🎨 How to Write a Vivid 11+ Creative Writing Description: A Guide for Students and Parents

When it comes to the 11+ creative writing task, most children know what they want to say — but not always how to say it. In our latest YouTube lesson, we show students exactly how to bring their writing to life, step by step.

If your child is preparing for exams that include descriptive or imaginative writing — including ISEB, FSCE or independent school 11+ papers — this is a must-watch.

👇 Watch the full lesson here:
🎥 How to Write a Vivid 11+ Creative Writing Description

✍️ What the Video Covers

In this lesson, we take students through the process of describing a dramatic moment using:

• Sensory detail – what can be seen, heard, felt and even smelt

• Powerful verbs – replacing dull or generic verbs with precise, vivid ones

• Metaphors and similes – to add originality and flair

• Fronted adverbials – to vary sentence structure and control pacing

• Slow writing – building description piece by piece, sentence by sentence

We don’t just tell students what good writing looks like — we model it live, showing them exactly how to build tension, describe a scene, and make their writing stand out.

🔍 Why This Matters for 11+ Exams

Whether your child is sitting a FSCE Discovery task or an independent school creative writing paper, they’ll need more than just a good imagination. They’ll need structure, clarity, and style.

This lesson helps students:

• Understand what examiners are looking for

• Practise the techniques used by top-level candidates

• Avoid common traps (e.g. writing a story that races ahead with no description)

• Learn how to slow down and create impact with their sentences

It’s also perfect for developing the creative confidence needed to write well under pressure.

🧠 Tips You Can Try at Home

Here are some extension ideas based on the lesson:

• 📸 Image Prompt: Pause the video before the writing starts. Show your child a similar picture and ask them to plan their own descriptive paragraph.

• 🎯 Slow Writing Grid: Give them 5 sentence instructions (e.g. Start with a simile. Use a sentence with ‘as if’. Describe a sound. Add an emotion. End with a short punchy line).

• ✍️ Rewriting Challenge: Take a boring sentence like “The wind was strong” and challenge them to rewrite it using metaphor or alliteration.

• 💬 Discussion Starter: Ask, “What makes a description powerful?” Encourage your child to justify their choices.

🧾 How This Links to FSCE and 11+ Style Writing

For exams like FSCE, writing isn’t about “finishing the story” — it’s about how well the child can communicate ideas in a limited space. The Discovery and Beacon papers reward:

• Sentence control

• Vocabulary precision

• Creativity and imagination

• The ability to respond clearly and originally to a task

This video helps build those exact skills in a focused, accessible way.

📌 Final Thoughts

Too often, children rush their stories and skip over description — not because they’re lazy, but because they’re not sure how to slow down and build a scene. This lesson shows them how, one step at a time.

✅ Whether your child struggles to get started, or already loves writing but wants to go further, this is a practical, high-impact tool.

🎥 Watch now: How to Write a Vivid 11+ Creative Writing Description

📞 Or if you’d like tailored support for your child’s 11+ writing: Book a free call with TJ Tutors