’s hand for the initial editing phase

• The peer-edit step

helps build a learning community in which peers work collaboratively heightens the awareness of various print and grammatical conventions for the peer editor and the author

• Use a fish-bowl technique to allow the class to view a self- and peer-edit session of two of their classmates. To do this, first choose one student to model the self-editing phase. It is helpful to select a student who has a good understanding of the criteria on the rubric, such as proper grammar and punctuation. That student works through the items in the self-edit column as the other students observe. It is helpful to put the editing checklist on an overhead projector or document camera so all students can see the process. After the self-edit is complete, discuss the process with the students. Next, choose another student to serve as the peer editor for the piece that was just self-edited.  Have the two students sit in the middle of the class so that all students can see and hear them as they work through the peer-editing phase. Afterward, include the entire class in a discussion about the process itself and ways in which the editing session will help the author and peer editor improve on their writing.
• Have students work in groups of two or three to edit one piece of writing. The interaction between peers will help make the editing process more explicit. While the students are working in groups, move from group to group to check their understanding of the editing process and use of the checklist. Try to notice groups that lack comments in the “Comments and Suggestions” columns and encourage them to use this section to provide feedback to the writer, particularly for criteria that lack a check mark. To guide them, you could ask, “What do you think you could write in the ‘Comments’ section to help the writer fix this error?” Be sure to tell students that if they are unable to mark a check in the “After completing each step, place a check here” column, they must indicate the reason why they cannot check it in the “Comments and Suggestions” column.
• If your school uses a team approach for grouping students (a group of students who all share the same content area teachers), consider encouraging other team teachers to use this checklist in their respective content areas. Consistency in the editing process will help students understand that the editing process can apply to all written pieces, regardless of the content area.
• Strategy Guides
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This strategy guide explains the writing process and offers practical methods for applying it in your classroom to help students become proficient writers.

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Ten 11+ & 13+ Creative Writing Tips For Excellent Exam Stories

When my students get the hang of these techniques, it makes an enormous difference to their creative writing – but it takes practice.

M y advice for 11 plus stories in this article applies just as well to 8 plus, 13 plus or GCSE … in fact, although I have written with 11 plus creative writing in mind, my suggestions should be relevant at any level.

I’ve been teaching these things to young people for many years, and I hope you also find them useful. Please write a comment if you do!

The creative writing materials offered by 11 Plus Lifeline teach students to use all the techniques explained on this page.

Every writing paper has full example answers, as well as detailed step-by-step discussions, marking guidelines and story-planning advice. Papers are structured to help students develop high-level skills – and just as importantly, to enjoy themselves!

Click on the infographic to view a zoomable version in a new tab:

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1 – Before you write, daydream

If you can see your story’s world in your head, you will be able to describe it powerfully.

If you can’t, your descriptions risk being superficial and your writing uninteresting.

After a little daydream, your next step is to turn it into a simple plan:

THE STORY PLANNING PROCESS

1) the main event.

The first thing to write in your plan is the main event in your story (see point 2 , below). Keep this simple for now.

2) Your Main Character

Next, jot down a few notes about your main character (see point 3 ). What is interesting about them? Try to imagine them sitting in the place next to you. See them clearly in your mind. Who are they, really?

3) Getting There

Now note down some ideas for how you will get to the main event. Make this simple too: don’t write more than a couple of lines.

4) … And Getting Out Of There!

Finally, write a few thoughts about what will happen after the event: why does it matter, and – above all else – how does it affect your characters?

The reason I suggest this order of planning is that when you only have a short time to write, there are two important things which will hold your story together: the main event (what it is about ) and your central character (who gives us a reason to care ).

Everything else should be very simple, allowing you to focus on describing beautifully.

In fact, you can probably guess what the next of my 11 plus tips is …

2 – Keep things simple! In an 11 plus exam story, choose  one main plot event & bring it to life.

If there are too many things happening, your descriptive skills may get lost.

What’s more, once there are lots of dramatic events in a story, many students struggle to write about all of them properly.

Look at this example:

As they walked through the forest a tree fell and nearly crushed them. That was close , thought Claudia. Then they sat down to scrutinise the map.

It’s good to describe the small details of life – and especially with an interesting verb like “scrutinise”.

But if you forget to fully describe big events, such as a tree almost killing your characters, the effect is very peculiar. It implies that a near-death experience is no more interesting than reading a map!

Either give dramatic events their due importance, by describing them powerfully and giving a clear sense of your characters’ reactions, or steer clear of them altogether.

This is often a problem in exam stories with too much action, or with too many plot events in general.

It’s best to structure your story around one main event, which isn’t too extreme. Spend the rest of your time building up to it and showing its after-effects.

3 – Focus on one character

Just as it’s best to focus your writing around one main event, it makes sense to have one core character.

You probably won’t have time to make more than one person interesting and believable in a thirty minute writing exam. If you try, you’re at risk of coming unstuck.

(If you feel really confident, you might manage to develop two characters: a brother and sister, for example. But in the exam itself, ask yourself: Is it worth the risk? )

Make your main character really interesting, and only refer to others in passing.

4 – Put a little dialogue in … but don’t write a play script!

“Because writing dialogue is easier than thinking,” he said.

“That makes sense,” I said, “because otherwise I can’t explain why we’ve been chatting pointlessly for two full pages.”

Dialogue is excellent in an exam piece, and you should aim to include some in every story. However, there are risks, demonstrated by the example above!

Don’t let your story turn into a play script.

Use a little dialogue in 11+ creative writing, but focus on your descriptions of the setting, characters and events.

When you do write conversations, don’t stop describing. Avoid repeating “I said”, “she said”, “Mum answered”, and so on.

Instead, add little details which help the reader to imagine the scene as the characters talk.

Describe how people move around between saying things, the expressions on their faces, and so on:

“Because writing dialogue is easier than thinking,” he replied, a hint of a smile twitching like a worm at the edge of his mouth.

A quick note about paragraphing:

Examiners are likely to expect that a new speaker begins on a new line, if somebody else has already spoken in the paragraph.

This doesn’t happen in every book you’ll read, but it’s a convention – a normal way of doing things – which you are supposed to know about.

Look at this way of writing the example at the top, and think about where a sentence should begin a new line :

“Why are we still talking?” I said. “Because writing dialogue is easier than thinking,” he said. “That makes sense,” I said, “because otherwise I can’t explain why we’ve already been talking for two full pages.”

Now check the original again, to see whether you were right!

And now for the advertising break. Time to run away and make a cup of tea …

RSL Creative Writing is the children’s writing course from RSL Educational, written by Robert Lomax.

It’s perfect for Key Stages 2 and 3 and for 11+ exam preparation, at home or in the classroom. It’s also ideal for anybody aged 9 or above who enjoys writing and wants to do it better.

Click on the covers to learn more and view sample pages from the books:

RSL Creative Writing: Book 1

Rsl creative writing: book 2, rsl creative writing: book 3, the rsl creative writing collection (£40.47), 5 – short stories don’t need an introduction.

Robert was 33. He lived in a small flat with his cat and his wife. One day, he decided to go for a walk to the shops. The shops weren’t very far away: it took about ten minutes to get there. It was a cloudy day. It was the middle of February and it was a bit cold but not cold enough for a scarf. The road was in need of some repairs. He was wearing a blue jumper and black shoes and some fairly old jeans.

You don’t need to introduce your story as though it is a 300 page novel!

