Tag Archives: 13 plus

Interview preparation

Interview Preparation

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Every year, thousands of 11+ and 13+ candidates go to what might be their very first interviews. They’re hoping for a place at their target schools, but they’ll probably be nervous about going through the whole process.

Interview prep is important to give yourself the best chance of impressing the teacher and the school. Teachers generally want to teach bright, enthusiastic, polite pupils who are interested in the world around them, so that’s the impression you want to give during your interviews!

It’s also important to do your research about possible target schools so that you can talk about the differences between them. These might involve all kinds of aspects, including the facilities, activities, curriculum, alumni and values (or ‘ethos’).

Here’s a quick guide to the right behaviour and how to create and rehearse answers to the kinds of questions you might be asked.

Let’s start with a few basics.

Appearance

You’ll probably be sent a letter before the interview telling you how you’re expected to dress. It’ll usually be just your school uniform, but it’s worth checking. You want to make the best possible first impression, so you don’t want to stand out like a sore thumb!

Manners

You should be polite, friendly and respectful. That means following any instructions you’re given and getting the basics right.

When you’re called into the interview room, you’ll probably be met by a teacher who’ll offer you a handshake. How to shake hands properly is an important social skill. You should simply grip and shake the hand firmly for a second or two and then let it go, smiling and keeping eye contact throughout. (You can probably afford to grip the hands of male teachers a bit more firmly!)

After that, the teacher might sit down, but you shouldn’t sit down yourself until you’ve been invited to do so. That’s not polite. Not everyone cares about these things, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!

After the interview, you might have to shake hands again, but you just need to follow the same procedure as before.

Body Language

The way you sit and stand and how you position your hands, arms and legs are important in making the right impression. I once starred in a Channel 4 documentary on mating habits, so I had to learn all about body language!

There are many different signs, both good and bad. Here are a few to bear in mind:

Dos

  • Keep eye contact while you’re listening to the teacher.
  • If you’re speaking yourself, you should look into the teacher’s eyes at least half the time.
  • Mirror the body position of the teacher, eg if the teacher leans forward, it’s a good idea to lean forward as well.
  • Find a neutral position for your hands, eg clasping them together and resting them in your lap.

Don’ts

  • Don’t show any bad habits, eg playing with a pencil or picking your nose.
  • Don’t cross your arms. It puts up a barrier and makes you look defensive—or just plain bored!

Questions

There are lots of questions you might be asked in an interview, but some of the most common ones crop up again and again. It’s always worth preparing and rehearsing your answers—even to the simplest of questions.

If you’re asked a difficult question, feel free to take a moment to work out what to say. A short pause is much better than ‘waffling’ vaguely without really saying anything!

Typically, you’ll be asked a mixture of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ questions.

  • Open questions invite you to provide information or your opinion on something in a sentence or two.
  • Closed questions only need a one-word answer, but you shouldn’t settle for that. For instance, if someone asks you about your favourite subject, you shouldn’t just say English or Maths. You should be prepared to explain why without any prompting. Otherwise, you might end up with a lot of awkward pauses! Instead, try to imagine that each question comes with the words ‘and why’ at the end. That will help you to remember to explain everything.

It’s worth coming up with a list of possible questions and then writing out ‘model answers’ to each of them. Here are a few that might crop up:

Personal

  • What’s your name?
  • Where do you live?
  • What close family do you have?

Academic

  • What’s your favourite subject?
  • What’s your least favourite subject?
  • Which subject do you think is most important?
  • Is there any extra subject you think should be taught?
  • What makes a good teacher?
  • What makes a good lesson?
  • Is learning facts at school more important than developing skills?
  • Is it better to be good at Maths or English?
  • How important is it to learn a foreign language?

