Online Reporter
Charles Dube, Highway to Success
WRITE with a clear structure and sequence in sentences and paragraphs using a variety of language features and techniques.
Use a variety of sentence structures to create different effects, with correct punctuation and spelling.
To score good grades in your imaginative writing, you need to use interesting words and phrases that will entertain and have an impact on the reader.
If you are describing characters, you need to bring those characters to life.
Rather than just telling the reader what your character is like — for example, she was miserable and mean — it is more effective and interesting to show what he or she is like, through his or her behavior, speech and appearance.
Another skill that you need to show in your imaginative writing is the ability to use different sorts of sentences and a variety of punctuation. These make a big difference in terms of the effect your writing has to the reader.
Varying your sentences and punctuation can, for example, create suspense, increase or decrease the pace of your writing alter the mood, surprise or shock your reader, make your reader laugh, or even cause your reader prickle with fear.
Using similes and metaphors. Writers use figurative language, including similes and metaphors, to create images in the minds of their readers. This type of language can be used to create vivid descriptions and make characters more life-like.
A simile compares one thing to another, using “as” or “like”. For example, the mischievous student smiled at the trainee and coughed as it climbed the teacher, like a lion who had just spotted its prey! Metaphors, on the other hand, suggest that one thing is another. To change the example above from a simile to a metaphor you could write:
The mischievous student spotted her prey and smiled. She was a lion and the trainee teacher, her next meal.
Another way to bring your imaginative writing to life is to use personification. This is a figurative device that lends human characteristics to animals, things or abstract qualities.
For example: The old banger groaned and coughed as it climbed the hilly road. Cars cannot groan and cough like people, but the use of personification allows the reader to understand that the car’s engine is struggling to keep going.
The next example personifies an abstract quality. “The quiet night time enveloped me, gently lifting me onto a bed of peaceful slumber.” This is explained like this: Night time is a period of time but here it is given human qualities.
Using personification, the reader depicts the night as a powerful and comforting force.
In one of your writing tasks you will have to show that you can write texts in different forms and styles such as letters, poems, articles, speeches, diary entries and nowadays blogs. It is important that you shape your writing depending on who your audience is, and what your purpose is.
Vocabulary choice is important. Try to find the right word to express exactly what you want to say; do not just use the first word that comes into your head. Remain focused on your audience and purpose throughout your writing.
To keep the reader interested in your writing, you will have to dig deep into your imagination. You can find inspiration in all kinds of places.
Think about books you have read, songs you like, or films you have seen. It is surprising that students always talk about songs they like, exciting films they have watched or seen but they cannot apply the same methods in their own composition writing.
They hear the beginning of songs and films, feel them develop to a crescendo, but cannot use the same skills in their own writings. What matters is applying the same in their own writing. To produce good work, try and follow this thought process used by writers when creating their texts. The writer chooses the purpose, for example, to persuade or to inform.
They choose the audience like parents or the elderly people of over 60 years. They choose the style including, which person to use (I/you/he/she/ and tense /past/present/ future. The writer collects information and develops his or her ideas. The writer decides how to structure the text (paragraph and plan).
The writer chooses words and sentences for effect. On terms and definitions, we can add repetition and rhetorical questions. Repeated words or phrases and questions, to make one think but do not require an answer.
Emotion refers to words and ideas that stir strong feeling in the reader. Use statistics, figures that support arguments.
For example, 10 percent of cases were investigated further. Use the power of three. The power of three or more things in a list. Lists can show options, give examples or emphasise reasons.
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