How To Write Engaging Character Descriptions - Facebook Live Tutorial ( Part 1)

Firstly, a big thank you to all of the parents that have sent in emails and messages to share how much your child enjoys our Facebook Live sessions. It means the world to us!

In today’s blog post, we’re delving into character descriptions. To tackle this very important area of creative writing, we’re sharing one of our recent Facebook Live tutorials where our founder, Mrs Victoria, teaches students how to write descriptions that impress teachers.

You see, when it comes to creative writing, it’s vital that students know how to write character descriptions in a way that is effective, gripping and interesting so that they can maximise marks.

It’s also a lifelong skill that is needed throughout KS2, 3 and 4. Furthermore, writing great character descriptions helps students to make their stories more interesting, vibrant, unique and engaging so that the reader wants to continue reading their story.

Unfortunately, most children write stories with boring character descriptions. Let’s take a look at some examples of these types of descriptions:

• He had brown hair.

• She was a short and sweet girl.

• He was incredibly rude.

Why are these descriptions bad?

• Because they don’t allow the reader to picture the character that is being mentioned.

• They give us little information about the character and these descriptions don’t enable our imaginations to run wild.

To score top marks, we want to write vivid, colourful descriptions that create pictures in the mind of readers.

The thing with creative writing is that improving your child’s marks doesn’t have to be a difficult process - it really just involves teaching them quick but powerful tricks to help them write more descriptively and imaginatively.

Let’s look at some great descriptions by watching the Live tutorial below. Click the ‘play’ button to get started.

11-Plus Creative Writing Example

We receive dozens of emails from parents (and sometimes students) who are desperate for creative writing examples.

We’re huge believers in the power of using examples and templates for improving creative writing and its in fact one of our favourite methods for helping students to quickly improve their writing skills.

However, when it comes to creative writing examples, it’s important to use them properly.

Here are some top tips to help your child to get the most out of them.

Read through the examples as many times as possible.

The more you do this, the more you’ll pick up amazing new words (such as high-level vocabulary).

Don’t rush through the examples.

Quite often, we come across students and parents that love to hoard creative writing examples as though they are a special kind of prize. However, we’ve noticed that most of these students don’t actually read the examples properly (and neither do their parents). In contrast, students that read through creative writing examples slowly and soak up the story tend to be the ones who score higher marks. We therefore recommend that you take your time to not just read the examples we provide but study them.

That leads us to the third tip.

Study the creative writing examples given like there’s no tomorrow.

Read them again and again until you feel like you’ve read them a thousand times.

Don’t just copy examples.

Examiners and teachers know when student’s work has been copied from other sources and it doesn’t take much for them to check online. Don’t risk your chances of getting into a top school or passing an exam by copying examples word for word. Instead, use the examples as inspiration for your own writing and change some words around. For example, take out certain phrases, swap specific words for synonyms or even, change the plot a little. Make your work your own whilst taking inspiration from others.

Practise makes perfect.

The more you practise writing, the better you’ll become so make it a habit to practise story writing for at least 30 minutes every day. We usually recommend that our students write a story once a day after school. Spend 5 minutes planning, 5 minutes proofreading and 20 minutes writing. This will help you to improve your speed and accuracy in preparation for exams. Once you’ve done this, go back and read your story a few times to see how it could be improved. You could even write the same story everyday until it’s perfect.

Remember that you don’t need to have tons of exciting events to write a great story that scores top marks.

In fact, teachers and examiners often prefer stories that are somewhat simple in terms of their plot but contain lots of descriptive words and excellent vocabulary. Bear that in mind as you write your stories.

We hope these tips have helped.

If you’d like your child to transform their creative writing, download our Creative Writing Booster Kit today.

11+ Vocabulary - 6 Essential Words To Learn

In this Facebook Live tutorial, I explain the meanings of 6 key 11+ vocabulary words and give students the chance to practise identifying their synonyms and antonyms. Furthermore, viewers are also able to write sentences and paragraphs using these words.

If your child struggles with vocabulary, this is worth watching.

Click the PLAY button below to join in.

What’s your favourite vocabulary word? Share it in the comments section below.

Best wishes,

The Tutoress Team.

Persuasive Writing Tips For The 11+ (Including Exam-Style Practice)

In this Facebook Live tutorial replay, I teach some additional strategies for improving your persuasive writing skills.

This tutorial covers:

• Key phrases and words to use to impress teachers and examiners

• An exam-style question and how to answer it

• How to structure your answer

• How to use the BURGER technique to be more persuasive and convincing

• How to include statistics and factual evidence in your answer

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Did you find this tutorial helpful?

If so, share one thing you learnt in the comments section below.

Best wishes,

The Tutoress Team.

Persuasive Writing Tips and Tricks For The 11+ Exams

Does your child struggle with persuasive writing?

Perhaps they have no idea what to write or how to come up with ideas or perhaps they just find the entire subject to be confusing and overwhelming.

Rest assured, they’re not alone.

Over the years, I’ve helped hundreds of children with the persuasive writing skills and the majority find this area of writing to be really difficult.

In this Facebook Live tutorial, I share some of my best tips and strategies which should hopefully help your child to gain clarity on exactly how to approach persuasive questions.

Click the PLAY button below to watch a replay of the tutorial.

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Quick Persuasive Writing Tips:

• Use emotive language so that your words have an emotional impact on the reader and are more persuasive.

• Acknowledge opposing views (the other person’s perspective) whilst making it clear why such views are wrong or ineffective.

• Use connectives to ensure that your thoughts, ideas and points link together.

• Back up your opinion with facts and evidence. Watch the tutorial above and some of the other Facebook Live tutorials so you can really understand how to do this.

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Are there any specific persuasive writing questions that you’ve come across recently?

Share them in the comments section below.

Best wishes,

The Tutoress Team.