I think you’ll agree with me when I say: HSC Creative Writing is REALLY hard. How do you even come up with a imaginative writing structure or techniques?
As a tutor with 2 years of experience who scored Band 6 results in all HSC English units, I’m going to take you through a simple, proven formula for writing a Band 6 story – and it comes in 9 easy-to-follow steps!
What does the Module C: Craft of Writing rubric say?
Step 1: Find Inspiration
Step 2: Develop Your Character
Step 3: Develop a Setting
Step 4: Develop Your Point of View
Step 5: Using A Formula To Write A Band 6 Plot
Step 6: Pick Your Narrative Type
Step 7: Add Literary Techniques
Step 8: Edit and Proofread Your Piece
Step 9: Adapt your Piece to Exam Stimuli
What does the Module C rubric say?
The marking criteria for HSC Module C creative writing to score a Band 6 requires you to:
“…consider purpose and audience to carefully shape meaning.”
To “carefully shape meaning” refers to the deliberate and thoughtful construction of your narrative to convey a specific message, theme, or emotional response to the reader.
It involves making conscious choices about language, structure, and literary devices to effectively communicate your intended meaning.
Step 1: Find Inspiration
In most cases, your Module C prescribed text is a really great point of reference for finding ideas and themes for your imaginative writing structure. Plus, you have to familiarise yourself with the text anyway because you will need to reference it in your reflection.
For example, Nam Le’s short story “Love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” explores themes such as generational trauma and cultural connection.
The Module C rubric also gives you some suggestions for what the purpose of a story could be:
“to describe the world, evoke emotion, shape a perspective or to share a vision.”
Let’s look at an actual piece of HSC stimulus:
Here are some deeper meanings you could derive from it:
- Finding a sense of hope or beauty in the mundanity of life.
- Experiencing an emotional connection despite differing circumstances.
Step 2: Develop Your Character
During high school, I was desperate to make my writing stand out so I wrote a creative about a jester living in the Tudor era just because it felt like something no else would do.
The catch was… I didn’t know anything about the historical context and just threw “thou” and “thee” into the dialogue every so often to try and make it authentic. As such, the character came out confusing and honestly just really cringy.
Memorable characters always have 2 qualities:
- The first is that they feel like a complex and realistic person! This can be portrayed through exploring their personal values and unique characteristics.
- The second is that they develop or change as a result of the narrative.
Let’s take Steve Rogers from Captain America: The First Avenger (2011 film) as an example.
Steve Rogers starts off as a sickly young man from Brooklyn.
However, what makes him the perfect candidate for Captain America is that he personifies stereotypical World War II values of heroism, courage and patriotism.
Despite his small stature and poor health, these values drive him to make multiple attempts to sign up to become a soldier for the Allies in World War II.
The trick to a great character is nuance. To make a character feel like a real person you need to flesh them out. Consider some of these questions:
Here are some key questions to think about:
- What is your character’s name?
- What is your character’s hair colour? Eye colour?
- What kind of distinguishing facial features does your character have?
- Does your character have any distinguishing physical features? What about scars? How did they get them? Are they proud of them, or is it shameful or embarrassing to them?
- What is their biggest fear? Who have they told this to? Who would they never tell this to?
- What is the one thing they love to do most in the world?
- Do they have any secrets?
- What makes your character laugh out loud (if anything)?
- When has your character been in love? Had a broken heart?
Step 3: Develop a Setting
So you understand how to carefully create meaning for your HSC Creative Writing piece. Tick.
You’ve got a sophisticated character. Tick.
Now, in what setting and context do they live? When and where will your story take place?
Whatever setting you have it needs to:
- Be intentionally chosen and planned
- Be something you are familiar with and can write about well
- Be consistent with your character
- Be flexible to fit with varied stimulus material you receive in exams
You don’t need to rack your brain thinking of a super creative and original setting (although you can if you’d like), it just needs to be a place and time that suits your imaginative writing piece. Remember, a compelling story can happen in the most mundane places.
Step 4: Develop Your Point of View
There are 3 narrative voices you can use in imaginative writing: first, second and third person:
Writing in any of these narrative voices can produce great imaginative writing – it just depends on the type of story and the purpose you are trying to convey.
