Creative writing

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

Levchenkova Margarita, grade 8,

Melnik Darya, grade 8,

Syankute Milena, grade 8

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

RATIONALE

We focused on means of character drawing in our analysis of contemporary and classical writers/ films. Having analysed, we used our findings in creative writing.

OBJECTIVES

We aimed at

• analysing extensive literary material
• singling out means of character drawing
• comparing literary originals and their screen versions to define salient features
• employing various means of character drawing in our own writing

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

MATERIAL under analysis

Numerous stories by Roald Dahl

• “ The BFG”
• “ The Twits”
• “ The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me”
• “ Matilda”
• “ The Hitchhiker”
• “ The Butler”
• “ The Sound Machine”

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

MATERIAL under analysis

A series of books by Jeff Kinney “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”

Novels by John Green

“ Paper Towns”

“ Looking for Alaska”

“ An Abundance of Katherines”

Novels and films about Sherlock Holmes

“ A Study in Scarlet” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2011)

Television series “Sherlock” (BBC1, 2011)

“ Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (Guy Ritchie, 2011)

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

RESULTS

Means of character drawing include

• speaking names (Sophie, the Twits, Miss Trenchbull)
• implicative details (things surrounding the character, clothes, attributes, manner of walking, speaking)
• the setting (often reveals the character’s inner state)
• psychological insight into the character’s inner world (3-rd person narration or 1-st person narration)
• speech (disclosing social status, education, profession, etc)
• deferred/ suspended introduction of the character
• portrait (appearance description reflecting character)
• behaviour, habits, manners
• biography
• the character’s outlook, attitude to nature, animals, people, etc
• types of print (cursive, capitalised words)

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

RESULTS IN CREATIVE WRITING

“ If you were there with her, you would see a wonderful, abandoned garden, full of whimsical statues, low bushes and small silvery fountains. On the black trunks of the cherry trees fireflies were crawling, glowing like green Christmas lanterns. In the shadow of one of the bushes sat He. He was always there. Only when the little girl was terrified, she came here and he always comforted and supported her.”

(Margarita Levchenkova, grade 8)

Ghost story

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

RESULTS IN CREATIVE WRITING

“ Mr. Scamp was an old black magician with very bad manners and habits. He had a wonky nose, a crooked mouth and stuck-out teeth. Besides, he was smelly and grubby. He did not love his wife. He lived with her only because she helped him to play mean tricks on people. Mrs. Scamp was a terrible witch with a ghoulish grin on her lips. Her voice was so irritating that nobody could speak to her, except Mr. Scamp.”

(Darya Melnik, grade 8)

The Scamps and Mr. Wisdom

Creative Writing: Means of Character Drawing

CONCLUSIONS & FOLLOW-UP

We have

• improved our reading strategies and analytical reading skills;
• singled out various means of character drawing;
• improved our language competence, profusely expanded our vocabulary;
• acquired practical skills of creative writing (short story writing);
• practiced illustrating our own works.

We are looking forward to

• learning new techniques of creative writing;
• trying our hand at other literary forms.

Thanks for attention!