The reader doesn’t have to know everything about the main character, and especially not at the start. This way you waste a paragraph, when you might only have time for four or five in your whole story.

Anything that really matters about your characters can be mentioned along the way. In creative writing for 11 plus exams, everything else can be left out.

Get into the main business of your story from the very first line.

6 – Show, don’t tell … Whether you’re writing an 11 plus story, or whether you’re a famous novelist!

In real life, we can’t see what is in other people’s minds.

We have to work it out from what they do – and sometimes from what they say, although this can be very misleading!

For this reason, other people’s creative writing is often most interesting when we have to work out what characters are thinking and feeling.

This makes the characters seem like real people whose thoughts we can’t immediately know.

It also helps to get us – the readers – involved in the story by making us do some thinking for ourselves!

You might initially want to write this:

Simon looked up. He was angry.

But this is much more interesting to read:

As Simon looked up I could see his jaw muscles flexing.

Have a go at re-writing the following paragraph to make it more interesting . You can change things around as much as you like.

I admit: this is the sort of thing which you will sometimes read in a book. It isn’t necessarily  always bad writing, in itself.

However, it is a missed opportunity to bring a character to life. In a time-limited 11-plus exam story, you need to take advantage of such moments.

The rule is:

Where possible,  show me  what a character is feeling … don’t  tell me .

Have a look at my way of re-writing the paragraph above:

All Anna’s thoughts have gone.

Instead, there are some strong clues which steer you towards a particular idea about what she thinks and how she feels: but you still have to decide for yourself.

This forces you to imagine Anna clearly in your own mind.

How does my answer compare to your approach?

7 – Use a range of senses throughout your story

This is good writing. The trees may be “green” (which is a bit dull), but they are “swaying”, which is an effective detail and more than makes up for it.

The simile in the second sentence (“like wisps of cigar smoke”) is vivid and well planned.

The sandwich bag is “crumpled”, and “bag of bacon” is a nice moment of alliteration to emphasise this robust, commonplace item of food.

But imagine a story which continues in the same way, all the way through.

Everything is visual: a sight image.

For the reader, it is like being in a world without the ability to hear, smell, touch or taste.

Furthermore, the narrator seems to be looking around constantly, noticing everything. Is this normal behaviour?

It’s an unrealistic way of seeing the world, and after a while it becomes exhausting to read.

For a student, there are two simple but very useful lessons:

1) Always think about the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell).

2) Sometimes avoid the most obvious sense when describing a thing (see point 8 below).

These tips are easy to apply in your creative writing for 11+, but they make a huge difference.

What’s more, unlike a clumsy simile (see point 9 ), a sensory description rarely ends up  harming  your writing. It can be effective or ineffective, but that’s another matter!

Take the example above:

“The trees were green and swaying”  could become:  “The trunks were groaning, and overhead I heard the dull rustle of a thousand fresh leaves slapping against one another.”

There’s nothing startlingly original here, but because it is a slightly less obvious way of describing trees, it creates a much more powerful atmosphere.

If you want a metaphor as well, try turning  “dull rustle”  into  “distant applause” , which makes the leaves seem like a mass of enthusiastic people.

Similarly,  “I looked at the bag of bacon sandwiches crumpled on the seat next to me”  takes on more life like this:

I smelt something like old sick; then I remembered the bag of bacon sandwiches crumpled on the seat next to me.

Notice how easily similes (“like old sick”) and metaphors happen, almost by themselves, when you focus on describing with a range of senses .

This is one of my most important 11 plus writing tips.

8 – Sometimes describe things using a less obvious sense

Using a range of senses, as I discussed in point 7 , is really, really important.

But how can you come up with surprising, powerful descriptions – descriptions to make the marker stop ticking your work for a second, raise their eyebrows and smile?

Imagine that you are just about to write the following sentence:

It was a cold morning.

But you stop yourself, think for a second, and write this:

I could hear the crackle of thawing ice on car windscreens.

This is much more interesting. Rather than using the sense of touch (a “cold” feeling), you are using a sound: “the crackle of thawing ice”.

There’s a good chance that the reader will think:  “Yes! I never considered it before, but you really do hear a sound when ice thaws quickly.”

This version also tells you much more about the weather:

The reader can work out that the night has been exceptionally cold, but also that the temperature is now rising quickly.

The thought process to produce descriptions like this is much simpler than it seems:

1) Think of the sense which is most obvious to describe the thing you are writing about.

3) Think of the second most obvious sense.

4) Ban that too!

5) From the three remaining senses, pick the one which is most useful.

6) Ask yourself how the thing would sound, feel, smell or taste – whichever three of these you have left (you’ve almost certainly banned sight!).

7) Write about it.

9 – Use similes and metaphors carefully in your creative writing

Similes and metaphors are useful (and can be impressive), but they have to make things clearer for the reader, not create confusion.

“She won the sprint like a racing car” asks more questions than it answers.

Was she noisy? Was she travelling at 150 miles per hour?

On the other hand, “She ducked her head and slipped across the line as cleanly as a racing car” helps me to picture the event exactly as intended.

Here’s another simile for speed, which I’ve seen a great many times (you’d hardly believe how many) in 11-plus stories:

Donald wrote like a cheetah.

Does this mean that Donald wrote savagely and meaninglessly, like a wild animal with a pencil jammed between its claws ?

Or perhaps that he wrote largely about the themes of hunting and sleeping ?

My guess is that Donald wrote quickly , but I’m not sure … because if that’s all you meant, WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY IT?

This sort of thing is not really the fault of a young writer, who after all is (hopefully!) doing their best.

It is the fault of those dastardly teachers who advise children to include, for example, “at least one metaphor and two similes” in each story.

The result of this, for most children, is a succession of poorly chosen descriptive tricks, which add nothing.

Indeed, we’ve seen how these things can end up making a story comical for all the wrong reasons!

The right approach to creative writing doesn’t start with the need to include a simile: it starts with the need to describe effectively .

To me, this means allowing the reader to imagine the situation fully, and helping them care what happens.

Let’s play around with the image of Donald writing “like a cheetah”.

What happens if we just get rid of the simile?

Donald wrote quickly.

OK, but it doesn’t tell us much: did he write quickly because he wanted to finish his story before  Newsnight , or because he was really excited by his work?

Let’s say that it was the first reason: he wanted to get his work out of the way. Perhaps he was feeling annoyed, given that it might interrupt his favourite TV show.

When somebody is writing rapidly while annoyed, what might this look like?

I imagine Donald’s arm wiggling as the pen moves — especially the elbow. The movement is fast and constant because he is worried about getting the work finished, and because in his irritation he doesn’t much care about its quality.

So I ask myself: What moves to and fro constantly, performing a task in an unimaginative way?

And the first thing I think of is a machine in a factory:

Donald hunched over the page, his arm jerking to and fro with the quick, regular movements of a factory robot.

This sentence by itself would go some way to making your story the best in the exam room.

I hope I’ve persuaded you that with a well-organised thought process, a good simile isn’t too difficult to write!

Because children have been taught to work in this way, a story will often contain the required two similes, a metaphor, a personification, even an interesting alliteration …

… but everything in between is lifeless.

What students need is a different sort of checklist, to help them make the rest of their writing interesting .

I hope this article will give you some ideas!

10 – Stephanie was writing a beautiful story in the 11-plus exam hall. Or was she …?

Suspense is good if it’s appropriate to the story, but don’t jack-knife it in clumsily!

