6 GCSE English Creative Writing Tips

In order to succeed in a GCSE English exam, one must undergo the inescapable challenge: the writing section. Producing a great piece of writing under exam conditions is very much like speed dating; you must make a great impression, yet time is not in your favour. Such pressure might reduce even the best of us to a nervous wreck. While we understand that writing skills may take a long time to polish and hone, we do happen to have six useful tips to spice up your writing. Are you ready?

1) Figures of speech

Good writing is meant to be interesting and engaging. One way of elevating your prose is through figures of speech. Alliteration, antithesis, apostrophe, hyperbole…the list seems endless. While we encourage you to master as many as you can, we have also taken time to select three main figures of speech which are relatively easy to learn, and make an astounding difference to your writing. The first one is simile.

2) Simile

A simile is the comparison of two things through the use of the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. A good simile can engage the audience by painting a picture inside their head, thus making descriptions more vivid.  Consider the sentence ‘Sam’s tantrum is like a storm’. By comparing Sam’s bad mood to something as destructive and terrible as a storm, we can immediately hear the thunder, and picture the heavy, rolling clouds.

3) Metaphor

What’s even better than a great simile is a great metaphor.

Such a figure of speech makes comparisons between two things without the use of ‘like’ and ‘as’….