Write boldly. Break the rules. Have fun.

Why School Grammar Rules Can Crush Creative Writing

I've never been one for sticking to the rules.

It probably stems from the rather stiff and proper school I attended. My friends and I would go to great lengths to be naughty, and then even greater lengths to talk our way out of punishment.

We played all the usual tricks on teachers: glinting the sun off a metal ruler into the maths teacher's eyes. Staring at the physics teacher's shoes with exaggerated disgust until she either thought she'd stepped in something or concluded her taste was completely repellent.

The only time we didn't get away with it was when we all hid in the toilets for an entire lesson and the sweet old history teacher could be seen wandering the corridors looking for us. We probably shouldn't have jumped out with a massive 'BOO!' - but she was boring, and that particular lesson was, at least, fun.

As I grew older, I still looked to bend rules if they didn't quite suit me. I never broke the law or put anyone in danger, but if someone was being treated unfairly, then I'd step in and suggest they tried my methods.

With regard to my own children, I was a tiger. Teachers must have dreaded getting one of the Boxall children in their class. To be fair, most of the furious letters I wrote ended up in the bin, but I enjoyed writing them.

Ah yes, writing. There are plenty of rules for writing, and I pride myself in breaking the more rigid of them.

Children in school these days aren’t just encouraged to write well. They’re trained to tick boxes.

Apparently, a good story must contain:

• Inverted clauses

• Split infinitives

• Non-restrictive relative clauses

• Fronted adverbials

• Coordinating conjunctions at the start of sentences

And that’s just a handful. There seem to be dozens of grammar terms to remember.

Now, I’m not saying grammar doesn’t matter (much). You need to know the rules to pass exams, and clarity is important. The teachers I know work incredibly hard to keep creativity alive within a tight curriculum. But when young writers become more worried about whether they’ve included a fronted adverbial than whether their character feels real, something has gone wrong.

This is why Crazy Creatives was born.

I love teaching creative writing. Real creative writing. The kind where imagination comes first and structure follows later.

I've just written my fourth Crazy Creatives book. This one is called, How to Write a Thriller. It's a fun (and rule-free) creative writing course for teens - though adults might enjoy it too - especially if they fancy themselves as the next Stephen King.

This isn’t a workbook full of boxes and bossy instructions. It’s a guide to noticing the world differently - the shadows, the oddities, the tiny details that make thrillers thrilling.

Each chapter starts with a short, unsettling piece of writing, followed by Field Notes, Ghost Text and strange little challenges that sharpen your senses until the ordinary world feels… not quite ordinary.

With homeschooling and alternative education on the rise, many parents are looking for creative writing exercises for teens that go beyond worksheets. Crazy Creatives fills that gap with teen writing projects, home education writing activities and writing prompts for teenagers that are clever, practical and just a little rebellious

This morning I downloaded the final version to BookVault and now I eagerly await the first copy.

Knowing me, there will be a few errors.

I might even leave them in.

What does it matter if one full stop is missing?

#HomeEd #TeenWriters #WritingForTeens #WriteBoldly #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting