 Creative writing is arguably the hardest part of the English language exam, and that's probably why it carries so many marks. Now, a lot of students tend to waste very valuable time, especially during the exam, literally staring at the blank paper in front of them. They either go for an image or a statement where they have to write a creative story based on that, and they find that it's really hard to even gather their thoughts together, what kind of structure, what kind of framework should they use, and even getting into the story in the creative writing piece. So what I want to do is to offer you a framework, a framework that you can use for every single creative writing question, whereby you first, you don't lose time, very valuable time during your assessments when you're going into your creative writing story. However, most importantly, secondly, this lesson in this video is gonna be the first in a series where I'm gonna be going over really useful phrases you can also include and different types of settings you can apply when it comes to your creative writing story. Now, what I want to first offer you is a framework to adopt for every single creative writing story. This framework is the Story Mountain Framework. It's also known as Freetag's Pyramid. Now, lots of you have probably heard about it from primary school. Maybe in primary school you're always told right according to Story Mountain. And then, you know, this wasn't really mentioned in secondary school or thereafter. However, I'd like to suggest go back to basics and use that framework. And more specifically, see your creative writing story is split up into five separate paragraphs or five separate sections. So you've got your beginning paragraph, your build up problem resolution and ending. I would suggest adopt that framework every single time for creative writing. Now, let's go over the Story Mountain Framework first off. Now, as I suggest, always start off with your creative writing story with a beginning paragraph. It sounds really obvious, but what really goes into your beginning paragraph? Now, as you can see, your beginning paragraph starts here at the bottom of the mountain. This is where you establish your setting, you establish your weather, and you also establish your character, your protagonist. Okay, so this is your main character who's gonna go on this adventure and maybe encounter an obstacle. I would suggest for your beginning paragraph when you start off your story, start with a really good use of pathetic fallacy to establish the sense of mood. If you wanna start off by describing something that's maybe hopeful, really happy, start off by describing how the sun's rays or the sun's volts of light are beaming down either onto your protagonist, your narrator, or maybe the filtering in through windows in a room, whatever, okay? But make sure your beginning paragraph, so this is paragraph number one in creative writing, start off by establishing the setting, the weather, and of course also establishing your main character, your protagonist, okay? Now, in your second paragraph, which is your build up paragraph, this is where your main character goes on an adventure. Now, hopefully you've noticed that I'm saying main character. I'm not saying characters because one common error that a lot of students make when it comes to creative writing is they try to overcomplicate it. They try to make it, they assume that maybe in a creative writing story, in a really good creative writing story, there's lots going on, there's lots of characters, there's lots of different people moving in and out. And I would suggest that that's the amateur approach to creative writing. The better way to approach any creative writing story is keep it fairly simple, okay? One character maximum, two main characters, if that. But then also, keep it quite simple even in terms of setting. Keep it to one setting and then develop that, okay? Go into lots of detail and go into lots of depth when you're keeping it a bit more simple, okay? So let's go to the build up paragraph. So of course, as you can see, you're ascending up this mountain. The build up paragraph is where your character goes on an adventure. For instance, maybe they're in a forest in the woods and they're going along, picking flowers, really enjoying themselves. This is under the beam of light from the sunshine, okay? So obviously, hey, you're establishing a sense of hope. However, of course, if in your beginning paragraph, you started off with a really negative setting, right? So you're trying to create an ominous, dark mood. So of course, in this case, let's say it's a haunted house, you then use pathetic fallacies such as rain to show that, or even the fog to show that there's something really scary. You've maybe got your protagonist who's standing in front of a haunted house. And in the build up paragraph, they obviously push the old ancient door forward. Maybe the door is off its hinges and they see the darkened interior of this haunted house, right? So that's an example. So that's your second paragraph, them entering the house, right? So let's say it's a haunted house or let's go back to the forest example, the woods example, right? They're walking around, really enjoying themselves, picking flowers. That's still part of a build up, right? And in this case, you're really describing what they can see, what they can smell, what they can hear. Now, in your third paragraph, so now this is the problem that your protagonist or your main character encounters, okay? So they've started off at the beginning at the bottom of the mountain. They've gone up on their adventure, right? The adventure does not have to be anything complicated. They don't have to go from the forest up to the moon, back down to another part in the desert. It doesn't have to be that complicated, okay? So it's literally, they're just going on this really nice adventure problem, which is at the top of the mountain. This is the obstacle that they would face, right? Here you can either introduce a villain, another character, right? So again, keep it really simple. Don't have 20 different villains. Your main character has a sidekick, all of this stuff. You don't even have enough time in exam conditions to do all of this and still make your story not too muddy and muddled up for your examiner to read, okay? Keep it simple. I will suggest, obviously you started off in your beginning in build up with one protagonist. Perhaps if you want the problem to encounter that they encounter being a villain, now this is where you introduce your second character. This is the problem, the obstacle, maybe the villain, they're going through the forest, the woods, and then perhaps the villain, which doesn't have to be a person. So let's say your protagonist is a person. They go through the forest, they're picking flowers, really enjoying themselves, and then suddenly do they encounter a bear? Do