 Hello and welcome back to another revision video. My name is Barbara and in this video I will walk you through a level 9 response to a creative writing question. Now bear in mind that this question appears in the English language paper 1, Question 5, which is part of section B writing exercise for the AQA exams. So in this video, I will walk you through a strong level 9 model response in relation to a creative writing question. Now for this paper and for this part of the question, I would always suggest spending about 45 minutes as they suggest and allocating at least 10 of those minutes when you read the question and you select whether you're going to go for the creative writing question or the descriptive writing because you always get an option allocating 10 minutes to planning. Now if you go for the story option, try to use the story mountain structure, have a beginning, build up, problem, resolution and ending. That's five different elements that can go into planning your story. Now I've decided to focus on this question. So it states you're going to enter a creative writing competition. Bear in mind that question 5 always uses similar worded language. You're entering a creative writing competition for people who are similar to you. You're going to enter a creative writing competition in a magazine or a newspaper. Whatever it is, you're focusing in on the keywords. It's creative. You're writing a story. And it also states your entry will be judged by a panel of people your own age. So in this instance, it's panel of people. So it will be judged by people who are your own age. Okay. So this is the audience that's going to read your story. Now the story is writer's story. So here you're not writing a description. You're writing a creative writing story about when things turned out unexpectedly. So massive twist in the story. Okay. Now when you highlight these keywords in your question, of course, that's now what guides your planning. And as I mentioned, I would suggest planning using the story mountain structure. If you're not sure what the story mountain structure is, check out the other videos where I go into this in lots of detail. However, I've planned the story. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read through a response to this story. Now, as always, I'll always suggest with a creative writing story. You're not told to give it a title, but I always suggest give it a very simple title. It can either be a rhetorical question and just be a three word title like this unexpected trap, because it's unexpected. The story is about something that's unexpected. And my story will be a trap that's been set for the protagonist, the main character. Okay. The reason why I suggest adding a title, which is not required, but it's desirable to add this is because what you want to do is make your creative story stand out for the examiner. The examiner is going to be reading hundreds of different types of creative writing stories. Most students don't pay attention to these elements. They don't pay attention to, you know, just the small things that really set aside their stories. So I would suggest give it a very simple title. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to read through elements of this story. And of course, I'm going to read through, of course, the whole story, but I'm going to stop every so often and tell you what to bear in mind. So let's begin with the first paragraph. Every day started off with the same routine. I would wake up, get dressed and go to work. I had few friends at work and my days were always solitary. Yet this all changed a few weeks ago. Lola, a young secretary, started working in our company. She joined as a receptionist and took a keen interest in being close to me. Today as I walked in, I noticed she was pale. What's wrong? I asked as I passed her. You look as white as porcelain. I was up late last night researching about my new job. Lola replied sadly. What are you doing after? Let's go out for some drinks. I beamed at her as I went to my desk. Lola entered my life like a ray of sunshine. Yet I noticed that since we became friends just a few weeks ago, strange things have been happening. Work colleagues have been avoiding me. My manager had been giving me strange looks. Items from my purse had gone missing. My phone was always glitching. Yet I pushed these thoughts from my mind as I went through my day and later joined Lola for drinks in the evening. Now I'm going to stop there. So as you can see in my opening paragraphs, I am setting the scene. My first paragraph I've mixed up. Here's a few stylistic elements. Here's a few things. When I say stylistic, it's just the style of writing. Here's a few things you can add to really create a top level nine writing and a top level nine response to a creative story. Mix up your sentences. Firstly, as you can see here, my first sentence from the opening of my story is a simple sentence, a short sentence. My second sentence is a complex sentence, a brief complex sentence I would wake up, get dressed and go to work. Now what this is doing is I'm changing the pace already of the text. Now I'll begin by a simple sentence and a compound sentence and a complex sentence. And then I'll go into more detail. And the scene that I painted my first paragraph is me as a protagonist or writing using first person perspective. My life was quite boring, very drab. But then this changes. When someone new joins my company called Lola, she's a receptionist and she completely changes my life. Now as you can see here, what I've done is I've added dialogue. But notice I'm not overdoing it. Okay, when you add dialogue, this is good again, because you add color to your story, we can hear the character speaking. But try not to over rely on dialogue as a way of explaining your story dialogue just gives us a bit more about the characters, the kind of personalities they are. But this does not replace the need for you to describe what happens, the events that happen. Okay, so keep the dialogue light. Now I then add an element of tension. So here this is my beginning, okay, including the dialogue. And this is my build up. I'm describing how Lola entered like my array of sunshine into my life. And of course, this is a simile. Okay. Also another thing that I do is I've used, you know, commerce of listed, okay, young secretary started working. I've used lots and lots of detail to describe Lola. Okay. However, in my build up in this paragraph, I add elements of tension. Since someone who's so amazing has entered the narrator's life, the main character's life. Suddenly, whilst on the one hand, their life is amazing, because now they've got a really good friend and they're no longer alone. People start avoiding them. Okay. And I then list all the different things again, using