Author Liz Flanagan completed a PhD in Creative Writing in 2017, and now divides her time between teaching creative writing and writing her own books. Her novels include the Wildsmith series, the Legends of the Sky series, and Eden Summer for which she was nominated for a Carnegie Medal. Previously, she ran Lumb Bank, the Arvon Centre for creative writing and former home of Yorkshire poet Ted Hughes. 

Here Liz shares her tips and tasks, to get her into the creative writing zone..

Creative Writing for KS2-3 - The Writers’ Warm-up: Why Playful Pre-writing Is Essential.

One of the biggest obstacles to writing, for me, was my basic misunderstanding about what it looked like. I pictured famous writers sitting down in calm silence and pouring out perfect stories from beginning to end. It was only when I hung out with writers of all kinds for one of my jobs, that I realised how wrong I was.

So when I talk to KS2 children about Creative Writing these days, I mention the messiness and the mistakes, the many drafts and meandering a story might need along the way. I talk about that elusive wispiness at the start of an idea, and the critical voice which tells me it’s not a proper story and I’m not a proper writer. All of this must be recognised as perfectly typical, and perhaps even part of the process.

I use a series of playful pre-writing tasks in the KS2 classroom, all centred around the most commonly asked question I hear: where do you get your ideas from? I might describe how fostering cats gave me the idea for the Wildsmith series; and how my disastrous attempts at administering gloopy medicine to a litter of lively kittens helped me dream up the Wildsmith’s magical powers of speaking to animals and healing them.

To use this framework of ‘where ideas come from’ as a warm-up for a piece of longer writing, I break this down into three steps:

1. Ideas come from what we know

I describe my experience of rehoming foster kittens, and how I became familiar with a bittersweet sensation which I gave to Rowan in the Wildsmith series when she says goodbye to her beloved foster dragon. Next I ask children to consider what they know. It could be a skill they possess, or an emotion they’ve experienced. It could be a hobby or a characteristic – e.g. I know what it’s like to feel shy in a new situation. We use this as a jumping off point to create a character who is a bit like us in some way, a character who knows something that we also know. Children can verbally describe the character, or draw it, to develop it from that initial spark.

2. Ideas come from what we notice

Here I talk about how I took inspiration from the beautiful woodlands near my home when writing Wildsmith: Into the Dark Forest. I also use some examples of noticing pet behaviour – like my cat’s cute nose bumps – which I then gave to the dragons in Dragon Daughter. I ask children to consider what they might be able to notice – whether on a walk to school, or eating a favourite treat, or being wound up by an irritating sibling. What can they use from that noticing? How might this detail bring a story to life? A good exercise here might be drawing a setting for their story, partly inspired by their own observations, and then finding some great adjectives to describe it.

3. Ideas come from our imagination

I enjoy magical elements in stories – this is why I love fantasy as a genre so much. Magic entices me as a reader, creating delight and escapism on the page. That’s why I chose to add dragons, witches and magical powers to my stories, too. Then I introduce my third prompt, inviting children to make up a new super-power. I’m regularly flabbergasted by the originality and inventiveness of their answers. This is the task that really fires imaginations and tends to kickstart a brand new story idea.

Why Warming up Works

I see these kinds of ‘pre-writing’ tasks as essential building blocks. This is exactly how I begin a story, with dreaming and doodling and talking. I don’t sit down and produce a perfect draft from scratch. Taking the time to warm up is as necessary for writers as it is for athletes. From these accessible smaller tasks, a new story can be started in a playful way, without the daunting sense of facing a blank page. Whatever the age of the writer, the time to refine is later, once enjoyment and confidence levels are high.

I hope it works for you too: happy writing!

---------------------

Liz Flanagan loves visiting schools and talking to young people about creativity. To find out more or to book her for a school visit - lizflanagan.co.uk

Read more about Liz's epic fantasy saga The Legends of the Sky here, and scroll down to find a selection of her books.