Likes and Dislikes

  • What do you like to do outside school?
  • What are your favourite things to do with your friends?
  • Do you like sport?
  • How important is sport at school?
  • How important are music and drama at school?
  • What’s your favourite kind of music?
  • Do you play an instrument?
  • Do you have any hobbies or extracurricular activities?
  • Have you recently been to a cultural event like a play, a concert or an exhibition?
  • If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
  • If you could live abroad, which city or country would you choose?
  • If you won millions of pounds in the lottery, what would you spend it on?

Current Affairs

  • Do you ever read a newspaper or listen to the news?
  • Have you seen a news story recently that you were especially interested in?
  • What do you think are the most important issues in the world today?
  • Do you think we should try to save the planet or learn to live with climate change?
  • Which is more important, Science or the Arts?
  • What do you think of the current government?

Self-awareness

  • How would you describe yourself?
  • Do you think you are talented?
  • Why do you think you deserve a place at this school?
  • If people who know you well had to describe you in three words, what would they say?
  • What are your strengths and weaknesses?
  • Has there ever been a big challenge in your life that you’ve had to overcome?

Values

  • Is it better to be an adult or a child?
  • Is it important to be intelligent and well-educated?
  • Is it more important to be kind or clever?
  • How important is it to be creative?
  • Who are the people who inspire you?

School Choice

  • Why did you apply to this school?
  • How does it compare to other schools you know about?
  • What qualities do you think we’re looking for in potential pupils?
  • If you could change anything about your current school, what would it be?
  • Which other schools did you apply to?
  • What did you like about the other schools?

Boarding

  • What makes a good boarder?
  • What extra problems do you think you would face as a boarder?
  • What do you think are the benefits of boarding?

At the end of the interview, the teacher will usually ask if you have any questions. Interviews are a two-way street, so it’s not just a case of the school choosing the pupils—the pupils also need to choose the school!

That means it’s worth thinking of a good question to ask. It shouldn’t be too basic because that just means you couldn’t be bothered to look it up online! It should be about something important to you and relevant to your application.

Here are a few examples:

  • What do you most enjoy about this school?
  • Why do you think I should want to study here?
  • How do you think I’ll fit in with the other pupils?
  • How do you think your facilities will benefit me personally?
  • What are the opportunities for me to…? (Fill in the blank with what you’re most interested in, such as sport, music or drama.)

Practice

After you’ve done your preparation, you should rehearse by asking an adult to play the part of the teacher and conduct a mock interview. This is called rôle playing. You’re the candidate, and your mum, dad, tutor or other adult plays the part of the interviewer.

You should try to mirror the conditions of the interview as closely as possible. That means wearing the same clothes, knocking on the door, shaking hands, sitting down and answering questions just as you would in the real thing—and for the same amount of time, if possible.

Try to keep up the act. If you make a mistake, don’t say, “Sorry” or start again. Just keep going as best you can. Things always go wrong, so it’s good to practice recovering from your mistakes.

Afterwards, you can have a ‘debrief’, discussing what you think went well and what you might need to do better:

  • Did you smile?
  • Did you keep eye contact?
  • Did you offer a firm handshake?
  • Did you wait to be asked to sit down?
  • Did you answer the questions correctly?
  • Did you say what you wanted to say?
  • Were you confident, or did you keep saying, “Er” and “Erm” the whole time?

Verdict

Interview prep is important in making the best possible first impression at the school of your choice. Exams only give schools limited information about your suitability, so they have to measure your social skills and willingness to learn some other way. That’s where interviews come in.

If you prepare well and come across as polite, enthusiastic and bright, you’ll have a much better chance of being offered a place. Remember, though, the interview is not just for the school. It’s for you as well! This is your chance to find out if it’s going to be a good match, so pay attention to what you’re told and ask a question to find out whatever else you need to know.

 

 

 

 

If you’re looking for past papers with answers, especially in the run-up to 11+/13+ exams, GCSEs or A-levels, you can visit my Past Papers page and subscribe for just £37.99 a year.

