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English GCSE Creative Writing - How long should it be?

I'm currently writing out my Creative Writing controlled assessment. It's narrative writing, and I've got a plot and all, but I've no idea how long it's meant to be (in terms of number of words). The teacher kept changing what she said: first she said 5 handwritten A4 pages (sides) then 3 etc.
Anyone know?
Well..the best advice is..creative writing is obviously a story. Keep it simple. As in, don't drag unnecessarily. You can't really put a limit on it. If it can end in one page, end it in one page. Don't make the piece of work lose its charm because its unnecessarily long. 1 page of excellence is better than 3 pages of waffle. Quality over quantity.
Reply 2
I seem to remember my teacher saying 800 words? I cant be sure though, its been a while since i did it :smile:
Original post by Amefish
I seem to remember my teacher saying 800 words? I cant be sure though, its been a while since i did it :smile:


Oh, wow, okay, that seems pretty short, especially since I've already hit that and I'm only about a third in (though I haven't entirely outlined the plot so it's not set in stone). I'm sort of hoping it's meant to be longer than that. Thanks though
Original post by sulaimanali
Well..the best advice is..creative writing is obviously a story. Keep it simple. As in, don't drag unnecessarily. You can't really put a limit on it. If it can end in one page, end it in one page. Don't make the piece of work lose its charm because its unnecessarily long. 1 page of excellence is better than 3 pages of waffle. Quality over quantity.


I agree :smile: Quality over quantity. It's just we've got like an hour or an hour and a half to write it all out, and I don't want to be sitting there for ages having something that's way shorter than it could have been.
Reply 5
Original post by WoodenSword47
Oh, wow, okay, that seems pretty short, especially since I've already hit that and I'm only about a third in (though I haven't entirely outlined the plot so it's not set in stone). I'm sort of hoping it's meant to be longer than that. Thanks though


Yeah I do remember it having to be very short
Reply 6
My creative writing was a description. I covered one page in size 10 font approx. 630 words or 2400 characters. But if you are writing a story, try and have a line and stick to it without diverting off into an over-description of someone or something. Alternatively, of course, your creative writing could be a description of a place, real or imaginary. But the key features are the techniques and language.
If you use advanced vocabulary and techniques like alliteration or similes you can get full marks without needing to even have a story, but if you have started writing it already with a story line then that becomes as important as the techniques etc.
In fact we were even told you can do a poem, but you must then analyse and explain your own poem.
Hand written (and it does depend on the size of your writing) it should be about three pages. I would put a cap on it at 2000 words, that's starting to get into real essay mode.
For my other course work I did 800 words for my informed writing (an article). I was lucky in the fact I had already written one as a piece of Biology homework and my teacher allowed me to use that as my article and it got nearly full marks.:biggrin:
IDK about my other course work because that was written by hand, but I did it over a year ago and I don't really remember it that well TBH.
@WoodenSword47 - :smile: That's what I'm saying. If you think something is finished up to a high standard quicker than the time limit, then leave it.
Original post by BobSausage
My creative writing was a description. I covered one page in size 10 font approx. 630 words or 2400 characters. But if you are writing a story, try and have a line and stick to it without diverting off into an over-description of someone or something. Alternatively, of course, your creative writing could be a description of a place, real or imaginary. But the key features are the techniques and language.
If you use advanced vocabulary and techniques like alliteration or similes you can get full marks without needing to even have a story, but if you have started writing it already with a story line then that becomes as important as the techniques etc.
In fact we were even told you can do a poem, but you must then analyse and explain your own poem.
Hand written (and it does depend on the size of your writing) it should be about three pages. I would put a cap on it at 2000 words, that's starting to get into real essay mode.
For my other course work I did 800 words for my informed writing (an article). I was lucky in the fact I had already written one as a piece of Biology homework and my teacher allowed me to use that as my article and it got nearly full marks.:biggrin:
IDK about my other course work because that was written by hand, but I did it over a year ago and I don't really remember it that well TBH.


Yeah, the teacher said we could actually do whatever we wanted (a poem, a newspaper article, etc.) but that she encouraged us to write a short story because it would generally be easier (and probably far more interesting to mark for her xD). I think 2000 words seems like a good guideline limit (my handwriting averages about 13 words a line).

Thanks
Guys, you're not going to write 2000 words within 45 minutes time frame. You're scaring me!
Original post by photomorgana
Guys, you're not going to write 2000 words within 45 minutes time frame. You're scaring me!


I don't know if this will relieve your scare a bit but I only wrote around 400 words in my mock... But I still got 8... So it's really quality over quantity. I've seen people write 4/5 pages and they still got 5/6...

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