11+ Creative Writing Guide

The creative writing section of the 11+ exam is often one of the most daunting parts of the assessment. Examiners look for originality, structure, and engaging storytelling—skills that don’t always come naturally. 

In this article, we’ll explore key strategies to help your child succeed in 11+ creative writing, answering some frequently asked questions and then sharing insights from Cameron, an experienced 11+ Creative Writing tutor. With years of expertise preparing students for competitive entrance exams, Cameron shares his advice on planning stories, improving descriptive language, and mastering exam techniques.

What does the 11+ Creative Writing exam include?

There are many ways that schools label or frame the idea of ‘creative writing’ at 11+ but they all mean basically the same thing. ‘Creative writing’, ‘continuous writing’, ‘essay writing’ and ‘descriptive writing’ are all ways of saying that the school requires you to produce an example of deliberately organised writing that expresses feelings or ideas in precise and accurate prose.

If this sounds complex or intimidating then in practise the exams do not feel that way. Most schools will word any writing question in such a way that the task will seem simple and intuitive; also you will have a choice, so if you’re stumped on writing a diary or letter then the question that gives you a picture prompt may better appeal instead.

Many schools use the ISEB (The Independent Schools Examinations Board) tests and these ask you to write, for around 45 minutes, on your choice of title. 

Writing tasks usually fall into one of the following five areas: 

1. Imaginative or story writing
2. Factual writing or personal description
3. Writing which involves a discussion, opinion or memory
4. A book review
5. A response to a picture stimulus

Schools can differ in terms of their exact requirements and writing questions. But preparing as if for an ISEB-type test – and understanding what the people marking it are asking of you - will certainly help in your preparation for 11+ Creative Writing. What do the examiners look for when marking the 11+ Creative Writing task?

Whichever writing task you choose or are given, successful student answers always present the same kind of features. Below are the success criteria given by the ISEB to markers – and an explanation of what these mean.

• Intuitive use of appropriate features of form 
  Does your letter sound like a letter? Does your diary sound personal and confessional, with the dense details required of the diary form?
• Achieves the given purpose with flair and in detail 
  Do you seem to be enjoying yourself? Is your vocabulary wide and flexible?
• Structured masterfully to achieve appropriate effects 
  Are you using paragraphs and are they in the right order?
• Sustained use of an appropriate register; choice of voice and perspective to engage reader. 
  Do you seem to have read the question properly? Do you understand what you are being asked to do? Don’t be too formal / be formal enough. Can you have a discussion in writing?

You should also consider what examiners tend to call the ‘quality of expression’ which means accurate spelling, punctuation and especially grammar. On a sentence or paragraph level this might mean being able to write in the first person, so a diary or letter, or the third – more like a newspaper article or summary. On a more granular or word level you will be expected to use full stops effectively and paragraphs well. This all contributes to the overall effect of your piece of writing: marks will be given - independently of the content of writing – for the technical accuracy of writing.

Do all 11+ exams include a Creative Writing task?

Most 11+ English exams involve some form of writing task though it is worth checking with your choice of school as the exact form of this can differ slightly. Schools are generally quite open about their entrance and examination processes and they are there to help. Check school websites for examples of past papers and general information about their English admissions policy.

What is the relationship between the 11+ English paper and the Creative Writing task?

The 11+ Creative Writing task is more often than not a part of a broader English entrance paper. These exams are invariably split around 50/50 between reading (comprehension) and writing – 50/50 in terms of the time required to answer them (about 45 minutes) and 50/50 in terms of marks.

Example 11+ Creative Writing Questions to help prepare for the exam

A typical ISEB entrance paper might include the following choice of questions.

• Write an essay using ONE of the following titles. Each one is worth 25 marks. 

1. The Hot Afternoon 

2. I shall always remember that tea. 

• Write an account or a story using one of the following titles: 

1. My father was furious. 

2. The Swimming Lesson 

3. Caravanning 

• Many children list drama or sport or art as their favourite subjects at school. This may be because those subjects are creative, or have more freedom, or are not always the basis for examinations. What thinking goes on behind your selection of a favourite subject? 
• The books you enjoy are as personal as the food you choose to eat. What are the ingredients of a great book, in your opinion? You can discuss one or several books to illustrate your answer. 
• Write about the picture opposite in any way you choose.

