Coming up with something to write about

When coming up with what to write for a given topic, the best way to achieve your goal of writing a piece within the time limit is to write:

• Something 'easy'
• Stories with simple plots
• Based on your own experiences.

By writing 'easier' plot stories, you can focus on writing these 'easy' stories really well. So you:

• Focus your energy and time on writing a simple story really well (the quality of the writing is what you're judged on) as,
• Opposed to focusing your time and energy on coming up with a wonderful and unique plot and not having the time to write as well.

But, of course if you can try and do both that's the best situation. However, the above is a good strategy to implement for your exam.

Here are some ways you will be able to come up with a storyline (plot) to write when you are presented with a topic:

1. Read

One of the best ways to enrich your creativity is to read as much as you can: novels, stories, and anything else that interests you. You may not notice it, but whenever you read you are exposed to new things, you learn new ideas and facts and words, and you expand your vocabulary, skills and horizons.

While this is incredibly valuable, there are also concrete methods that you can apply in your exam.

2. Your own experience

Relating an idea to your experience will help you think about what you can write about it, and how. It will mean that you do not have to make everything up from scratch. It will also help your writing be convincing and believable.

For example, say you are asked to write a story about a brave act. Think of a brave act you have seen, heard about, or done yourself. Maybe your sister did something brave just last week? Maybe you saw a brave act on the news, or read about one in a book?

Once you have an idea, you can think about other things relating to it: who did the act? Where? What was brave about it? What were the problems that stood in its way? What was its result? How did others respond? How did the people involved feel? Once you have worked out answers to these questions, you will already have a lot of information that you can use as a basis for your story.

Of course, even if your story is based on your own real memories or experiences, it doesn't have to be all real: creative writing means you can change things and take the story wherever you want it to go.

3. Word association

Knowing where to take your idea can also be hard sometimes. One way of doing this is through word association, which is a quick way of developing ideas for a story.

Say you are asked to write a story about a balloon.

• Write down the word 'balloon'
• Then write the first word you think of when you think about 'balloon' – for example, 'sky'.
• Now write down the first word that you think of when you think about the second word (in this case, 'sky') – for example, 'bird'. Now you have three words – in this example: balloon, sky, bird.
• Think about a story that could include these ideas: for example, you could write about a girl who flies into the sky with her balloon, but the balloon is accidentally popped by a bird and the girl falls down from the sky. The bird regrets what has happened and helps her find her way home by flying overhead to look for the way.

Examples

Watch video to see worked example/s for the following image prompts:

Topic	Simple Plot
	A wombat who lives deep in the woods aims to cross the train line to the other side but gets scared often.
	Competing in a rowing competition and practicing up to the lead up.
	Attending a concert to see "Death Adda" and feeling helpless when getting caught in a mosh pit.
	Visiting the city from the country and navigating through major landmarks with a map. Losing the map along the way.

Key rules to remember

• Write easy plots so that you can work with the time constraint.
• Use experience, word association and reading as inspiration.

Practice time!

Now, it's your turn to practice.

The questions in this checkpoint are provided to help you develop your writing skills.

To do your practice questions, click on the below to download your question paper. You can print it out or work from the electronic version. We do recommend that you write your answers by hand in a notebook or on paper.

NW-CP8-Questions.pdf

Once you have completed your questions, review the suggested solutions. You can download (and print if you wish) the PDF suggested solutions and/or watch the suggested solutions video (all below).

Once you're done with reviewing the practice question suggested solutions, move on to the next checkpoint.

NW-CP8-Answers.pdf

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