Descriptive Writing Worked Example
Describe a market place as suggested by this picture.
Market place
image
[24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy]
[Total: 40 marks]
Answer
The Market
The market roared with rage, for it now was awake from its peaceful slumber. The
shops were stuffed and vendors made the street extremely narrow, forcing people to
walk in a single file like soldiers going to battle. The deafening chaos in the market
made ears split as though standing under a giant speaker. Vendors yelled prices and
frustrated shoppers angrily argued with the annoyed shopkeepers. Shops of all different
species stood on either side of the street obediently. None of them had doors. The
shopkeepers knew very well that the doors would not last long against the might,
impatience, and violence of the customers.
A large, pink animal carcass hung by a hook, while the butcher sawed and hacked at
the flesh, sweat already dripping from his brow. Occasionally, he would swat at the flies
hovering around the meat with his blade, slicing through the air with a flash of steel.
Even though the meat was fresh, the faint stench of death hung like the carcasses
themselves from the hooks.
It was as though all of the smells in the world had come to a reunion.
Sweaty buyers skilfully wove their way through the crush by locating minute gaps
between people and squeezing through. Pickpockets hopped like rabbits in a carrot
field; they munched the purses out of the many pockets of innocent buyers too busy
bargaining. Experienced visitors wore tight pants for the same reason. And a helpless
woman fumbled through the scores of bags she carried and tried to tick on a list with a
pen clenched between her teeth.
As the sun warmed, the stuffy, stinking air filled with sweat and rotting fish
intensified. No air freshener could have defeated the sour, rancid smell which ruled over
the cramped stalls. Only a single woman in a pristine white dress seemed immune from
the stench. As she wove her way through the crowd, her perfume lingered and
stretched its fingers tentatively into the atmosphere, only to be swiftly overwhelmed.
As the afternoon flamed the market, an exhaustion and breathlessness silently took
over the first time visitors, but the everyday buyers proudly held on against the torture
and kept shopping. The crash of sounds became more muted as the afternoon heat and
haze blanketed the stalls as though trying to dampen the market down. The arguments
over prices turned lazy, the vendors sensing defeat.
An example of the way you could structure your response would be:
Descriptive writing form
Broadly describe the scene
Introduce the time and atmosphere
Panorami
In the market example, this could include colour and
c
how tightly packed everything is
Focus your lens in on one segment of the image
Choose smaller, less obvious details
Zoom In the market example, this could be the butcher on
the right cutting into the animal carcass
Single line Emphasise the key feeling of your description in one
line
In the market example, this could involve smell
Focus your lens on another segment of the image
If you started in the foreground, then move to
something in the background
Shift
In the market example, this could be the lady
dressed in dark colours at the back, grasping a bag
Now move your lens to a final segment of the
image, or suggest something that is just “off
camera”
Shift
In the market example, this could be the lady with
her back to you in the middle of the picture
Zoom out again to look at the scene from a new
perspective
Panorami How has it changed? Time? Atmosphere? Mood?
c In the market example, you could change the time of
the scene from early morning to mid-afternoon
Creative Writing
Worked Example
Write the opening of a story with the title ‘Abandoned’.
[24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy]
[Total: 40 marks]
Answer
Abandoned
The house had been the epitome of life and joy, and yet it was now dead. It was merely
a shadow of its former glory, for the house was no longer alive, and never would be
again.
Sunlight no longer danced through the windows and sounds of laughter were no longer
heard; all that was left were the remains of a long since dead house. Cobwebs littered
the wooden slats and broken walls. Dusty light-fittings stared down miserably at a table
that would never again be laden with food and fun, with chairs that had not been warm
for years. As I stood in the hallway, the silence crept through the empty rooms towards
me, mocking me with its quiet. Reluctantly, I dumped my bag on the floor, a dust cloud
puffing around it, and crept into the kitchen. It did not seem right to stomp, or run, or
move in any way to further disturb these walls. Sighing, I gently ran my finger across the
dry sink, slowly taking in these oh so familiar surroundings.
The house was not always dead. I can forlornly recall all of my visits to this once
beautiful place. Every summer holiday, my parents brought me to this house, where my
grandparents lived, and their parents before them. Living in the city, my summers spent
in nature were filled with joy and laughter. The bright sunshine, the gentle winds and the
solitude that had been introduced to me in this wonderful place had all come to be
things I loved. My sister and I would spend hours climbing the trees surrounding the
house, building dens and having endless adventures, before returning, wild and weary,
for our family meal and the analysis of the day.
But on the day of the accident, everything changed. And nothing changed. The sun was
still bright; the wind still gently grazed the trees and the silence felt just as comforting as
before. Except it was different. We were different. There was one less chair occupied at
the table. There was no one to climb trees with or build dens. In fact, one tree in
particular would never be scaled again. In his grief, my grandfather cut it down, hacking
it with all of his strength as though he could cut out the event itself. I remember
watching from the front window, as he chopped, chopped, chopped until finally, with an
almighty shove, the guilty tree creaked and fell.
I had tried to help them keep up with the chores; handing my grandfather the right bolts
and nails for fixing the fence, or helping to paint the house. But the treehouse had
seemed so sturdy — so reliable. It seemed impossible that anything bad could happen
there. I returned to the hallway and looked at the fading pictures still hanging on the
wall. My sister's smile, always so bright and full of live, a snapshot of a time never to be
repeated.