How to Write a Newspaper Article

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In the good old days, 11+ or 13+ candidates were simply asked to do a comprehension and write a story in their English exams. However, the creative writing papers have changed recently, and candidates might have to do a wide range of creative writing tasks, such as writing a diary entry or a newspaper article. This post should help you understand the basic format of a newspaper article enough to write your own in a convincing way.

Format

The picture above shows a typical article taken from the online edition of The Daily Telegraph. It happens to be from the sport section, but it follows a similar pattern to most articles, whether they’re in news, opinion or any other section.

Here are the basic elements that you need to copy in your own article:

  1. Headline. This says what the news item actually is and will usually have only 5-10 words in it. This one’s a little longer, but it still leaves out one or two words, in this case the ‘a’ in front of the words ‘shock call-up’. Articles such as a, an and the are normally left out of the main headline, as are auxiliary verbs such as being and having. For example, if the headline was in the passive, it would read something like ‘Josh Tongue handed shock call-up’, not ‘Josh Tongue is handed shock call-up’. Notice also that it’s in the present tense—even though the event obviously happened in the past! That’s just a convention or habit, but you need to do the same.
  2. Subheadline. This explains the main headline in a bit more detail. This is generally a bit longer, so the rules are slightly less strict on leaving out words. Notice that the word ‘an’ makes it into this one, but there’s no ‘the’ before ‘nets’.
  3. Byline. This tells the reader who’s written the article and where it was written. In this case, it’s just the journalist’s name and location, but columnists sometimes have a mini-biography.
  4. Date. This shows the date and time when the article was published.
  5. Picture. You probably won’t have to draw a picture, but you might possibly have to show where it goes in the article and say what would be in it. In this case, it’s just a picture of Josh Tongue bowling at Lord’s Cricket Ground.
  6. Caption. The line under the picture usually repeats the headline again in different words, and there’s usually a credit for the photographer who took the picture or the agency that provided it. In this case, you can see it was Philip Brown via Getty Images.
  7. Lede. The first paragraph is called the ‘lede’ for historical reasons that aren’t important now! It usually repeats the headline with a bit more explanatory detail, including the five Ws:
    Who?
    What?
    Where?
    When?
    Why?
  8. Other paragraphs. There’s no set number of paragraphs for a newspaper article, so you’ll need to check the question to work out how much to write. However, most newspaper articles include the most important information at the top of the article and less important details further down. These usually include a mix of the following:
    • Background. This is not part of the actual story, but it helps explain what’s going on. For example, in the second paragraph of this article, we find that ‘Tongue has never played at Lord’s before’.
    • Interviews. The usual sources journalists use to back up a story are interviews with the people concerned. In political stories, you might find quotations from both sides of a controversial argument. In this case, all we see is a short quotation from Chris Woakes, who ‘spoke of a “dark” summer in 2022’.
    • Statistics. Another way to confirm a story is by using numbers. This is common in articles about economics. However, in this case, we find that Woakes ‘averages 61.2 with the bat and 11.3 with the ball’.
    • Anecdotes. Journalists often try to ‘hook’ the reader or generate an emotional reaction by telling a story. In this case, we hear how Woakes ‘was sidelined by a knee injury and wondered if he would add to his 45 Test caps’.

Conventions

Every newspaper has a ‘style guide’ that helps journalists decide how to write the story. These cover all kinds of grammatical points, including such things as how to capitalise words or where to use commas. Here are a couple of common usages:

  • Use people’s full names (and titles) when first mentioning them in the article. After that, just use their surnames. In this article, for instance, it’s ‘Josh Tongue’ in the first paragraph but ‘Tongue’ after that.
  • Use ‘elegant variation’ to avoid repeating people’s names too often. It can get a bit repetitive to use people’s names all the way through an article, so it’s normal to think of different ways to refer to them. In this article, Chris Woakes is referred to as the ‘seasoned international and Lord’s specialist’.
  • Treat what interviewees say as quotations rather than speech. That means you don’t need to put a comma before the spoken words, as with the word “dark” in this example. It also means you have to put the full-stop after the speech marks and not before.
  • Don’t write in the first person. Unless you’re supposed to be a columnist writing an opinion piece, you shouldn’t use the words ‘I’ or ‘me’.