they encounter a tiger? Or do they encounter, they hear maybe a hiss, a rattle, and then they see a rattle snake, right? That could be the villain or the obstacle. An obstacle can also be where they get trapped. So let's say if I go back to my example of the haunted house, they enter, they enter this gloomy interior of the haunted house in your build up. Now the problem could be the door that they thought was kind of just open or you know, off its hinges, that door slams shut. Or perhaps they smell something, right? They smell perhaps like cigarette and then there's like a shadow behind them and then suddenly there's somebody that's followed them into this haunted house, right? That is the obstacle that they face. That's your third paragraph. Now, once you're done with your problem, of course, your narrator needs to either, it's the fight or flight, right? They either need to turn around, fight this obstacle, somehow surmount this problem, or they run away from it, okay? Or there's some kind of tussle or something. That's what goes into your resolution paragraph. This is your fourth paragraph. Now that you're going down this other side of the mountain, okay? So of course, going back to my original example of the forest, right? Maybe the person sees a rattlesnake. So what do they do? The resolution paragraph is what they do next, right? So perhaps in the problem, you're describing how the rattlesnake looks like, how it's hissing, how it's maybe standing sentinel, right? It's about to attack your narrator in the forest. Or for instance, in the haunted house, the door slams and then perhaps the narrator is trying to like tug at this door to try and reopen it, right? That's the resolution paragraph. Now, the final paragraph is your ending, okay? So this is now going down the other side of the mountain to your ending paragraph. And maybe you might have noticed, okay? So the mountain starts at this point and the ending is at a slightly different point. The reason being that your story, your narrator always starts at one point. However, by the end of your story, they have to be somehow different. They have to be at a slightly different point. Again, it doesn't have to be where they start in on earth and they end up in the moon. It doesn't have to be that massive of a difference. I wouldn't even suggest to make it that dramatic a difference. It's just what has happened, right? So how have they changed? How does the setting maybe changed? Has it gone from the promise of the sun, the darkness of the night, or even twilight, right? Or has it gone from a really nice balmy day to a rainy day, right? And of course, even the narrator themselves, how have they changed, okay? So in your ending paragraph, which is paragraph number five, this is where, you know, how have things changed? For instance, let's say they, you know, they're chased by the rattlesnake because they're trying to run away from it and then perhaps does the rattlesnake kind of pounce on the narrator? And then the ending paragraph is the narrator kind of, do they successfully like maybe find a branch and then club the snake to death? Or does something else happen, right? Are they bitten? And then suddenly they start slowing down. They start kind of sitting down. Their breath feels too hot and heavy and they find that, you know, things are just, everything around them is starting to get a little bit blurry, right? The world around them is spinning. So this is a negative ending, something bad is happening to your narrator. Obviously with the haunted house, right? So the problem could be the door slams. They're alone in this gloomy place and the door has locked. Your resolution paragraph is they're trying to tug the tug in the door open. And then suddenly in the ending, do they feel like a cold finger tapping their shoulder, right? That could be an ending, something really dramatic, okay? But not too crazy, not too, you know, like they start off in the haunted house, then they're somewhere else, then they're on the ceiling, that this don't make it too complicated, okay? Try to also still make it a bit simple for your readers to follow you. And of course, remember that you want to delve into detail. You want to go into lots of detail with the descriptive writing and of course with the descriptive phrases, okay? So that's your ending paragraph. Now, as I mentioned, there are important hacks to remember when it comes to any creative writing question, okay? So the first thing to bear in mind is make sure for all your different paragraphs in your story mountain, always use sensory language. This is in your beginning, buildup, problem, resolution, ending, this establishes the atmosphere, this establishes the mood. This creates sometimes things like tension. This contributes to maybe also adding a sense of foreshadowing or foreboding for your reader, okay? And of course, remember sensory language is a stuff, language that relates to the five senses, okay? So what you smell, touch, taste, see and hear. And of course, during your creative writing exercise, when you write your five different paragraphs, make sure you have a minimum of five language techniques as well as five structure techniques. And my suggestion would be the following. Make sure you always have pathetic fallacy that can be done in your beginning paragraph, okay? You're establishing the weather, what's happening, the sense of mood. Also for your language techniques, make sure you have at least one simile, at least one form of hyperbole, okay, over exaggeration. Also try to include alliteration if you can. Try to include multiple examples of alliteration and of course, try to include onomatopoeia, which appeals to your sensory language, what you can hear. When it comes to structure, I would suggest definitely make sure you use repetition, as well as listing. Try to include as well, tricholon, these are three separate phrases that are somehow balanced or matched or they're kind of matching each other. Make sure you include a form of ellipsis, not too much ellipsis, but just a little bit of ellipsis within your writing would also really make it powerful. And of course, a minor sentence. This is structural techniques. Minor sentence simply means a one word sentence. So this changes the pace of your writing, it makes it more impactful. Now, as I mentioned, I would suggest using this structure for any creative writing question. However, this lesson in this video is part of a series where when you come back to the subsequent lessons, I will be going over different phrases you can memorize and commit to memory when it comes to different settings, for creative writing. Okay, so make sure you come back and check out my subsequent videos where I'll go over different phrases and different kind of quotes to remember for different creative writing setting and of course, different stories, okay? So thank you so much for listening and I hope this helped.