Every card in Writing composition, Year 10: description, story and narrative voice
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- Paper 1 question 5 may print a picture beside the description task. Must your description stick to what the picture shows?
No: the picture is only a source of ideas
HintThink about what the task wording permits you to do with the image beyond describing it.
WhyThe picture is there to start you off. You can describe what lies outside the frame, another time of day, or a different place of the same kind, as long as you write the description the task asks for.
- Which sentence builds a mood without stating it? (A) 'The fairground was creepy and abandoned.' (B) 'A carousel horse lay on its side, one painted eye still open to the rain.'
B
HintAsk which sentence would still work if you deleted every emotion word.
WhySentence B never uses a word like 'creepy', yet the fallen horse and its open eye create the feeling. Choosing a detail that carries the mood is what lifts a description above a list of adjectives.
- A pupil describes a market by naming twelve stalls in twelve sentences. Which would improve it more: describing more things, or describing fewer things in more depth?
Fewer things, in more depth
HintThe mark scheme rewards crafting and development; consider what twelve one-sentence stalls leave out.
WhyTwo or three things looked at closely (the colours, the sounds, one stallholder's hands) give the reader a place they can stand in. Twelve names give them an inventory.
- A description has no plot to carry it, so its shape often comes from moving the reader's eye: for example from far away to ____ up, as a camera zooms in.
close
HintA film-shot term, the opposite of 'long', completing 'a ___-up'.
WhyPlanning a route for the reader's eye (far to near, outside to inside, morning to night) gives a description a beginning, middle and end without turning it into a story.
- The mark scheme caps a piece of writing that ignores the focus of the task set. Out of 24 for content and organisation, what is the most it can score? (number only)
12
HintRecall where the mark scheme caps a response that ignores the task set.
WhyBoth papers' mark schemes carry this rule. A piece that ignores the topic set is capped however well it is written, so read the task twice before you plan.
- Paper 1 question 5 gives two tasks and you answer one. One asks for a description. What does the other ask for?
A story, or the opening of a story
HintThink of the other main kind of imaginative writing besides description.
WhyYou choose on the day, so prepare both. From summer 2026 the narrative option may ask only for the opening, which you can shape and finish properly in the time.
- The task says: 'Write the opening of a story.' Does your piece have to reach the end of the plot?
No
HintConsider what the task actually asks you to produce and how much plot a few pages can hold.
WhyAn opening has to introduce a character, a place and a problem, and leave the reader wanting more. Racing through a whole plot in 45 minutes usually produces a summary, not a story.
- For a story written in about 45 minutes, which cast gives the better chance of success: one or two characters, or six?
One or two characters
HintThink about how much can be developed in 45 minutes and how many people a reader can follow.
WhyEvery character needs space to become real. With one or two, you can show what they notice, say and want; with six, each is only a name.
- Opening a story in the middle of the action, with no introduction
In medias res
HintA Latin phrase of three short words.
WhyThe Latin means 'into the middle of things'. The reader is dropped into a moment that is already happening, and the background is fed in later, a little at a time.
- 'There was an explosion and everyone ran outside and then the police arrived and took us home.' The sentence rushes through four events. Which would improve the story more: adding a fifth event, or staying with one of the four?
Staying with one of the four
HintThink about whether a rushed summary needs more content or more development.
WhyAn exam story is short, so it lives on a few moments told closely: what the narrator saw, heard and thought in the second before the explosion. A chain of events joined by 'and then' is a summary of a story, not a story.
- 'I pushed the gate and felt it give.' In which narrative person is this written? (one word)
first
HintLook at the pronoun doing the pushing.
WhyA first-person narrator is inside the story and says 'I'. The reader knows only what that one character sees, thinks and feels.
- 'I walk to the door. It was locked. I turn the handle again.' The writer chose the present tense. Type the one word that breaks it. (one word)
was
HintCompare the tense of each verb with the tense the writer claimed to choose.
Why'Walk' and 'turn' are present tense, so 'was' should be 'is'. A slip of tense in the middle of a paragraph is one of the commonest ways a steady voice is lost under time pressure.
- A story begins 'She had never trusted lifts.' Three paragraphs later it says 'I pressed the button', with no new narrator introduced. What has slipped?
The narrative voice, from third person to first
HintCompare the pronouns in the two quotations and name the aspect of writing they control.
WhyThe story started outside the character ('she') and has drifted inside her ('I'). Decide who is telling the story before you start, and check the pronouns when you read the piece through.
- A narrator outside the story who can report the thoughts and feelings of every character
An omniscient narrator
HintThink of a godlike viewpoint that sees into every mind in the story.
WhyAn omniscient narrator can move from one head to another and can tell the reader things no character knows. It gives range, at the cost of the closeness a single 'I' provides.
- A third-person narrator who stays with one character and reports only what that character sees and thinks is called third-person ____.
limited
HintThink about a viewpoint that sticks closely to one mind and cannot see into others.
WhyThe story says 'he' or 'she', but the reader is kept inside one mind. It is a good choice for an exam story: easier to hold steady than a narrator who knows everything.
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