“It was a calm, sunny day. Or was it?” doesn’t really make me curious.

It makes me think that you’re trying to pester me into being excited, rather than persuading me to feel that way through your excellent writing.

If you write in a way that builds suspense by making me interested in the characters and events in the story – while keeping some important information hidden from me, just out of sight – this will speak for itself.

However, not every piece of creative writing needs it!

If you found these story writing tips useful or if you have a question, please leave a comment below! I’d love to have your feedback. (Tick the “Receive email updates” box to receive an email when I reply.)

For the most comprehensive range of resources to help with preparation for the 11+ exam,  you might like to try 11 Plus Lifeline (with a money-back guarantee in the first month). Every practice paper has full example solutions, with a detailed discussion and explanation for every question – like being taught by an excellent private tutor. There’s lots of material to help develop creative, high-scoring exam stories!

According to Tutorful, it’s “ the gold standard for independent and grammar school 11-plus preparation ”.

Watch Your First Video Now

Watch your first free 11-plus video straight away. Videos 2 & 3 will reach you by email within a few days.

At the same time, you’ll receive 121 Pages of award-winning RSL practice material, with step-by-step solutions – for free!

I'll also send you some useful information about RSL Educational resources and more advice for exam preparation. You’ll be able to unsubscribe from my emails any time you like.

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89 Comments

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here. I’ll do my best to help you out!

Hi, I’m preparing my son for 11+. His story ideas are good but he needs to add more details/depth. How can I encourage that? Thanks

That’s a very difficult question to answer, because there is so much that I could say! Many of my suggestions are in the article above. The sample at http://digioh.com/em/27284/164929/84za5s4g4u may offer more ideas. If this is useful, then 11 Plus Lifeline offers many further resources.

What’s the syllabus of creative writing for 11plus. I understand there is no definitive one, it varies with target school as well, but still I’d like to know the min types of writing children should be knowing end of year 6 e.g. story writing, descriptive writing, poetry writing, persuasive writing, diary, reconnect, fiction, non fiction writing, script writing, book/film review, blog writing etc. Really confused with the list of categories and subcategories under each. I just need a good structure with every details. Please help with a detailed table of contents.

Hi Jay. I’m afraid I don’t have such a list – because there isn’t one. Schools can set anything that they like! However, I think getting children used to responding to a range of formats is more important than covering everything. The most common formats are probably: 1) A story based on a title or topic 2) A continuation of a passage (usually the passage already used as a comprehension text) 3) A story based on a picture

You provide excellent tips that we can use to guide our children. Done in a very simple but effective way. Even more – as times are hard and money is tight your generosity shows you truly do wish to help children and not just make money out of them. Thank you

Thank you Alison. I’m glad you found the article useful. Robert

Thank you ever so much for your very useful tips. Would you have some advice (or a sample essay) on writing a descriptive essay based on a given image?

Hi Aparna, There is some relevant content in 11 Plus Lifeline. For more along these lines, keep an eye on the website in the autumn …

Hi Robert, I found the article above very helpful. My daughter is in year 5 and we have just started our 11 plus journey. She seems to be struggling air with creative writing. She has such great ideas and an amazing imaginative mind, however she struggles to express this on paper as compared to her peers also studying for the 11 plus. How can I help her become a better writer?

Speaking as she writes might help: perhaps she will write more fluently if she just thinks of it as a way to record her verbal ideas.

My RSL Creative Writing books might help her to develop her ideas.

What is a good range for the word count for a “continue the story” creative writing task at 10+? I see suggestions of 4-5 paragraphs, but paragraphs vary hugely in length. My son is only writing around 150 words, and I fear this is taking “quality not quantity” to the extreme!

It really depends! Sometimes you’ll be given an 8-10 line answer space, in which case that would be appropriate. On the other hand, if you have 30-40 minutes, you should be pitching for 1 to 1.5 pages. Robert

Thank you so much! Very informative

I’m glad to help!

how much your fees for creative writing, and how many lesson? please let me know [email protected]

Hello Hemang. I’m afraid I don’t work as a tutor these days. However, you might be interested in my creative writing books at https://www.rsleducational.co.uk/rsl-creative-writing . These will take your child through their skills step by step, much as I would if I was teaching them. Good luck! Robert

Hi Sir! Sir, you suggestions are greatly useful. Sir, can you assist me on how to incorporate Strong Verbs in my writings as I do not know many and I struggle on account of it ?

There’s no easy answer, but the best starting point is to look for specific ways of describing things. For instance, instead of “he talked”, you might say “he muttered”, for example. You’ll learn more verbs if you look out for them as you read things, and perhaps note interesting ones down in a book. Good luck!

Dear Robert Hope you are doing well , my son is in year 5 and he is going to set for 11 plus exam for very highly competitive grammar schools , he need help for is creative writing . I advice that you are the best , I’m seeking help from you ,please . Yours sincerely Saha Mcewan

Hello. Have a look at 11 Plus Lifeline , perhaps, and my RSL Creative Writing books. I do intend to release some new things for creative writing in the future: watch this space!

Hi Robert. These are great tips. My question is how to come with effective descriptions that vary. When I do descriptive writing, I describe with only the five senses and often run out of ideas. Also, how can we write in a way that will make a clear image in the readers mind. Thanks for the time

Hi Yatharth! My video at https://youtu.be/LKnvrad6jpw is all about this, so why not have a look at that? If that’s useful, look at https://www.rsleducational.co.uk/product/rsl-creative-writing-1

I completely agree with your article, and as a teacher who prepares children for GCSE and the 11 tests, I employ a lot of the ‘strategies’ you mention. What children need ultimately is time to read, digest and above all enjoy stories and poems and then to talk about what they’ve read and in some ( or maybe a lot of cases) relate the themes and ideas etc in what they have read to their own lives. This I feel, can give a greater sense of ‘reality’ to what they can eventually write; and then we as teachers (and parents) can model how to write ‘good’ creative stories (and include all the SPAG) which can go a long way to ensuring children actually begin to feel that they themselves can be imaginative and write great stories.

Thank you for taking the time to comment, Molly. I very much agree with you.

What children need ultimately is time to read, digest and above all enjoy stories and poems and then to talk about what they’ve read and in some ( or maybe a lot of cases) relate the themes and ideas etc in what they have read to their own lives.

The only thing I’d add to this is that it works both ways: reading informs writing, but the very best way to develop critical reading skills is to become more sophisticated as a writer!

Hi Robert,l am a Creative Writing teacher for 8+ Do you think 6+ can be taught Creative Writing that will yield excellent result? I asked this question from my experience of teaching Creative Writing,I observe that more 6+ struggle with understanding and implementing Creative Writing stages than 8+ Also,I teach Creative Writing easily because I believe I have the skills to teach it but how can I come up with a special syllabus to teach my colleagues how to teach Creative Writing in the class that will be result oriented.

Hello Soremi.

I would not think too much about results, if by that you mean percentage scores, when children are 6 or so and developing their writing. I would focus on their enjoyment and on encouraging them to explore their imagination, creating interestingly described characters and environments. It’s a different situation in 11+ exams, where children must demonstrate certain skills and perform well in comparison with their peers.

However, it is very important to encourage the development of accurate and clear English from an early stage. Creative writing is a good opportunity to uncover and address problems.

I found this very useful and straightforward, and also very funny… The tips will take me flying in my writing!