I’m going to take a bet though. You probably don’t even think about which point of view to write in. When you start, you automatically write in the POV you feel most comfortable in.
Sound like you? 🙂↕️
Here are some things you should consider when you choose your POV:
- You need to choose it intentionally.
- You need to evaluate which POV will be most flexible with different stimulus types (second person is usually pretty rare).
- You need to consider which POV enables you to get inside your character’s head and whether this is critical.
Step 5: Using a Formula to Write a Band 6 Plot
Now that you’ve laid the foundation of your story, it’s FINALLY now the time to develop your plot. And because you’ve laid the foundation, creating a great story idea is going to be much easier.
So what’s the secret?
Most stories have the EXACT same imaginative writing structure.
It’s called the 5 Point Plot Structure.
Step 1: The Orientation, or the ‘Inciting Incident’
Every imaginative writing structure has to start somewhere to ‘orient’ the reader. This will often establish the protagonist and the setting, and will sometimes present hints of the situation the protagonist is likely to encounter, and will be a departure from everyday life for the protagonist.
This event doesn’t necessarily have to be something bad, just something impactful for the protagonist that will open them up to change or new perspectives and experiences.
Step 2: The Rising Action, or the ‘Lock In’
After the protagonist and the setting are established, the crisis typically presents a challenging predicament for the protagonist which will create the main tension of the story.
Step 3: The Conflict, or the ‘First Culmination’
The protagonist experiences their first challenge, testing their initial capability.
Step 4: The Climax, or the ‘Main Culmination’
This is the main test of the protagonist in the story. To keep this interesting, this is also the point where the protagonist may look like they are going to fail once and for all.
This is usually the point which allows the protagonist to define who they are as a person, and includes definition of their values or beliefs.
Step 5: The Resolution, or the ‘Third Act Twist’
This is usually where the turn of events has occurred, the crisis has been resolved and the protagonist has come out victorious, but has been changed or transformed as a result of their experience.
If you want, you can also write a tragic ending where the problem doesn’t actually get resolved. What’s important is that the character undergoes a personal change and learns something about themself or the world around them.
If you were responding to the stimulus in Step 1, a sample imaginative writing structure could look like this:
- Orientation: An old lady with no living relatives bides her time tending to her garden, she confides all her thoughts and feelings to the birds that visit her because she has no one else to talk to and genuinely considers them her friends.
- Rising Action: She notices her favourite bluebird has stopped visiting and becomes very anxious.
- The Conflict: She finds the bluebird with a broken wing in the corner of her garden, she is dejected and tries her best to nurse him back to health.
- The Climax: Although the bird seemed to be getting better, she walks in one morning to find it passed away.
- Resolution: The lady comes to the realisation she was projecting her suppressed feelings that she never shared with her loved ones onto her one-sided relationship with the bird. She processes her emotions in a healthy manner and is hopeful for the remainder of her life.
Step 6: Pick Your Narrative Type
The HSC imaginative writing piece can take any form you’d like.
There’s nothing wrong with just writing in the standard short story form. However, writing in a different style could help you stand out from the competition and impress HSC markers!
