Please help me avoid creative writing meltdowns!

[SuperFurryDoggy]

DD is in Year 5 and has just turned 10. Generally, homeschooling has been brilliant for her, with the very notable exception of writing stories. This is a bit of a pain as it is something that crops up every week!

She has loads of ideas but struggles to get anything down on paper. Working on a laptop has not helped much. She agonises over every word and produces next to nothing. Looking at her work I can see that she is obsessed with perfection, rather than just getting her ideas down on paper. Perfectionism is a big problem for her generally and one she’s had lots of professional help with, so I need ideas that will work alongside her perfectionism, since she’s probably come as far with that as she can at the moment.

At her suggestion, we saved up this week’s story task (usually split across the week) into one Big Writing session today. She has spent around 5 HOURS on this today, including time spent sobbing and hyperventilating, and produced 3 short paragraphs. 3 utterly brilliant paragraphs, but she’s still less than 1/4 of the way into the story. I have only just managed to persuade her to put it to one side. Needless to say, we will not attempt one Big Writing session next week!

She is an anxious child generally, something she is learning to live with. She’s one of those children who hold it together at school, then has a massive panic attack the minute she walks in the door. We would usually have at least 2 such panic attacks a week, but up until today we have had none since the schools closed.

I’d love to spend this lockdown time helping her develop strategies to tackle these type of writing tasks. She is fine with writing fact sheets etc, it’s just the more open ended, creative tasks. I’m currently searching YouTube for videos...

It sounds like the problem is the perfectionism. I suffered (still do to a degree) with the same issue and it can be really crippling.

One thing that has helped me to switch off my inner editor and critic is to do timed stream-of-consciousness writing. I have to write continuously for 10 minutes (or what ever time you want to use). The rule is not to stop writing, even if some of it it just "I will add a description of the building here". As many perfectionists also want to follow the rules exactly, this can work well. Once the time is up, it is fine to go over the piece that has been written and improve it or fill in the deliberate gaps. Over time, doing this repeatedly can help cement the idea that the first attempt does not have to be perfect, it is ok to go back and edit.

Schools often focus on doing things in a single draft. This is great for exam skills, but can be a nightmare for a perfectionist. Giving permission to do it in rough and do it over and then again can sometimes be helpful in breaking the negative patterns of not getting the writing down. Writing things in a single draft is an exam technique that can come much, much later on.

The other thing that works for me with writing is to make bullet points first. Each bullet point will later become a paragraph. Each paragraph has to be written in under 3 minutes. Effectively "This happens. Then this happens. Then that happens. Then she said. The he said. The that happened. The end." It breaks a story down in to set of tiny tasks and then putting the timer on again takes the focus away from the perfection of the finished article and on to the perfection of being able to complete a task in the specified time.

Also think about growth mindset. It may be that she has hit a block where she just thinks she can't do this now, so addressing that underlying block may be necessary to help her understand that she can.

Thank you Caroian the stream-of-consciousness writing is brilliant. I pretty sure she’ll be able to do that and can see how it will help. Thank you!

She definitely struggles with growth mindset, although she’s learnt to apply to it her favourite subjects (maths, art and drama), so there is hope.

I’m very excited to try the stream-of-consciousness writing with her

Would it help her to think of a piece of creative writing as being like a painting? So if you watch an artist work, they create a rough sketch first. Then they begin to fill in the detail. Then they start layering on paint. They're always going over and revising what they've done - not because it was wrong, but because it was an earlier part of the process. For a writer, the equivalent process is (maybe) planning, then getting a first draft down, and then refining it through editing.

I'm a novelist and a creative writing tutor and I've taught so many students who feel as if they can't write, because their first draft isn't as good as their favourite author's finished work. They don't always realise they're not comparing like with like. If they saw the author's first drafts, they would be pretty ropey too...because first drafts always are. That's their job.

Everyone's first drafts are unfinished projects - always, always, always - and that's okay. They don't have to be perfect. They only have to exist. You make them perfect later.

It's great that she can see the things that need to be improved - that's the single most important skill for a good writer to have. Seeing the areas for improvement doesn't mean she's failed (first drafts are only sketches). It means she's ready to start working on the next stage of putting the paint on. But you can't get to the paint stage without doing the first sketch!

Lots of love to your DD. I hope she finds her creative mojo soon.

Another brilliant and really helpful reply. Thank you OutrageousFlavourLikeFreesias! She used to get very anxious with her artwork but is now in a place where she can say, “that didn’t turn out how I’d hoped, I’ll work on it/try again later”. It took a (long, stressful) while to get to that place though. I think making an obvious parallel between art and writing will be very helpful to her.

I will share both of your messages with her. I’m so glad I decided to post here. I feel very optimistic!

I just wanted to update @Caroian and @OutrageousFlavourLikeFreesias.

I shared your combined wisdom with DD. She planned out her work then did 10 minutes of continuous writing to get herself warmed up. I promised her that she didn’t even have to read it back if she couldn’t bear to, but she surprised herself and was able to use it as her first draft.

Phew!

Thank you

Thanks for the update! Sometimes just getting over the hurdle of starting can be helpful. Hope she can build up from here!

Hi. My son (aged 9) is quite similar (a perfectionist) and creative writing is his least favourite area. I earn a living at writing, but it doesn't seem to make teaching, as a parent, any easier. Initially, he would get upset if I tried to point out areas where he could 'make his story even better' - trying to keep it positive (it still ended in tears). So, I explained that even his favourite authors write more than one draft and their publisher will have said things like 'can you rework this paragraph?' I also tell him that I often make mistakes myself and I earn a living at writing, so he has nothing to worry about. I have to proofread my work and sometimes a colleague will spot a mistake that I didn't see, at first, and this is normal - we are all human. Newspapers employ proof-readers and sub-editors for this reason. I describe a story as being like "a hard, jagged rock that you polish and then polish again", until all the rough edges are smoothed away and you are left with a beautiful, smooth pebble. There are always rough edges at the start, but it is a process that you go through. No stone/story is smooth and polished straight away and it is ok to go back and polish it quite a few times. I printed off a story planner (Twinkl) to help him structure the story and think about the plot's beginning/middle/end, as well as the descriptions of the characters and settings. There are helpful boxes breaking down the different parts of the story. We also have a brainstorming session on 'words to describe', which involves just writing lots of words that come into his head to describe the place/character etc. Breaking it down into bite sized chunks means he gets less 'overwhelmed' at having a blank piece of paper to fill. It seems to have taken the stress out of creative writing in our house, to some degree at least...Good luck!

Have a look at scribeasy. They have a free trial. Our DD has a language disorder so writing is a horrible chore but this has made it great and much much easier.

Ds(16) uses a landscape A3 piece of paper and draws a line horizontally. Bullet point at the beginning of the line the start of the story, another at the end of the line for the finish. Then he adds in ideas in between connected to the story timeline/paragraphs. It becomes a huge mind map.

Then add in around the ideas some good descriptive words, metaphors, smilies, imagery etc.

He does that over a few days adding more ideas/detail before starting writing, not all ideas are used but they are there to pull from if needed.

The hardest bit he finds is the story initial idea.

This may be useful? I am working on an initiative offering free videos and resources that cover the National Curriculum, creating opportunities for investigation, discussion, wider thinking & having fun learning at home. Opportunities that are aimed to fit in easily with your daily lives. Everything is free, downloadable and designed by specialists within education. We have animated our programmes to appeal to kids and have crew members helping us so we can mix in some live action parts. Broadcasting across social media, but you can find our central hub at: www.homelearningfun.co.uk

There's a short video explaining more on Facebook & Twitter.

Let me know if you want to know more.