Thanks Lily-Grace. The work you sent for me to look at this week was very impressive: you’re already flying!

Thanks Robert this description is very helpful

I’m very glad it’s useful. Thanks for commenting!

Hola me gustaria hacer unas infografias mas dinamicas

Thank you for the topic

It’s a pleasure. I hope the advice helps.

I thought that this was a brilliant summary. Thank you very much. Engaging and thoughtful. Very much appreciated.

I’m delighted to hear it. Thank you!

I found your creative writing tips very insightful, a real shame for us it was right at the end of our 11+/13+ preparation.

Thank you Sara. I hope they made some difference, even at a late stage.

Very useful tips! I like the way you have broken down the advice into bite-sized chunks! Thanks Robert

I’m glad you found them helpful! Thanks for commenting.

Great tips, thanks Robert. Do you have tips on non fictional writing as well? E.g. how a child can do a stellar job when asked to write a suggestion letter to the council. My child struggles with writing on everyday things that she deems uninteresting like describing everday things but is flying when writing on imaginary topics. Thanks in advance.

Hi Tolu. I have some resources for less creative subject matter in 11 Plus Lifeline .

I think the best way to add interest to potentially unexciting things, like letters, is with examples. “I think you should do more to reduce bullying, because it discourages children from studying” is not interesting. “Last week, a boy trudged towards me across the playground, clenching and unclenching his fists, with the dead-eyed look of meaningless aggression that I’ve come to know so well. This is happening too often in our school!” is much more impressive.

Thanks for these tips . Would you suggest any topics for DS to practice .

There are a great many writing topics with fully explained example answers in 11 Plus Lifeline . I might add a blog post with some suggested topics in the coming months. Robert

These SPECTACULAR tips helped me a lot when I was planning and writing a story. I think that these AMAZING tips will help me a lot when I am doing the exam. THANKS Robert!!!!

Thanks Raon! I hope you’ll share the link. Good luck in your exam. Robert

Thanks for the tips to improve the writing skill for the content writers and the students.

Thank you Nihal – I’m glad my advice is useful.

What can I Say?

My son is about to take the 11 + and part of the material is creative writing,

Can you recommend any good material please?

The key is reading and I don’t think he reads as much as he should do

Please advise

Hi Fazal. I would of course recommend my own creative writing material in 11 Plus Lifeline . There’s a free sample here .

Reading is certainly important, but it won’t do any magic without good writing practice alongside it.

If your son isn’t keen on reading, trying to push him to read more may not work. However, you can help to improve the quality of the reading he does do, by discussing it whenever possible in a way that encourages him to think about it in more depth. You can also introduce new vocabulary into your conversations, and so on.

Also, the reading list here may help him to find books that he does want to read!

Hi, my son 11, is really struggling with creative writing, the main problem being he can’t think of anything to write about. he’s a clever boy but more into science and computers. He thinks he can’t do it and I’m worried he’s going to freeze in the exam. how can i get him to access his imagination and not panic. Thanks

Practice is certainly the main thing. If he can start to “access his imagination” (a nice phrase) without exam pressure, he is more likely to be able to do so in the test.

When you say that he can’t think of anything to write about, you’re describing a problem that I can relate to. However, it should not be a big concern at 11+, for the simple reason that the best stories tend to be about very little! If he can construct a simple plot, focused on one event – even something very ordinary and apparently dull – then he has what he needs. From that point, all his effort should be focused on describing well, so that the story creates atmosphere and has a believable main character.

The real problem at 11+ is when children have too many creative ideas. They construct complex, overwhelming plots, about which it is impossible to write well – or even plausibly – in the time available.

Hi Robert Have you got any tips for the CSSE style quick 10 mins Continuous Writing tasks please. These have included instructions, descriptions and this year the exam paper included a picture to write about- what’s happening- story /description?

Many thanks for your help.

This is very difficult to answer in a brief comment. I do have some specially designed resources for these CSSE writing tasks in 11 Plus Lifeline , if that is of interest.

If writing creatively, keep the plot to an absolute minimum. Imagine that you are describing a ten second scene from a movie – not writing the plot for a whole film. Focus on effective use of the senses, in particular – very much as I outline in this article. Don’t waste any space introducing your writing.

If describing a picture, the same applies. Focus on details from it, and try to find a logical structure. For example, a character might move around the image, finding things; or you might imagine the scene changing over a period of time.

For instructions, try to visualise the activity as precisely as you can, then use words to convey your thoughts exactly. This will lead to good vocabulary. Rather than saying “Screw the lightbulb into the socket”, say something like this: “Steadying the socket with your spare hand, twist the bulb gently in a clockwise direction until you encounter resistance.” This doesn’t come from trying to be fancy: it comes from very clearly imagining the action before I write.

There is a great deal more to be said, but I hope these pointers are useful.

Great tips and advice here. I have 4 boys, all at different levels of education. This has helped me to help them. Thanks!

That makes me very happy. Good luck to your sons!

Anybody who found this useful might like to read more of my creative advice at https://www.rsleducational.co.uk/creative-writing-less-is-more .

This article is very helpful. Thank you.

Thanks for taking the time to say so!

I found this very helpful, thank you

I’m glad!

Hello Good Afternoon and thank you very much for my help. I am a young child preparing the eleven plus. I don’t necessarily have any questions i just don’t have any questions. Good luck on your educative journey.

Good luck to you, Lukas! Well done for taking the initiative and researching your exams.

I am a 8 years old child and I am doing your 11+ RSL comprehension, do you have any tips that might help me improve my writing? Thank you for your help!

Hi Kate! I’d like to help, but I’m not sure how to. You’ve written this under an article about improving your writing, and you’re working on a book that also helps with this. I don’t know what tips to add here. If you could be more specific, perhaps I’ll be able to say something. Good luck with your work! Robert

Hi Robert! I really like your tips and they did improve my daughter’s writing! Thank you so much!

I’m so glad! Well done to her.

Hi Richard, Does cursive or printed handwriting affect the writing score a 11+ level? Thanks in advance.

No, it shouldn’t make any difference. All that matters is that the writing should be easy to read, and that the student can write reasonably quickly.

Hi there, I am doing 13+, My tutor says that I should not use metaphors or similes, but I think I should. Do you have any advice for me on descriptive writing? And can you explain what a metaphor is?

I think you are probably misinterpreting your tutor. A good simile or metaphor, in the right place, is a good thing, but I would guess that your tutor is concerned that you are over-using these things and that this is distracting you from simply writing well. An alternative is that you haven’t quite understood how to use them effectively. A misjudged simile can look odd: using no simile (or metaphor) is better than using a bad one!

For a good explanation of what a metaphor is, see https://www.grammarly.com/blog/metaphor/ .

Hi, I’m currently helping a student prepare for entrance exams, and I just wondered if you could help me with a question. He was struggling with the timed element of creative writing and wanted to know if he DID run out of time, what would a marker prefer? To just leave the piece unfinished, or to quickly make an ending for the story, even if it meant it was quite an abrupt ending that didn’t necessarily do the story justice?

I think it depends on the marker. I’d prefer an unfinished piece to one with something actively bad in it, like a bad ending. However, can they leave an unfinished ending that nonetheless has something final about it: for instance, zoom out and describe the trees swaying in the distance, or the waves, so that there’s a sense of the world rolling on, despite the events in the story? If this is done well, it might even appear that they intended to finish this way.

great work, keep it up.

Amazing website! The content is wonderful. Highly informative indeed.

That’s brilliant to hear. Thank you!

Do you have to pay to get your work marked?

Yes, that’s right. Most people do it via an 11 Plus Lifeline Platinum subscription .

My daughter is not good at creative writing and I am apprehensive as she writes her pre-tests on 11th November . How do I help her with the following formats?

1) A story based on a title or topic 2) A continuation of a passage (usually the passage already used as a comprehension text) 3) A story based on a picture

Hello! I cover all these things in my RSL Creative Writing books – see https://www.rsleducational.co.uk/rsl-creative-writing You will also find creative writing videos covering these things at https://go.easy11plus.org/VIDEOLIST Good luck! Robert

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Self-Editing Checklist: Improve Your Writing Fast

An effective editing checklist is crucial for good writing. It will help you fix and publish your work faster.

Have you ever written a paragraph in your book, rewrote it, written another paragraph, and then went back and rewrote that too?

And on and on and on…

An hour goes by.

You realize you haven’t written anything at all. All you’ve done is rewrite the same part of your draft.

Feels like writer’s block , right?

For years, I wrote like this. I worked on my stories and ideas, and I spent hours revising and tinkering with my sentences, moving the nouns around and looking for the right verbs. This is a terrible way to write .

In this post, I’ll offer you a printable self-editing checklist and explain how to use it. I also provide tips from a professional editor.

Two Pre-Editing Tips to Consider

Take time off, change the format, let the ink run, read your pieces or chapters aloud, round 1: editing the structure of your book chapter, round 2: editing your book chapter in relation to other book chapters, round 3: line-editing your book chapter, 21 rules for every writer’s self-editing checklist, how many rounds of editing is enough, editing software for writers, books to learn about self-editing, what is an editing checklist, what is the importance of an editing checklist, what is the difference between editing and copy editing, what are the benefits of editing, [interview]: how to work with an editor with neha vaidya of papertrue.

When you try writing and editing at the same time, you’re doing TWO different activities .

The left side of your brain that needs to write and get ideas out of your head and onto the blank page – your internal writer – shies away from your inner editor.

The right side of your brain that takes your first draft and turns it into something that shines – your internal editor – does its best work when you have a complete first draft.

To engage both parts of the brain at once is to indulge in the myth of multitasking. So, allocate one portion of your day to writing ( I like to wake up early ) and another part for revising your work with the right editing tools (I like the afternoons).

Separating both tasks will help you write first drafts faster.

It’s also what most writers do before they send their work to a professional for review.

If you want to get the most out of your time spent editing, consider the following two tips. 

Add them to your usual editing process, and you are guaranteed to see a monumental difference in the effectiveness of your editing.

1. Getting Ready to Edit Your First Draft

After spending weeks or months writing about a topic or story, the work becomes too hot to touch, let alone edit.

When you finish your first draft, let it sit in your computer for a few days (or longer depending on the length of your work).

Swim. Run. Meditate . Eat steak in an expensive restaurant. Take the dog for an overdue walk. Do something that has nothing to do with writing.

This is essential to any creative process.

Your ideas will cool, and your memory fade. Later, when you open up that messy first draft, you’ll look at it and think ‘Oh yeah, I remember this.’

Now, change the line spacing of your work to double-spaced, change the font to Courier New and the size to 12.

Many professional journalists and sub-editors format their work this way because it’s easy on the eye and takes approximately one minute to read a page.  This simplifies spotting mistakes in sentence structure and punctuation. It also gives you plenty of space for writing on your manuscript.

Better, yet download the font Courier Prime . This revised version of the Courier font looks better on larger screens and has all the benefits of its older brother.

Font choice aside, print out your work, sit down at a quiet table and read your first draft in one go.

Confession:  I feel guilty about the paper I use while editing, and I have great intentions to plant a small forest one day.

2. Marking Up Your Manuscript

Remember using peer checklists in school? You’d ravage a classmate’s essay and rip apart their thesis statement until the paper covered in red ink. 

This editing process is the same, except you are combing through your pieces to find and fix common writing mistakes .

Please don’t feel disheartened if your first read-through disappoints. The American editor Sol Stein likens the process of reviewing the first draft to performing triage  on a patient, and that’s what you’re about to do with a red pen.

To get the most out of this self-editing technique, strike through words with your pen, use arrows to indicate where you want to move your sentences and write in the spaces between each sentence.

Your markups don’t have to make sense to anyone but you, and if you’re in doubt about a change, circle the sentence or word with your pen and decide on this edit later.

Unless you have access to a writing center or some eagle-eyed friends who can write and edit, read your pieces aloud.

I sometimes read my pieces aloud and record myself using the voice memo app on my phone.

Then, I listen back to this recording and mark up the manuscript. The act of saying something aloud helps identify problems in a way my eyes can’t.

Now that you have a sense of your manuscript, you’re going to edit it in at least three different ways.

During this round, concern yourself with how you’ve organized your book chapter as a whole rather than the finer points of grammar.

For example, during this edit, I like to read the introduction and conclusion and see if they gel with each other.

Ask yourself:

• Does my introduction and topic sentence invoke curiosity in the reader?
• Do I have an engaging thesis statement?
• Do I invoke at least one of the five senses on each page?
• Are there visual elements in my chapter?
• What’s the weakest part of this chapter? Now, can I cut it?
• Have I included metaphors or similes that, upon reflection, don’t stand up in the narrative?
• Is each of the key paragraphs and sections in this chapter of an appropriate length ?
• Have I suitably broken up each section in my chapters?
• Do I need to reformat my piece or source images?
• Am I happy with the tone of this chapter?
• Are there obvious gaps in my research or stories I need to flesh out?

Like a general surveying the battlefield before marshalling his troops, it’s your job to take stock of your book chapter in relation to the rest of your book .

Address the big problems by asking yourself:

• Do I need to interview  an additional source for the chapter?
• Does the central argument  stand up?
• Have I told an emotional story that resonates with my reader?
• Can I strengthen  my arguments?
• Have I brought an original insight  into the narrative?
• Is the central idea  or story specific to this chapter alone or do I elaborate on it elsewhere?

Ideally, your chapter should fall naturally alongside the preceding and proceeding chapters, be of a similar length and have a title consistent with the tone.

It’s also sometimes pleasing to sign-post or reference different chapters in your book at this point too, i.e. “I’ll talk more about this in Ch.5” and so on.

While editing The Power of Creativ ity , I stepped back and looked at my book as a whole before dumping two unnecessary chapters and starting a new one.

I was less concerned with pretty little sentences or usage of the passive voice than I was with arranging my book in a way that agreed with readers.

Line-editing is like polishing your car. You can spend hours doing it and still be unsatisfied with how it looks. That said, it helps to know the basics.

The rules listed below are crucial for editing any introduction, body paragraph, or conclusion. And they will improve your writing skills .

1. Use the active voice 

The post was edited by me.

I hired an editor to fix my book .

That’s better.

The active voice keeps your articles consistent and crisp. If “were” and “was” frequently appear, you are likely using a passive voice.

The passive voice fails to engage readers and sounds clunky. Instead, place the subject at the beginning of the sentence. 

Read our guide: What is the Passive Voice?

2. Choose a consistent verb tense

Are you discussing the past, present, or future? Try sticking to one verb tense when possible. Instead of saying, “The documents are filed by the employees,” say, “The employees file the documents.” 

