The most useful thing I can show you isn’t a perfect piece of 11+ writing. It’s the journey from competent to exceptional – and exactly what changed along the way.
Parents often ask me: how do I know if my child’s creative writing is good enough? And my answer is always: it depends on what you mean by good enough. A technically correct, adequately structured story will score solidly. A story with genuine craft – a distinctive voice, strong imagery, controlled pacing, and a landing that resonates – will score at the top.
The gap between those two is almost always specific and fixable. Let me show you what I mean.
Example 1: The Opening
Before
It was a stormy night and the rain was pouring down heavily. Tom was sitting in his bedroom looking out of the window. He was feeling worried because he had to do something very important tomorrow.
This is a very common 11+ opening. It’s grammatically correct, it establishes a character and a setting, and it gestures toward tension. It will not stand out. The weather opening is among the most overused in 11+ papers; beginning with a character ‘sitting and looking’ signals passivity; and ‘something very important’ is frustratingly vague.
After
Tom had read the letter four times. Each time, the words stayed exactly the same, no matter how much he willed them to change. Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, he would have to stand up in front of every person who mattered to him and tell the truth.
Same character, same essential situation – but notice what’s different. We’re inside Tom’s experience rather than observing him from outside. The detail of reading the letter ‘four times’ is specific and revealing. The phrase ‘no matter how much he willed them to change’ creates empathy. And the final sentence raises an immediate question: what is the truth? The reader needs to find out.
What changed: The writer moved from reporting the scene to inhabiting it. That shift – from observer to experiencer – is one of the highest-value technical adjustments a child can make.
Example 2: The Description
Before
The old house looked very scary. It had broken windows and the garden was overgrown. There were strange noises coming from inside. It was very dark and cold.
Again – technically fine. But every adjective here is generic (scary, strange, dark, cold) and every detail is predictable. Nothing here could only have been written by this particular child.
After
One window on the upper floor was cracked in a perfect diagonal, as if something had pressed against it from inside. The garden had long since stopped pretending to be a garden – it was just a tangle of wet brambles and something that might once have been a rose bush. She stood at the gate for a long moment, listening. Whatever the noise was, it had a rhythm to it. Almost like breathing.
The cracked window with its specific shape suggests agency – something pushed from inside. ‘Stopped pretending to be a garden’ is a beautiful piece of personification that feels fresh. The shift from visual description to sound in the final sentences creates mounting tension. And ‘almost like breathing’ ends the paragraph on exactly the right note of ambiguity.
What changed: The writer replaced generic adjectives with specific, original observations. Specificity is almost always the answer when description feels flat.
Example 3: The Ending
Before
In the end, everything worked out fine. Maya had learned an important lesson about being brave and she was glad she had done it. She smiled to herself as she walked home. It had been quite an adventure.
This ending tells us how to feel rather than making us feel it. ‘Everything worked out fine’ and ‘important lesson’ are the narrative equivalent of explaining a joke. And ‘quite an adventure’ is possibly the most deflating final line in 11+ creative writing history.
After
She didn’t look back at the building as she walked away. She had expected to feel relief – instead, there was just a quietness in her chest that she didn’t quite know what to do with. Three streets later, she realised she was smiling. She wasn’t sure when that had started.
The ending doesn’t tell Maya how to feel – it shows her discovering it herself. The ‘quietness in her chest’ is an original, emotionally precise image. And the final two sentences land with a kind of earned gentleness that leaves the reader with a warm residue. That’s exactly the feeling a top-mark ending should create.
What changed: The writer removed the editorial summary and trusted the reader to feel the emotional note directly. Less explanation, more experience.
The Pattern Behind All Three Transformations
If you look at what changed across all three examples, it comes down to one principle: write for the reader’s experience, not for the examiner’s checklist.
This is counterintuitive when you’re preparing for an exam – surely you should be thinking about what the examiner wants? But the examiners themselves will tell you: what they want is writing that makes them feel something. And that happens when a child is focused on their reader rather than their mark.
Teaching children to write with that intention is exactly what our coaching does.
How to Get This Kind of Feedback on Your Child’s Writing
Reading these examples is useful context. But the transformation only happens when your child gets specific, expert feedback on their own writing – not generic advice, but targeted guidance on what is already working and exactly what to adjust.
Our trial course includes this. For £27, your child gets structured coaching and the kind of editorial feedback that moves marks – applied to their actual writing, not a hypothetical example.
Every child I’ve worked with who went from average to top marks made the same shift: they stopped trying to write a ‘good story’ and started trying to write something that felt true. The marks followed.
Start the 11 Plus Essay Trial Course – £27Expert creative writing coaching and detailed feedback on your child’s work. See what changes when the right support is in place.Start here: millions.geekschool.co.uk/l/pdp/trial-creative-writing-course
Want to complement the creative writing coaching with a full 11+ assessment? Book your free slot at Geek School and get a complete picture of where your child stands.
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