The Craft of Writing

The craft of writing is Paper 2 Section III, worth 20 marks. You write your own piece in response to a stimulus, and you are often asked to reflect on or evaluate your own choices. It is the one section where the quality of your writing is the whole answer.

• The paper: Paper 2 has 5 minutes of reading time and 2 hours of working time for 60 marks, so about 40 minutes for this section.
• The task format changes from year to year. In recent papers the section has sometimes been one 20-mark writing task, and sometimes split into part (a), a piece of writing, and part (b), a reflection or evaluation, with splits such as 10 + 10, 12 + 8 and 5 + 15. Practise all of these. NESA's specification says the question may be in two parts and will ask for an imaginative, discursive, persuasive and/or reflective response.
• The stimulus: a sentence to use as your opening, a quotation, a described image, a scenario, or an instruction to write for a purpose and audience (for example a speech to a council meeting).
• What is marked: writing that fits the task's purpose, audience and form; skilful, deliberate use of language and structure; a distinctive and controlled voice; and, in a reflection, insight into your own choices and their effect.

What the module asks

In your own words, The craft of writing asks you to:

• write imaginative, discursive, persuasive and reflective texts for different purposes and audiences, including texts that experiment with form;
• make deliberate choices about language, structure, voice and form, and know why you made them;
• learn from the craft of other writers you have studied;
• reflect on and evaluate your own writing, and refine it.

Read the task carefully. If it says "discursive", a story will lose marks however well written. If it says "imaginative or discursive", choose the form you control best.

The stimulus is not decoration. Markers look for writing that engages with it meaningfully.

1. If the stimulus is an opening sentence, use it exactly as given, and make its details matter. Who is speaking? What do its nouns suggest? Why this moment?
2. If it is an image, pick one detail and build the piece around it. You don't need to describe the whole image.
3. If it is a quotation, let its idea shape your piece, not just appear in it.
4. If it gives a purpose ("evokes loss", "creates mystery", "move the audience to act"), every choice you make must serve that purpose. Underline it.

Preparing without memorising

Most students go in with a piece they have drafted and refined in class. That is sensible, but a memorised story dropped onto the stimulus is easy to spot and is marked down. Prepare flexibly instead:

• a voice you can write in convincingly;
• two or three characters or settings you know well;
• a bank of images and motifs that can carry different emotions;
• a few structural moves (frame narrative, circular ending, a single moment slowed down);
• a reflection vocabulary (see below).

Then build the piece around the stimulus in the exam.

• Show, don't tell. Instead of "she was nervous", give the action: "She straightened the forks again."
• Narrow the focus. In 600 to 800 words, one moment or one day is enough. Big plots crowd out craft.
• Use a motif. An object that returns can carry the feeling and give the piece shape.
• Vary sentence length on purpose. Long sentences for accumulation and memory; short ones for impact.
• Control dialogue. A few lines, each doing work. Subtext is stronger than explanation.
• Earn the ending. Return to the opening image changed, or end on a quiet action rather than a summary of the feeling.

• Discursive: start with something concrete (an anecdote, an object), then let the idea open out. Move between perspectives honestly, including ones you disagree with. A discursive piece can end with a question or a qualified position.
• Persuasive: know your audience. A speech to a council needs evidence and respect for the listeners; a speech to students needs warmth and directness. Use inclusive pronouns ("we", "our"), a clear structure, concrete examples, rhetorical questions sparingly, and a clear request at the end.
• For both: voice matters. A distinctive, thoughtful voice is what separates high-range discursive writing from an essay in disguise.

Here is an invented task (not from any exam), with an original response.

Task (a): Use the sentence "Nobody had used the back gate in years." as the opening of a piece of imaginative writing that explores reconciliation. (12 marks)

Task (b): Evaluate how you have used structure and imagery in part (a) to explore reconciliation. (8 marks)

Opening of a part (a) response:

Nobody had used the back gate in years. Its hinges had rusted into a kind of silence, and the jasmine had taken the latch, threading white flowers through the gap where a hand used to go.

I knew this because I looked at it every morning from the kitchen window. My sister's house was on the other side. Three metres of lawn, one fence, eleven years.

On the morning of Mum's funeral, the jasmine was moving. Not with the wind. Someone was pulling at it from the other side, carefully, the way you'd unpick a stitch.