3. Avoid telling the reader what isn’t happening

I’m not stating this rule for no good reason. Here are some examples:

• “She didn’t speak.” – “She stayed silent.” 
• “He didn’t go.” – “He stayed home.”
• “The coffee shop never opened.” – “The coffee shop remained shut throughout the day.”
• “I’m not stating this rule for no good reason” – “I’m stating this rule for a good reason.”

4. Revise unnecessary words

Look closely for unnecessary adverbs (there’s one) and pointless adjectives (there’s another). 

Adverbs typically appear as “-ly” words, like closely. Adverbs add unnecessary fluff and can tire your reader out. Instead, opt for a precise noun or verb. Here’s an example – He hastily grabbed the hammer off the table. He snatched the hammer off the table. 

Further, avoid the words ‘up’ and ‘down.’ “He jumped up in the air.” “She sat down in the hallway.” 

5. Eliminate redundancies

Trust your reader’s knowledge enough to leave out redundancies. They will know what you mean.

“He blinked his eyes.” – Instead, “He blinked.”

“She grabbed it with her hand.” – How else would she grab it?

“He nodded his head.” – Instead, “He nodded.”

6. Eliminate clichés like your life depends on it.

Clichés include words, phrases, and events. Don’t be too predictable. 

For example – A woman drops her pen only to be met by the eyes of her future love interest kneeling to pick it up. – We all saw that coming. 

7. Simplify clunky language

Reading a piece aloud helps. If you stumble over a sentence, it probably contains clunky word choice.

8. Attributing dialogue tags? Just say, ‘said.’

She gesticulated. He grimaced. We giggled. “That’s not how people talk,” your editor said. Instead of using a verb to describe a character’s dialogue, use ‘said.’

9. Spot moments of lazy writing

Do you make a living from your books? Or do you earn a living from your books? This rule also applies to the use of which, that , who, whom, can, may, lay, lie, less, fewer, further, farther, in to, and into. 

10. Avoid using the same word over and over and over…

Scrivener and Grammarly will help overused words. A thesaurus is useful too.

Check out our round-up of the best grammar checkers .

11. Kill your mixed metaphors

Your readers are watching you like you’re a hawk. If you’re going to use a metaphor, it needs to make sense. The purpose of a metaphor is to make a concept or idea more understandable.

12. Avoid complicated word choice 

Because your exasperated readers won’t have the inclination to ruminate on your warblings. Your academic word choice may look smart, but you will lose readers faster than you can search for your thesaurus.

Complicated language can further distract your reader from the narrative and disrupt their reading flow. 

13. Use suitable formatting

Put key words in italics and bold, and break things up with lists like this.

14. Review your punctuation

Unless you’re tweeting like Donald Trump on social media, those exclamation marks have got to go!!!

Review all punctuation, including semicolons, commas, a single vs. double quotation mark, double quotation marks, hyphens, and apostrophes. Speaking of commas…

15. Love the comma

“Let’s eat, grandma.” isn’t quite the same as “Let’s eat grandma.” Commas are crucial to correct sentence structure. With that said, avoid comma splices, or rather, connecting two independent clauses with a comma instead of a colon, semicolon, or conjunction. 

16. Remove your modifiers

You possibly include them because they simply sound good. And your reader’s reaction? Really ?! Similar to adverbs and unnecessary adjectives, modifiers provide fluff and lead to chunky sentence structure.

17. Check for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors

Them thar ttypos keep me up at nite. 

Note – Spell check won’t catch grammatical errors like the accidental use of ‘a’ instead of ‘as,’ or not using capital letters for proper nouns, nor will it find the wrong use of words like ‘their,’ ‘they’re,’ and ‘there’. If possible, have a second set of eyes edit your spelling and grammatical errors to ensure the use of the correct word.

Check out our guide to the best spell checker software .

18. AVOID CAPITAL LETTERS

Unless you are using capital letters to capitalize proper nouns or the first word of a sentence, AVOID using them. Capital letters appear dramatic and abrasive. 

19. Cut it down

Brevity is clarity. Cut 10%. Slashing through adverbs, adjectives, modifiers, and unnecessary sentences is a great place to start.

20. Write compelling subheadings

Please, don’t begin with a dull “introduction” and end it with a stereotypical “conclusion”. Headings are the first thing a reader’s eye will spot. Use headings and subheadings as an opportunity to intrigue your reader and lure them in.

Oh, and don’t forget to run the Alien from Mars test .

21. Check for instances of inadvertent plagiarism

Inadvertent plagiarism describes using a piece of research or an idea from another writer without properly citing or referencing the source. It’s a particularly serious issue in academia.

If you’re a worried student writer, you can use a plagiarism checker to review essays for this accidental error.

Great writing is rewriting.

You may write, review, edit and rewrite your drafts many times. Or you may go through this cycle once.

Take it sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph and chapter by chapter. As you self-edit and write (but not at the same time!), your book will teach you how to finish it.

While improving your second or third draft, enlist the help of a family member, friend and ask them to provide frank feedback.

Later on, enlist a professional editor (and proofreader) and ask them to help you turn your self-edited draft into something you’re proud to publish.

That said, some writers rework drafts up until it goes to the printing press, and thanks to lowering cost of self-publishing , you can even rewrite your articles after publication.

But please, don’t get stuck on a merry-go-round  of reworking drafts without an end in sight.

Diminishing returns will set in. Instead, accept that while your drafts will never be perfect, it’s as good as it can be.

And that’s all your readers can ask.

What Else Should You Edit?

The checklist above doesn’t include checking for run-on sentences (besides comma splices), sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, or the proper use of page numbers. 

Well, there are hundreds of elements to check for while editing a manuscript. Therefore, engage a professional editor and proofreader after you have finished self-editing.  

As the writer, it’s your job to eliminate run-ons and sentence fragments. Learning how to do this is part of the process. 

That said, the tips included in the checklist will help you identify mistakes many writers are unaware of. 

This process involves checking for grammar and punctuation mistakes , and also checking for common spelling errors , as these are critical elements while editing and proofreading.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription and get your free checklist.

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Additional Editing Resources

For grammar, style, and proofreading:

• Grammarly – this is my proofreading and grammar checker application  of choice. It includes a style guide and costs USD29.95 per month.
• After the Deadline  is a somewhat less powerful but still useful alternative to Grammarly . It’s free.
• ProWritingAid  integrates with popular writing applications like Word and Scrivener. It costs USD40 per year. Read this review of ProWritingAid vs Grammarly

For improving your pieces:

• Autocrit is a critiquing tool for fiction writers. It costs USD29 per month.
• Hemingway Editor  – this tool will help you figure out which words to cut and which sentences to shorten. It’s free.

Want more? Check out this list of copy-editing software .

• Amazon Kindle Edition
• Coyne, Shawn (Author)
• English (Publication Language)
• 346 Pages - 04/27/2015 (Publication Date)

• Stein, Sol (Author)
• 320 Pages - 01/25/2000 (Publication Date) - St. Martin's Griffin (Publisher)

• Strunk Jr., William (Author)
• 105 Pages - 07/23/1999 (Publication Date) - Pearson (Publisher)

Editing Checklist: FAQs

An editing checklist is a one or two-page document that lists all of the issues to check for, while reviewing a piece. For example, instances of the passive voice, common spelling mistakes and so on. It also provides an overview of tone of voice and house style.