Here’s a list of common narrative types to help you choose:
| Letter | A story where one person is communicating to another through a piece of writing. You can either write a one-sided story with a single letter, a letter and its response or a sequence of letters sent back and forth. The technical term for this is an epistolary story. There are two key types of letters, friendly and formal. 1. Letters to family members or friends should sound like a real conversation between the two parties. They often sound more conversational and occasionally address the intended reader by name. They will also use more contracted words, and be discreet or purposeful in the selection of words used. 2. In contrast, formal letters have a purpose for writing, typically for business or enriching relationships, rather than just catching up. Firstly, they address the individual, their residence and the date. Formal letters often emphasise key words and ideas, and use formal language, and make specific statements. For an example of formal letters, check out this compilation of letters by US presidents to their successors. |
| Script | This narrative type is not the same as a film or television script, but it uses the same format. A short story in script form can recount a fictional recorded situation like a celebrity interview or police interrogation. |
| Diary Entry | They are private and discrete entries which are arranged by date and report or record events over a period of time. Diaries may include the diarist’s experiences, eye-witness accounts, thoughts and feelings, and include comments or commentary outside of the experience. Diaries can be deeply intimate or personal. They may record the diarist’s personal thoughts with the intention of immortalising a thought or feeling on paper for themselves only, often which would not be communicated to anyone else. However, diaries can also be deeply impersonal. It may be written with the anticipation that it will be read, and as such, be limited in its self-expression and contain only factual information about an event. Check out an example of a diary written by a WWI soldier. |
| Interior Monologue | A story that essentially happens all in the head of the main character. They are constantly giving their thoughts and feelings on their situation, but never describe any concrete actions happening around them. This usually takes the form of someone going on an internal rant without any external plot development. |
| Speech | The entire narrative is told through dialogue from one person. This type should only be used if you’re comfortable with writing natural dialogue consistent with the type of character you chose e.g. a dictator would probably not be delivering a speech using Gen Z slang. |
| Autobiography | Autobiographies are written by those who typically know the person the best: the individual themselves. It is a written account of the life and times of that person, and is often read as a story. They are often written based solely on memory. Autobiographies are often extremely subjective. In controversial situations, autobiographies have been used to justify the ideologies or actions of an individual, or are an attempt to rewrite history. For example, here is the autobiography of former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. |
| Memoir | Memoirs are often used as a reflection upon one’s own life, but are not an eye-witness account. In fact, memoirs often have the writer as being an observer of one’s own life, which has been enriched not only by hindsight but by substantial background information which was not available at the time of the actual event. Memoirs will often also contain commentary as well. Keep in mind that memoirs often reflect vital or important events, whilst autobiographies focus upon the life and times of a whole person. “At the time, I believed this was the choicest decision. To me, the ‘greater good’ was to save the lives of hundreds, rather than save the life of the President. How was I to know that the Government would fall into disarray?” (From a memoir written by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Note that it only refers to World War II.) |
Step 7: Add Literary Techniques
This is the step that can turn a Band 4 imaginative writing structure into a Band 6.
Including literary techniques doesn’t just help your imaginative writing stand out, it is also really important if you are asked to write a reflection because you will need to justify your creative choices by quoting excerpts from your own writing.
And not all literary techniques are created equal! Check out our list of 112 language techniques ranked from low to high-level sophistication with explanations and examples for more inspiration.
Let’s look at the HSC stimulus in Step 1 again.
You could easily integrate symbolism by making the chirping bird symbolic of a certain quality or emotion. For example, this line in the text represents the bird as a symbol of hope: “Though the tune he warbles is clumsy and off-key it stirs something within the deep recesses of my heart, and I feel that we are flying through the sky together.”
Step 8: Edit and Proofread Your Piece
Believe it or not, there’s an art to editing and proofreading that could push your mark right up!
Here’s a checklist you can follow of things to look for while editing:
Step 9: Adapt your Piece to Exam Stimuli
Though you obviously won’t get the question beforehand, it’s still great to have a pre-planned narrative to fall back on because imaginative writing on the spot is really hard.
Most of the time, the prompt just asks you to write a story about a particular human experience such as hope, loss or betrayal. These experiences are common to most stories so you will most likely be able to adapt your story to invoke a certain theme.
In terms of exam technique, I also recommend starting with Module C first to quickly write it out while your memory is fresh and then getting into full essay mode with Modules A and B.
Then, guess what? You’re done with your HSC Creative Writing Piece – and most likely earned a Band 6 in the process!
Really want to master this HSC imaginative writing structure for HSC English?
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Christina Ugov is currently completing a double degree in International and Global Studies and Theatre and Performance at the University of Sydney. Outside of her studies, she enjoys exploring creative writing projects, analysing literature and playing with her cat. She spends her spare time reading, listening to music and drinking lots of tea.
Elizabeth Goh isn’t a fan of writing about herself in third-person, even if she loves writing. Elizabeth decided she didn’t get enough English, History or Legal Studies at Abbotsleigh School for her own HSC so she came back to help others survive it with Art of Smart Education. She’s since done a mish-mash of things with her life which includes studying a Bachelor of Arts (Politics and International Relations) with a Bachelor of Laws at Macquarie University, working for NSW Parliament, and writing about writing.