simple sentences items from up as gone missing. My phone was glitching. But then I've mixed in a complex sentence. Yet I pushed the source from my mind as I went through my day and later joined Lola for drinks in the evening. Okay. So now I've got my opening, my beginning here. And then I've got my build up here. Okay. So let's carry on. As we stepped out, the wind howled and the sky began to turn a scarlet red. We quickly held a taxi and headed off towards a bar. As the taxi came to a halt, Lola jumped out of the car and said she was getting the first round of drinks. I gleefully accepted and paid the taxi driver before walking in. We quickly settled and began drinking. However, seconds after my first sip, the floor began to spin like an optical illusion. And my head felt heavier than a boulder. Before I could finish my sentence, I collapsed the floor and everything around me turned pitch black. Now in this paragraph, this is my problem. Remember I said in your story, you want to begin with the beginning where you set the scene build up. As I mentioned here, this is my build up. I'm adding tension. But now here's my problem. The narrator, the main character has now gone to drink. Lola gets the first round of drinks and then suddenly they collapse. Okay. And again, pay attention to the language scarlet scarlet, which is another way of saying red. I also use lots of different descriptive words. So for example, gleefully accepted adjectives. Also, as you can see here, more similes, heavier than a boulder. Okay. And then before I could finish my sentence, I collapsed the floor and everything around me turned pitch black. Okay. So of course, going back to the keywords, this is a very unexpected thing that happens on that particular day. Okay. So now we're in the problem. So let's see the next paragraph. After what felt like hours, my eyes blinked open and everything was blurry. I slowly looked down and felt intense cutting pain around my wrists and shoulders. I tried to scream, but realized there was something blocking my cries. I looked around me and saw that I was bound to a mahogany chair and gagged with a fluffy sock. As I gazed up in horror, I saw Lola standing before me. A dark tear of mascara ran down her cheeks. Patches of sweat formed around her beige blouse and tightly clutched in her hand was a glistening, sharpened knife. Now here we're still in the problem. Okay. When I get in towards the resolution or maybe a cliffhanger. Okay. Now, as you can see, I now realized this unexpected thing has been as a result of Lola herself. Okay. Now, what I want to highlight here is firstly, I'm describing how she looks like. Okay. So dark tear of mascara. I'm listing. Okay. Patches formed, patches of sweat formed around her beige blouse, glistening sharpened knife. Also, you've got the litteration, beige blouse, lots of adjectives. And of course here, the narrator, the unexpected thing is that Lola has gagged and bound her and now the narrator's somewhere where they don't know. Okay. So they initially collapsed here and now they're in a place they don't know. Okay. So now let's see how the story ends. I desperately try to free myself from the chair. Loud creaks echoed in the room as I stamped my feet on the cracked floor. There and then I realized that Lola did this for my job. The interview she'd been talking about was to replace me and all the uncanny events that took place was linked back to her. This was the final piece of her plan and she had sadly succeeded. With me out of the picture, she would step into my shoes. As I tried begging for my freedom, I noticed the constant ringing of a phone. My fingertips slid into my blazer pockets. However, I could check her hand grabbed my phone and she violently flung it towards the stained glass window. It cracked the amberglass. Just then I looked straight ahead and realized a shadowy figure lurking behind the window. My heart leapt as I realized this was a setup. I was trapped and this person had been hired to make me disappear. Now here I've ended with a cliffhanger. Now bear in mind I've combined in this final paragraph my resolution and the ending and the ending being of course a cliffhanger. So of course now we realize the unexpected event is the really really good friend that the narrator has Lola is basically they decided to get close to them in order to basically kidnap them and then get the job and take over the job so that she can basically stop being a receptionist and get maybe the higher level job that the narrator has. Now again as you can see I've used a mix of shorter simple sentences and then I've mixed it in with longer sentences. Moreover loud creaks I've used onomatopoeia echoed okay. Moreover I've used sibilance she sadly succeeded. I've used lots of description as you can see here and most importantly I've used lots of color to really really add to the atmosphere to add color in my reader's mind as to how the place looks like and of course there's you know for instance amberglass and suddenly there's a shadowy figure that's lurking behind and the narrator realizes that they've been set up and they're going to be perhaps maybe kidnapped okay and obviously this story has a kind of scary ending therefore I've used ellipsis because we don't know what is going to happen next maybe the story is the beginning of you know a thriller and this is maybe the first chapter the ending and this maybe would make the reader want to read on so this ellipsis would make the reader want to go and see chapter two what happens where's the main character put in okay so of course going back to this I've tried my best to make sure that this story things turn out unexpectedly it turns from someone being very close to a friend and of course this friend is the person that removed this sense of loneliness to this friend betraying them and kidnapping them or at least hiring someone to kidnap them okay so that's really it when it comes to understanding creative writing and of course what I would suggest is do watch over this again you know try to borrow some of the language try to use ambitious vocabulary pay attention when you're writing creative stories to using different sentences in order to change the pace you know shorter sentences speed up the pace longer sentences slow it down give lots of detail you want to use both in balance also you want to use dialogue but very very sparingly okay as you can see there's only this two bits of dialogue and that's it don't overdo it don't overdo it with the punctuation unless it's obviously commas and full stops don't overdo it with lots of ellipses don't overdo it especially with things like exclamation marks try and also keep your language very very ambitious use fairly advanced vocabulary okay so thank you so much for listening and I hope this video helped