Tips for writing a high scoring 11+ creative writing task 

Written by Cameron, one of Keystone’s 11+ Creative Writing tutors:

Creative writing at 11+ can be a really tricky skill to teach, and an even trickier one to learn. It can seem very vague and wishy washy: ‘more detail’, ‘more vibrant vocabulary’ etc. I often get the sense that students are not really sure why one paragraph may get lots of ticks, and another not so much.

When teaching 11+ creative writing, the place I always start is the imagination. Putting pen to paper is stage two: we need something to write about first. In both stories and descriptions, the first thing they need to do is to imagine the place and people they are writing about. Visualise it clearly in their minds. Try and bring their other senses in as well - what are the smells and sounds of that place? Once we have a mental image of what it is we’re talking about, it’s so much easier to write about it. If they are encouraged to zoom in on details in their mind’s eye, to look left, right, up and down, to go under the surface of things, or to touch them, they will never run out of ideas to talk about.

Once they’ve been encouraged to think and to generate their own ideas, what then?

Characters. Characters are like parents: they hold our hands and lead us through the text. Without them, readers tend to drift away and the writing can feel pointless. In stories, we must follow one character through a journey to an exciting end. We need to see their emotions and thoughts - show us how they’re feeling by describing their bodies, for example (shivers, heart beating, biting lips). Even in descriptions, we need to make sure we see characters we care about. It can be tricky to include characters in descriptions of a bridge, or a field at dusk. But look under the river’s surface: who is that cheeky fish stealing bread from under the swan’s nose? Or inside that hole in the tree: is that a shy squirrel trying to make her way down the oak? Characters are all around us if we can probe that imaginative world and go and find them.

Once we’ve found our interesting character, what then?

Well, let’s make them do some really interesting things.

Stories and descriptions should both have excitement in them. We need our stories to build towards a dramatic event - otherwise, what’s the point? How do we do that? Action. We need to make sure every paragraph is not just passive description, but that it is a stepping stone towards the main event. I don’t want to read what a character had for breakfast if it’s got nothing to do with the big event - skip it and move the story on.

Action is more than just plot. It utilises the most powerful weapon an author has: the verb. Every sentence, no matter how simple or bland, has a verb. If we can use powerful and descriptive verbs, a sentence explodes into our imaginations. She walked? No, she stamped. She pirouetted. There are cars with horns beeping? No, Cars tooted and howled as though their lives depended on it. In every sentence, choose something you want to talk about, and give it a powerful verb (no more ‘There is …’). This small adjustment to how we think about sentence construction makes so much difference to the power of a child’s writing.

We’ve got a detailed world, characters we care about, and some drama. Great.

Now we need to focus on the language. This is where some students get lost in a fog of a wood of a deep ocean of mixed metaphors and happily confusing personification. Writer’s tools are like chocolates: too much and we feel pretty sick after a while. Instead, I encourage students use senses to describe their world. I encourage students to avoid saying something is beautiful - explain to me why it is beautiful (C.S. Lewis included this in his fantastic suggestions for young writers). I encourage students to use a variety of openers so I don’t get lulled into a familiar rhythm when I’m reading. I encourage them to use a variety of writer’s tools, but sparingly!

The big five tools are:

1. Metaphor
2. Simile
3. Personification
4. Alliteration
5. Onomatopoeia

If I can see these somewhere in the writing by the end, I’m very happy. I don’t need to see all of them in each paragraph: there’s more to writing than a list of writer’s tools.

This is a very brief overview of how I try and help students develop their own ideas, create interesting characters, make writing exciting and develop a variety of expressive writing skills. Some children are fantastic at some of the skills, but need some support with others. The biggest advice I can give is to take some time with your child and see which area is causing a problem. Try and remove any frustration: nothing squashes an idea like sadness. Give them a chance to develop all of these areas in their writing and you will see them begin to shape interesting work that comes from their own minds: the most important skill of all.

11+ Creative Writing Tutors

Each year Keystone supports many students preparing for the 11+ exam. The 11+ Creative Writing tutors we represent are experienced in the intricacies of the 11+ exams and how they differ between schools' assessments. We would normally recommend that preparation begins around 12 – 18 months before the exams.

For more details on how Keystone can help with 11+ preparation, book a free consultation.