One Simple Rule to Creative Writing Success in Singapore, According to Our Expert

February 21, 2018

Students in Singapore have been repeatedly encouraged to be creative.

Being creative means to invent your own ideas, perhaps from scratch or perhaps to build on and improve someone else’s ideas.

Whichever way it is, schools have started offering creative writing lessons for children as young as kindergarten age.

We seek expertise from Ms Gloria Goh, Assistant Director of our reading and writing programme, and got her to share just one simple rule to ace creative writing in Singapore.

How To Ace Creative Writing in Singapore

Ms. Gloria Goh from MindChamps says…

Don’t try to write the whole story at one go. Break the story into smaller pieces, and build your story as you go along.

We are pretty certain that most of us have heard of the “Tortoise and Hare” story. But what is the moral of that story?

The famous saying of “Slow and steady wins the race” would answer that question.

Using the same analogy and applying to our context of creative writing in Singapore, Ms Goh has advised that people should avoid writing everything at once.

While one may be excited with their creative ideas and jump the gun, the limitation of the human’s mind restricts the efficiency of remembering all the details in one go.

Due to the limited cognitive load, Ms Goh has encouraged that it is easier to break the story into smaller pieces. Thereafter, do work on slowly building each of these pieces as you go along.

In other words, our brains function more efficiently with smaller, bite-sized information than one whole chunk of details.

Read also: 5 Newest Creative Writing Trends Primary Schoolers in Singapore Need to Try Right Now

Creative writing in Singapore: Putting Your Story Together

You can use the following 6 basic steps to turn your creative ideas into a great story:

  1. Start off with a rough story idea.
  2. Decide on a possible ending.
  3. Write the plot that leads to the ending in a series of six simple sentences.
  4. Generate more ideas and details for each sentence.
  5. Expand each sentence into paragraphs by deepening the storyline and adding details.
  6. Combine all the paragraphs into a complete story.

Using an analogy with these six simple steps, now…imagine that you are a surgeon who is required to make a Frankenstein work.

The first step starts off with framing the skeleton of the story, followed by inserting the different major body organs. This is then followed by including the minor body organs, then the veins and lastly to inject blood for the body to function smoothly.

Read also: Creative Writing for Kids: 5 Superb Ways to Encourage Expressiveness

We hope that the tips and secrets shared by our literacy expert would come in handy to help your child excel in creative writing in Singapore – and enjoy the process.

Keen to find out your child’s proficiency level when it comes to reading and writing?

Book a complimentary Literacy Assessment now!