Life & Style | Education
How to be creative with words
A step-by-step approach for students writing in a foreign language.
- By Robert L. Fielding
- Published: 00:00 May 28, 2005
A step-by-step approach for students writing in a foreign language
Every story begins with a blank page. That is the first hurdle to cross - probably the biggest one for students writing in a foreign language.
Your instructor tells you: "Write a story." It sounds easy, but what do you write about? The blank page doesn't help, does it?
So make a start like this. Write down one sentence. Begin it like this: The man entered the room. Now change bits of the sentence.
Now write down some more sentences.
2. The woman entered the room.
3. A woman entered a bank.
4. A woman crept into the bank one night.
5. The burglar crept into the bedroom.
Right, now you have five ideas that would serve as good beginnings. Can you now take one of them and go somewhere with it? The answer is: you don't know until you try.
All this may look too simplistic, but it does work. Getting started is one of the most difficult parts of writing creatively. But words are wonderful things; they make you think of other words - like ideas - which is what they are, parts of ideas, the most basic part.
Learners face added difficulties. They don't have that many words. But is that always true? Even beginners have more words than they think, they only need a trigger to find them.
Sentences like the ones above suggest scenarios, they suggest movement. Movement comes from verbs. The two verbs, "entered" and "crept" suggest two meanings. Why did the person creep into the room? Was he hurt/frightened/not supposed to be there - what?
This is how words start us thinking, because of all the meanings they carry. If a learner knows a word, knows what it means - knows the equivalent in her language, then she can start writing.
Keeping it going
Right away, as soon as the sentence and all the meanings of each word are in the writer's head she pictures the man/woman/burglar going into the room and then all her experiences of the world crowd in to help her.
She knows that the person must have entered the room/bank for a reason, so she files that idea for later. Is the man a bank robber, or is he a victim about to be shot as he disturbs a gang already inside the bank? He might even turn out to be a hero. The writer can feel it.
At that point, she may not have all the words to describe what she is thinking, but she is inspired to find them. And soon her page is filling up with words.
The grammar is a bit odd but she keeps going. She is writing the story in her head - she knows how it's going to end.
Creating conflict
Now that she knows who the man is, she has to find other people - the room could be empty - but banks are only empty at night - if it's night time the man will be trying to get into the safe. (Not much conflict there … yet.)
If it's daytime, he's going to rob the bank - he's got a gun. Everybody is going to scream when he pulls the gun out. (Some conflict there … but it's a bit predictable.)
He isn't a robber, remember? He's just an ordinary man who has gone to the bank to draw out money to buy his daughter a birthday present. She will be five tomorrow. But the bank is being robbed as the man enters (lots of conflict).
Finding something universal is good - it means that everybody who reads the story will be able to identify with the hero. The writer gives her characters names and it is her job to make both of them real for the reader.
The conflict in the writer's head is now the conflict in the reader's head. The reader wants to read on. He is hooked.
So is the writer. She is beginning to enjoy writing her story. The story has her in its grip - the conflict makes her carry on.
Concentrating on the story
But what about the language, the words and sentences, verbs, nouns, adjectives?
This is often the point when most people give up. The story is good but the words won't come. What to do?
The words do matter. And the sentences too. But not as much as the story in her head. So keep going. In English if possible, in one's own language if not.
The difficulties with the foreign language will come later. For now the writer must concentrate on the story. Does the five-year-old get her birthday present - and the chance to see her heroic father's photograph on the TV screen the next morning?
The writer has to share the moment and if she concentrates she will.
Finishing the story
There comes a point in the story when it all comes together. Of course, the man is going to stop the robbers. He will help the frightened people crouching on the ground, he will be on the 9 o'clock news and his little girl is going to be ecstatic when she sees her Daddy.
The writer knows how the story will end now. She has read other stories like this one. She is rushing towards the bottom of the page. Now she has done it. She has written a story.
Reading it again
Reading one's story again often makes a writer wince. Some words look odd. Some are spelt wrong. Some sentences don't look like sentences, they need verbs. There's a lot still left to do, but at least the writer has something to work with.
Recipe of learning
The story is done. This is how we learn a language. We learn when we have a need to learn. Writing stories may not sound very academic, but the task of writing a story, thinking of ideas, and words to express them on paper, has fulfilled the role of teacher, classroom and examination.
And the end result of the process is one very happy and jubilant learner. Creativity is, undoubtedly, the best teacher.
The writer is lecturer of English at UAE University, Al Ain
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