Its purpose is three-fold. Firstly, it can save a writer time while reviewing his or her work before publication. Secondly, it can help an editor create a system for proofreading and for fixing editorial issues faster. Thirdly, you can use this checklist to collaborate with other editors or writers.

Editing is a broader concept that describes everything from developmental editing to copyediting. It refers to the entire process of improving a manuscript. Copy editing describes working on specific sentences and paragraphs so they’re precise and clear rather than the structure of an entire piece.

Writing the first draft is the hard part. Editing is more fun because you can discard parts of an article, web page or chapter that don’t work. You can also clarify your ideas and insert additional imagery, metaphor and even humor. As Stephen King said, “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

PaperTrue provides copyediting and proofreading services to writers, entrepreneurs, and academics. Based in India, the company employs over 100 editors and works with writers, academics, entrepreneurs and executives around the world.

In this interview, CEO Neha Vaidya explains:

• Why every writer should work with an editor
• How to prepare your story, screenplay or book for an editor
• How much editing and proofreading costs
• What to expect from your editor

And lots more

I started by asking Neha to explain a little more about how PaperTrue helps writers.

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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• Academic writing

Checklist: Academic writing

Published on October 16, 2020 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in universities and scholarly publications. When writing an essay , research paper , research proposal , thesis , or dissertation , you have to use academic style.

Use this checklist to make sure you’ve followed academic conventions in style, tone, and structure.

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Table of contents

Other interesting articles.

I avoid informal terms and contractions .

I avoid second-person pronouns (“you”).

I avoid emotive or exaggerated language.

I avoid redundant words and phrases.

I avoid unnecessary jargon and define terms where needed.

I present information as precisely and accurately as possible.

I use appropriate transitions to show the connections between my ideas.

My text is logically organized using paragraphs .

Each paragraph is focused on a single idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Every part of the text relates to my central thesis or research question .

I support my claims with evidence.

I use the appropriate verb tenses in each section.

I consistently use either UK or US English .

I format numbers consistently.

I cite my sources using a consistent citation style .

Your text follows the most important rules of academic style. Make sure it's perfect with the help of a Scribbr editor!

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

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Creative Writing and Editing Checklist for the Sixth Grade

What Is a High School Level Narrative Paragraph?

Creative writing units are a great way for sixth-graders to use their imaginations to discover their voices as writers. Creative writing also provides an opportunity to learn about the elements of an effective story, particularly when students enter the revision process. A creative writing checklist that includes plot, setting and character development, as well as word choice and grammar, can help students become successful editors and evaluators of their work.

An Intriguing Chain of Events

An effective plot is one where the main character deals with a conflict. Fairy tales are a good example; "Cinderella" is about Cinderella getting to the ball, while "Jack and the Beanstalk" revolves around the complications of Jack's decision to trade his family's cow for magic beans. Likewise, students' stories should be anchored by a dilemma that causes the plot to unfold. They can think about what problems their characters are facing in their current draft, then revise to shape the story around finding a solution.

Assembling the Cast

Characterization is the way authors reveal their characters' attitudes and personality. These methods include descriptions of characters' thoughts, actions, behavior and appearance. Students can look through their drafts for examples of effective characterization as well as spots where they could develop their characters more. One way for students to get a stronger sense of their characters is to have them write a brief biography of the character, including his background, fears, likes and dislikes. For example, the main character might be a powerful superhero, but his fear of flight might keep him from using his abilities.

It's All in the Details

Without descriptions of settings, characters and conflict, stories are just a list of events. Readers need to enter the story's world and experience its sensory details and surroundings. San Diego Unified School District's literacy and history department states that good creative writing both entertains readers and gives them key information about the story. Students can read their story drafts and mark use of sensory descriptions with highlighters, then read them a second time and underline places where they need to show rather than tell. Then, they can rewrite these sentences to include the sensory details of the scene.

Radical Revision, Constant Consistency

If there are unresolved plot issues, underdeveloped characters and a lack of detail, the story may need "radical revision," or revision that goes deeper than simple grammar corrections. Since major changes made at the beginning of the story may affect its later events, the University of Missouri High School's creative writing guide suggests that students make sure that the entire story is consistent. For example, if a character is a blonde at the beginning, but magically becomes a brunette halfway through, the student will need to choose one hair color.

Dot the I's, Cross the T's

As a final project, many teachers have students produce final copies of their stories in book form or in a class anthology. The final draft is a great time to pay special attention to grammar, punctuation and especially word choice. Choosing the precise words to describe a situation or for a line of dialogue can make the difference between readers believing the story or finding it unrealistic. If your story takes place in a haunted house, words like "gloomy" and "decrepit" both describe the setting and create a mood through sound.

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• University of North Carolina School of Education: Strong vs. Weak Stories
• University of Missouri High School: Creative Writing for Grades 6-8

Kori Morgan holds a Bachelor of Arts in professional writing and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and has been crafting online and print educational materials since 2006. She taught creative writing and composition at West Virginia University and the University of Akron and her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals.

Scoring Top Marks: 11 Plus Creative Writing Checklist

• Introduction

Creative writing can crop up on 11 plus exams often. But sometimes students can get confused about what the 11 plus exam is expecting of them. They have tons of questions. How do you start a creative writing piece? How do I get the marks? How long does this have to be?

Luckily, we have a guide here to something that can solve all this confusion and get students full marks on their 11 plus creative writing exam – checklists.  

Table of Contents

Why checklists?

The piacademy checklist system, students enjoy getting technical, it helps reluctant writers, here are the main issues:.

Checklists are used for many academic tasks, and creative writing is a common one. Are they really effective? Absolutely! 

This article from PiAcademy will explore why checklists are used and how to use writing checklists to improve student writing in the classroom and in the 11 plus creative writing exam .

Check this Out: Top 5 Creative Writing Tips to Score Full Marks

When children have the opportunity to address their own mistakes within the writing process, it makes their learning more meaningful. They can fix mistakes as they go and develop their writing skills that much faster. Think of famous authors like Roald Dahl or Judy Blume. 

Good writers use checklists, revise, and edit over and over again to get it just right.

A creative writing checklist is an effective tool to use because…

• It guides students to develop the skills needed when writing.
• It shows reluctant writers a simple way to include the necessary elements.
• It provides a reference to use throughout the writing process.
• It helps students stay focused on each step of the process.
• It gives students tools for review and peer-editing.
• It ensures students include key elements of that particular type of writing.
• It encourages students to establish organization throughout their paper.
• It reminds students to “check over” their paper for effective revising strategies and proper editing rules.
• It holds students accountable by providing expectations.
• It keeps students on task.
• It ultimately helps significantly improve students’ writing.
• It can help communicate the criteria of an effective paper to parents.

Don’t just take our word for it! Research from prominent universities backs it up:

“Kathleen Dudden Rowlands recommends using checklists to support student learning and performance. Well-designed checklists identify steps students can take to complete complex tasks which scaffold students’ metacognitive development and fosters the confidence and independence needed for internalising these steps for future tasks.”

When it comes to these ‘tasks’, creative writing for the 11 plus exam is no different. It might seem intimidating because of the number of marks. But the people marking the exams are using checklists too! They have their own criteria they have to follow to give out the marks.  All of PiAcademy’s 11 plus creative writing resources are built around this system, and here’s how it helps you get the marks.

So how does the system actually work? How does it help your child get higher marks on the 11 plus exam?

It Helps with Planning 

The starting point for our checklist system is based on a topic students overlook – planning. 