Sample Questions

  1. Write a news article about a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, volcanic eruption or tsunami.
  2. Write a sports report about a football match.
  3. Write an article about the importance of saving the planet.
  4. Write a restaurant review.
  5. Write an obituary for a famous person who’s just died. 

     

     

     

    If you’re looking for past papers with answers, especially in the run-up to 11+/13+ exams, GCSEs or A-levels, you can visit my Past Papers page and subscribe for just £37.99 a year.

Problem Questions

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‘Problem questions’ are often the most difficult in 11+ and 13+ Maths papers.

There are several different kinds, but they all have one thing in common: they all ‘hide’ the sums that you have to do.

That means the first thing you have to do is work out the actual calculations you’re being asked for.

Here’s an example from a 10-11+ Bond book that I was going through today with one of my pupils:

What is the nearest number to 1000, but smaller than 1000, into which 38 will divide with no remainder?

He couldn’t answer it, so I told him something I always say in these situations. There are three ways of answering a question in Maths:

  1. Use a proper mathematical technique.
  2. Use trial and error.
  3. Guess!

Method 1

The first method is usually the most efficient and reliable. In this case, you need to do two calculations:

  1. 1000 ÷ 38 (ignoring any remainder)
  2. Multiply the answer by 38.

The first step should be done using long division and should give the answer 26.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second should be done by long multiplication and give the answer 988.

Method 2

It’s all very well saying you have to use ‘proper’ Maths, but what if you don’t know how to do it? That’s when trial and error comes in handy.

Trial and error just means thinking of a number that you think is ‘about right’ and then adding or subtracting from it if the answer is too low or too high.

In this case, there’s no easy answer, but you might round up 38 to 40, and 40 goes into 1,000 25 times. However, that still leaves a difference of 25 lots of 2, which is 50, so the actual total is only 950. If you add on another 38, you get 988, which is the answer.

Method 3

If you’re doing a multiple choice paper, the worst mistake in the world is to leave an answer blank. It only takes a second to guess A, B, C, D or E, so it’s worth doing because you’ll always have a 20% chance of getting it right—and that beats zero!

The key is to make sure your guesses are at least possible. For example, if the question asks for a number between 1 and 10, don’t guess 12!

For this question, it isn’t easy to guess, but the answers to a lot of questions at 11+ or 13+ level can be narrowed down quite easily to a common fraction or a single-digit number.

As Sherlock Holmes once told Dr Watson, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth!”

Quiz

  1. Mark is 11 and Julie is 9 years old. If they get £80 pocket money shared according to their ages, how much does each of them get?
  2. If a dress costs £240 after VAT at 20% is added on, what is the original price?
  3. Candy floss is on sale at £2 for three sticks at Stall A and £2.50 for five sticks at Stall B. Which stall is cheaper per stick?
  4. A garden measures 10 x 8 metres in total. There’s a lawn surrounded by a path 1 metre wide around the outside. What’s the area of the grass?
  5. If school starts at 9.15am and there are four 45-minute lessons in the morning followed by three lessons of 1 hour 15 minutes in the afternoon with an hour for lunch, what time do the children go home? 

     

     

     

    If you’re looking for past papers with answers, especially in the run-up to 11+/13+ exams, GCSEs or A-levels, you can visit my Past Papers page and subscribe for just £37.99 a year.

Explaining humour

Explaining Humour

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One of the things that children taking Common Entrance exams at either 11+ or 13+ find most difficult to explain is humour. Here’s a quick guide to various different types with explanations, examples and a short quiz at the end.

Slapstick Comedy or Farce

This is a type of physical comedy that relies on the fact that we find it funny when other people hurt themselves. It’s called ‘Schadenfreude’ in German, and it really shouldn’t be funny…but it is!