I didn't go out. I filled the kettle. I watched the flowers come away one at a time, and I took down a second cup.

What the craft is doing

• The gate is a symbol of the broken relationship: rusted, silent, overgrown. The piece never states the conflict directly.
• The fragment "Three metres of lawn, one fence, eleven years." uses a list that moves from physical distance to time, showing that the real barrier is time and silence.
• The simile "the way you'd unpick a stitch" makes the sister's action careful and patient, suggesting repair rather than force.
• The ending is an action, "I took down a second cup", which signals reconciliation without dialogue or explanation.

Sample part (b) paragraph

In part (a), I used the back gate as a central symbol so that the reader would feel the estrangement before it was explained. By describing the hinges as "rusted into a kind of silence", I linked the physical object to the sisters' refusal to speak, and the jasmine that "had taken the latch" suggests that years of neglect have made the barrier grow. Structurally, I compressed eleven years into a single line, "Three metres of lawn, one fence, eleven years.", then slowed the piece down to one morning, so the turn comes in the third paragraph; I also avoided dialogue entirely, because I wanted reconciliation to happen through small actions rather than speeches, which I think is closer to how families actually repair things. The final line, "I took down a second cup", is intentionally understated: it invites the reader to infer forgiveness. I believe this is effective because the restraint matches the narrator's guarded voice, although a reader who wants a clear resolution might find the ending too open. If I revised the piece, I would introduce the sister's point of view once, briefly, to make the reconciliation feel mutual.

Why the reflection works

• It quotes the student's own writing precisely.
• It names techniques and explains the intended effect on the reader.
• It evaluates: it judges effectiveness ("I believe this is effective because..."), admits a limitation and suggests a revision.
• It answers the exact question (structure and imagery, reconciliation).

The (b) part is quick marks if you prepare. Use a reliable pattern for each choice you discuss:

1. Choice: "I used [technique] in [quotation]".
2. Intention: "to [effect] for [audience]".
3. Judgement: "This is effective because..." or "This is less successful because...".
4. Context of the task: link to the stimulus or purpose in the question.

Know the command verb. Explain asks how your choices work. Evaluate asks how well they work, so you must make a judgement. Justify asks why your choices suited the purpose and audience.

Paper 2 gives 2 minutes per mark, so 40 minutes for this section. Split your time in proportion to the marks:

Within part (a), spend about 3 to 5 minutes planning: who, where, what moment, what image carries the feeling, how it ends. Students who skip the plan often write a piece with a strong opening and no ending.

Paper 2 has only 5 minutes of reading time. Some students look at this section first during reading time so the stimulus can sit in the back of their mind while they write the two essays.

• Ignoring the stimulus or purpose. A strong story that does not respond to the task is capped.
• Too much plot. Many events, many characters and no room for language. Narrow the focus.
• Telling the emotion. "I felt devastated" is weaker than a precise action or image that shows it.
• Clichés. Waking up from a dream, rain matching sadness, a twist that it was all in a coma. Markers see these constantly.
• No ending. Plan the ending before you start writing.
• Wrong form. A persuasive speech with no audience address, or a discursive piece that is just an argumentative essay.
• Reflection that describes instead of evaluating. "I used imagery" is not enough. Quote, explain the effect, judge it.
• Running over time. Craft of writing is often last, and students who overspend on the essays rush it. Protect your 40 minutes.

• Underline the form, purpose, audience and stimulus in the question before you plan.
• Use the stimulus exactly as instructed: if it says "use as the opening", it must be your first sentence.
• One strong image, one clear voice and one well-chosen moment beat a complicated plot every time.
• Leave a minute to re-read part (a) for spelling and punctuation; control of language is part of the mark.
• In part (b), discuss two or three choices in depth rather than listing many.
• Practise regularly with different stimuli and different splits, timed.

• Texts and human experiences (unseen texts): analysing how other writers create effects is the toolkit you use in your own writing, and the language of analysis is the language of reflection.
• Critical study of literature and Textual conversations: the writers you study closely are your models. Borrow their techniques, not their stories.
• Texts and human experiences (prescribed text essay): many craft of writing tasks explore human experiences, so the ideas from the common module can give your writing depth.