It’s a major reason why children take the 11 plus exam drop marks for no reason. No one wants to read a story that doesn’t make sense. So why would the examiner? They are going to read hundreds of these exams, remember. If they’re reading something that’s nonsense, it won’t go well for the student. 

Planning is an important part of the fiction writing process. Many professional writers use a plan as the basis for a first draft, which they will later edit several times before the work is complete.

Planning and proofreading should bookend your creative writing process. In the planning phase you prepare your ideas and narrative structure. As you proofread you check how well your writing is working. During each phase you might focus on vocabulary and effective forms of expression. The PiAcademy checklist is all about the student knowing exactly what is going to happen in the beginning, middle and end of the story. It even explains what your story should be doing at each stage in clear terms, so your child will never be missing a story structure ever again.

Ever enjoyed reading a grammar textbook cover to cover? Me neither. And with the checklist system, your child will never have to overthink how they build their sentences ever again. 

Something all 11 plus examiners are looking for is the technical ability, and creative writing is no different. But it can get overwhelming. Just showing students examples isn’t enough. They need to know they can use it in their own writing. 

For example, using a variety of sentences can help you to create pace and tension in your writing. Students must experiment with different sentence lengths and types to build atmosphere, mood and suspense. 

However, getting over this hurdle is easy when they prioritise different parts of the PiAcademy checklist. 

The checklist has a clear breakdown of all the different sentence types, with examples, so students aren’t left trying to do too much at once. Plus, the language used is simple enough for students to understand. 

Too many mark schemes use terms that confuse students rather than help them. A creative writing checklist on the other hand is designed for students to constantly reference.

Teaching creative writing for the 11+ creative writing exams can be incredibly difficult. I’ve discussed some of the issues previously, but the most frustrating thing I think is when students suggest they aren’t creative and so justify themselves not doing any writing. 

The inevitable disruptive behaviours then can become a nightmare to manage. Checklists introduce a pragmatic approach, with success, in getting students to produce quality responses in specific time frames.

• Students who withdraw from the writing process undoubtedly lack the confidence to write, which is because they lack the tools to do so. 
• There are numerous commentators who implore parents to provide consistent opportunities for students to write, thereby building their confidence in the process and concurrently developing a love of writing. 
• Chris Curtis‘ notable 200-word challenge is a prime example, where students are encouraged to write from a prompt but crucially without the fear of it being marked within an inch of its life, avoiding any self-consciousness and allowing a freedom of thinking. 

With a checklist like the one from PiAcademy , you don’t need to worry about reluctant writing, it's designed to get students into the task as soon as possible.

For example, if you have a child who is more geared towards mathematics or science than English, checklists can be a real help. They link to the mechanical part of the brain that likes to do things by steps or in a process.  

When each aspect of the mark scheme is broken down into plain language, many 11+ tutors have found that this helps with confidence over time. When a reluctant writer can focus on one section at a time, it cuts down on confusion and leads to higher marks. 

It helps great students, too. 

When we see students needing more than one experience of the modelling process, it reminds us that it’s not easy to write a successful story, and it takes lots of practice, even for the very best students. 

An inexperienced tutor would be guilty of rushing the process and have students writing independently too quickly, especially when 11 plus exams loom.

It’s easy for many parents to say, ‘just try your best, and get full marks’. But even the very best students need that help and support to get them over the line. Maybe there’s just one element of the mark scheme, like higher-level vocabulary , they need to meet. 

Having the checklist in front of them provides a scaffold to embed the final few parts of the mark scheme they need to get the very highest marks. 

Having examples of things like figurative language there to spur them on, can lead to increased creativity.

In some ways, this can be one of the trickiest parts of the exam to prepare for. There are not a great deal of high-quality resources available for parents, and the time pressures can really get to some students. 

Pupils will however find that developing a full description bank of characters, emotions, action, the natural world and the built environment etc will help them to deliver effective and creative descriptions on the day.

That’s why PiAcademy’s creative writing courses are so valuable – they have hints, plans, checklists, and structures in place to help students build up their confidence: 

• Specifically designed to prepare for independent and grammar school exams
• Great practice to improve your child’s imagination, writing skills, and performance in the exam 
• 23 Creative Writings - Designed by oxford graduate tutors

No matter which of these topics you want to make a start on, take a look at what PiAcademy has to offer.

The checklist ensures you cover essential elements for scoring full marks in 11+ Creative Writing.

It provides a structured approach to crafting compelling narratives.

Yes, it's designed to enhance Creative Writing for various 11+ exams.

Yes, you can conveniently access it online.

While it's a valuable tool, performance depends on overall writing skills.

Utilize the checklist as a guide to ensure you include critical elements in your Creative Writing, increasing your chances of success.

• Using PiAcademy for 8 months, Simply Amazing website. I have a lot of experience with other 11 + resources and found it hard to find any more difficult Math papers appropriate for the more independent academic schools. These exam papers are amazing, and very easy to follow with the thorough solutions. highly recommended for every parent. Sharon King , 11+ Parent Great, My daughter is taking her 11+ next month so we are using these papers to revise over the summer holidays. These topicwise questions are well set out and is a great practice for my daughter. These papers are a perfect way to help your kid to be as prepared as they possibly can for the 11+ exam. Amber , 11+ Parent
• Excellent, This website is perfect, initially i wasted three months just thinking whether to subscribe or not, After subscribing i found out that it was worth it. I recommended to almost all my friends and their kids are also busy now in practicing for 11+ El Loro , 11+ Parent Practice makes perfect!, PiAcademy have come out with a super range of new 11+ practice papers, designed to stretch, challenge and test your child for forthcoming entry examinations. The topicwise questions include numbers problems, algebra, geometry, probability, permutation and combinations, measurement...etc lana green , 11+ Parent
• Great exam papers. These test papers are amazing, they are a lot more up-to date than some of the 11+ stuff I have bought earlier for my daughter. gerry , 11+ Parent Using PiAcademy for 8 months, Simply Amazing website. I have a lot of experience with other 11 + resources and found it hard to find any more difficult Math papers appropriate for the more independent academic schools. These exam papers are amazing, and very easy to follow with the thorough solutions. highly recommended for every parent. Sharon King , 11+ Parent
• Using PiAcademy for 8 months, Simply Amazing website. I have a lot of experience with other 11 + resources and found it hard to find any more difficult Math papers appropriate for the more independent academic schools. These exam papers are amazing, and very easy to follow with the thorough solutions. highly recommended for every parent. Sharon King , 11+ Parent
• Great, My daughter is taking her 11+ next month so we are using these papers to revise over the summer holidays. These topicwise questions are well set out and is a great practice for my daughter. These papers are a perfect way to help your kid to be as prepared as they possibly can for the 11+ exam. Amber , 11+ Parent
• Excellent, This website is perfect, initially i wasted three months just thinking whether to subscribe or not, After subscribing i found out that it was worth it. I recommended to almost all my friends and their kids are also busy now in practicing for 11+ El Loro , 11+ Parent
• Practice makes perfect!, PiAcademy have come out with a super range of new 11+ practice papers, designed to stretch, challenge and test your child for forthcoming entry examinations. The topicwise questions include numbers problems, algebra, geometry, probability, permutation and combinations, measurement...etc lana green , 11+ Parent
• Great exam papers. These test papers are amazing, they are a lot more up-to date than some of the 11+ stuff I have bought earlier for my daughter. gerry , 11+ Parent

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