Let’s take this writing task as an example:
“Write a story with the title ‘Everything Had Changed’”
We can use a five-part narrative structure to plan our response:
A house that nobody has lived in for a long time
Step 1 Exposition/setting Atmosphere is silent and uncared for
Background information — grandparents’ house
Light, laughter and joy
Step 2 Rising action
Narrator and sister playing in a treehouse
Accident involving the narrator’s sister
Step 3 Climax Narrator gets the blame
Aftermath –- leave the house and return to the city
Step 4 Falling action Family crumbles
Present day — narrator returns to the house
Step 5 Resolution
Narrative Writing model answer
The following model answer demonstrates a top-mark response to the above task:
Worked Example
The first thing I noticed was the sound.
The train doors slid apart with a soft sigh, and the station breathed me out into a town
that was supposed to be familiar. I had rehearsed this arrival in my head for weeks,
imagining the same sharp tang of diesel, the same worn posters, the same grey
benches that always felt slightly damp even in July. Instead, the air smelled of coffee
and fresh paint. Somewhere above me, a speaker played a bright little tune to
announce the next service. I blinked, as if the scene might settle into the correct version
if I stared hard enough.
I walked slowly, dragging my suitcase over paving stones that used to be cracked. Now
they were even and pale, laid in neat stripes. The newsagent on the corner was gone,
replaced by a glass-fronted place advertising smoothies in letters the size of my head. I
paused outside it, half expecting Mr Patel to look up from behind the counter and call
me “love” the way he always had. Nobody did. Inside, people sat at tall tables like they
belonged there.
I carried on.
The route to home was muscle memory. Left past the bakery, right at the traffic lights,
up the hill that used to make my legs ache when I was younger. Yet even that hill felt
gentler now. Maybe I was fitter, or maybe the town had quietly smoothed itself while I
was away.
At the top of the road, I stopped.
The park, the one that used to open out like a secret, had become something else
entirely. The old iron gate had been replaced with a wide wooden archway. The chipped
swing set was gone, and in its place stood a bright climbing frame with nets and slides
that curled like sea creatures. A new path cut through the grass in a clean curve. There
were benches with metal arms, and small trees planted in careful lines, each guarded
by a ring of stakes.
For a moment I felt oddly winded, as if I had arrived too late for something.
I stepped inside.
When I was little, this park was where Saturdays happened. We came with a football
and a carrier bag of crisps. We balanced on the low wall by the pond pretending it was a
tightrope. We wore our knees raw on the rough grass and never once cared. The old
oak tree still stood near the centre, but even it had been tidied, its lower branches
trimmed away so that its shape looked cleaner, less wild.
A group of children ran past me, shrieking with delighted energy, and I had to smile
because that part, at least, was the same. Their trainers thudded on the new rubber
flooring. Their voices bounced off the shiny equipment. The park had not lost its
purpose. It had just been re-written.
I sat on a bench that was not mine. The metal was warm from the weak sun. I watched
a toddler wobble towards a slide while his dad hovered nearby, hands out as if ready to
catch a gust of wind. A dog chased a tennis ball with the seriousness of a job.
Somewhere close, a bicycle bell chimed and a couple drifted past, arguing gently about
directions.
I took out my phone, almost on instinct, and scrolled through old photos. There I was at
twelve, grinning on the rusted swing, hair split into uneven plaits, feet in the air. There
was the pond with its green film and “No Swimming” sign that everyone ignored. There
was the oak with its low branches that had once been perfect for hiding.
I looked up from the screen, and the present clicked into focus. The new pond was
clearer. The sign was different. The branches were higher. But the space between the
trees still held the same light. The wind still stitched its way through the leaves with the
same whispering sound. My memories had not been demolished. They were simply not
the whole story any more.
A voice behind me said, “They’ve done it up nice, haven’t they?”
I turned. An older woman with a shopping bag stood on the path, nodding at the park
like it was an old friend in a new coat. I nodded back.
“Yeah,” I said. “Nice.”
She smiled once, then continued on, and that was it for dialogue, because nothing else
needed saying.
I stayed a while longer, letting the change settle. It felt strange, yes, but not wrong. I
realised I had brought an older version of the town with me like a photograph folded in
my pocket. I had been comparing everything to it, expecting the world to match my
hand-me-down map.
But places do not wait. They grow, the way people do.
When I finally stood up, my suitcase felt lighter. I walked out of the park, not as
someone returning to a paused past, but as someone stepping into a present that had
been carrying on all along.
Everything had changed.
And I was ready to change with it.
Let’s take this narrative writing task as an example of a suitable task for Assignment 3:
‘Write a story which involves an injustice.’
We can use a five-part narrative structure to plan our response:
Step 1 Exposition/setting A house that nobody has lived in for a long time
Atmosphere is silent and uncared for
Background information - grandparents’ house
Light, laughter and joy
Step 2 Rising action
Narrator and sister playing in a treehouse
Accident involving the narrator’s sister
Step 3 Climax Narrator gets the blame
Aftermath - leave the house and return to the city
Step 4 Falling action Family crumbles
Present day - narrator returns to the house
Step 5 Resolution