Home > Subjects > English > English level 2 > 2.1 Creative writing > Subject content > Style
- Subject: English
- AS: 90375
- Level: 2
- Credits: 3
- Internal
2.1 Produce crafted and developed creative writing
Style
Style is the combination of words and techniques used to express ideas and detail to make the characters, plot, and setting come alive for the reader. Descriptive writing is based on adjectives. To brush up on basics try the adjectives exercise and go to Verbs and Vocabulary and scroll to 'vocabulary' for more advice.
Poetic techniques such as simile, metaphor, and personification are used to create pictures with words in your writing and help the reader to visualise the subject better. Go to page 6 'Exploring Personification' in "Being There" (Word 113KB) for guidance. Extended metaphors can be used to build on and link both structure and style. The example below of this comes from 'The One That Got Away' page 9 of "Memories are made of this" (Word 127KB).
Paragraph 1: "I feel safe, wrapped in the blanket of darkness under my sky's watery eye..."
Paragraph 2: "Stars freckled the face of that Cyclops sky and seemed to twinkle, to smile, to dance just for me."
This example shows that an extended metaphor keeps the same idea but stretches it to include other ideas or details to help reinforce ideas, mood, and/or structure. For an explanation of extended metaphor see Using Metaphors.
For more information on poetic techniques see 1.1 Produce creative writing – Poetic language techniques.
Sound techniques can include alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm. See the first paragraph of English Urban Myth for an example. Sound techniques have also been integrated in the exemplar 'The One That Got Away', scroll to page 9 of "Memories are made of this" (Word 127KB) to bring the night to life.
Mood is the feeling or atmosphere created by selecting details and words to help communicate an overall impression or feeling of the experience. Mood is reinforced by all poetic, language, and sound techniques.
Think about how the speaker feels in this line:
"Hurry up kids, we'll be late," Mum shouts, sharp tongued.
The mood of panic is signalled by how mum 'shouts' and the feelings of anger or blame are hinted at with her 'sharp tongue.'
Point of view
The connection or relationship the narrator and reader have to the subject matter is indicated by the pronouns used. If you use first person narrative narrator and reader is directly involved, whereas using third person narrative the narrator and reader are more removed from text. You must have a good reason to change the narrative point of view within your written piece. 'The One That Got Away' (page 9 of "Memories are made of this" (Word 127KB)) shifts point of view near the end to help us understand why the fish was freed.
Characterisation is not just what the character looks like, how they act, or what they say, but how they have been created with language to show these traits. Use careful observation to collect detail then select only the appropriate information to create your character. See Task 2 pages 6–8 of "Well Known" (Word 175KB) for exemplars and help with your planning.
Your writing will be more effective if you show what the character is like rather than spelling it out for the reader. Compare the following sentences:
- "As she cautiously drove home from a hard day's work, Mum stared at the road like a judge in the courtroom."
- "Mum was tired and serious when driving home from work."
Sentence A is more interesting as it uses the clues of 'a hard day's work' and the simile of a 'judge in the courtroom' to show rather than tell the reader what her mood is.
See 'Mum' on page 6 of "Well Known" (Word 175KB) to read the complete exemplar.
Dialogue is used to create characters and add a variety of sentences and sound effects in your writing as shown in this example from English Urban Myth.
"Hi George. Whoa, what happened to you?" It was Carol, one of his colleagues.
"Oh, hi Carol. I fell off my bike and the tire's popped."
"Awww, you poor thing. D'ya wanna hitch a lift? The bike can go in the boot."
The use of 'whoa' and 'awww' add sound effects that help to show Carol's caring nature.