Example: A man slips on a banana skin and falls over.

Deadpan or Dry Humour

This is any joke that’s told with a very matter-of-fact tone.

Example: “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport’.”
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, by Douglas Adams

Self-deprecation

This means putting oneself down in a self-mocking way.

Example: “If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?”
Jerry Seinfeld

Toilet and Bodily Humour

What we do in the toilet or in the bedroom has given rise to a LOT of jokes over the years…

Example: “It’s just a penis, right? Probably no worse for you than smoking.”
When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris

Puns, Wit and Wordplay

These are jokes based on double meanings or a play on words.

Example: “If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”
The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse

Epigrams

An epigram is just a saying, and some sayings can be very funny – whether deliberately or not!

Example: “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
Yogi Berra

Dark Humour

Dark humour is usually about death or the gloomier aspects of life.

Example: I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, by Bill Bryson

Sarcasm and Irony

Sarcasm is saying exactly the opposite of what you mean, but irony is much richer and more popular because the meaning for the reader can be anything from the literal truth of the statement to its exact opposite. It’s up to you…

Example: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Innuendo

Finding a rude double meaning in a word or phrase is called innuendo.

Example: “Headline?” he asked.
“‘Swing Set Needs Home,'” I said.
“‘Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'” he said.
“‘Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'” I said.”
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Tongue-in-cheek

This expression just means the writer or speaker is being insincere in an ironic and/or mocking way.

Example: “In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Exaggeration and Hyperbole

Exaggeration can lead to a powerful punchline in a joke because it relies on shocking the reader with something unexpected.

Example: “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”
A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean

Parody and Mockery

Pretending to write in a certain style or copying the format of a particular writer or type of text can be done humorously – although the implied criticism may be affectionate.

Example: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen

Satire

This is making fun of something usually in religion, politics or current affairs.

Example: “They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle.”
The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett

The Surreal

‘Surreal’ just means absurd, nightmarish or like a fantasy.

Example: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka

Character Humour

Like a lot of sit-coms this form of humour relies on the personality of the characters. Things are funny because they are so typical of a certain type of person – often a stereotype.

Example: “As a boy, I wanted to be a train.”
Machine Man, by Max Barry

Observational

A lot of stand-up comedy is based on observational humour, which means simply picking up on the typical habits of people in the world around us. We laugh because we recognise the behaviour and often the reason for it.

Example: “It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”
Matilda, by Roald Dahl

Insults

The shock value of an insult lends itself to humour.

Example: Two whales walk into a bar. The first whale says to the other, “WOOOOOO. WEEEEEEEEOOOOO. WEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOO.” The second whale says, “Shut up Steve, you’re drunk.”

Awkward Situations

If a situation is particularly cringeworthy or awkward, then it will often generate nervous laughter.

Example: “I don’t know how other men feel about their wives walking out on them, but I helped mine pack.”
Breaking Up, by Bill Manville

Blue or Off-colour Jokes

Using rude words or swear words has the shock value that can generate humour.

Example: “If this typewriter can’t do it, then f*** it, it can’t be done.”
Still Life With Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins

Sample Questions

How would you explain the humour in these lines?

  1. “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
    Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen
  2. “There’s a door,” he whispered.
    “Where does it go?”
    “It stays where it is, I think,” said Rincewind.
    Eric, by Terry Pratchett
  3. “It’s not because I want to make out with her.”
    “Hold on.”
    He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he’d just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me.
    “I just did some calculations, and I’ve been able to determine that you’re full of s**t.”
    Looking for Alaska, by John Green
  4. “I came from a real tough neighborhood. Once a guy pulled a knife on me. I knew he wasn’t a professional: the knife had butter on it.”
    Rodney Dangerfield
  5. “A word to the wise ain’t necessary. It’s the stupid ones who need advice.”
    Bill Cosby
  6. “To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do – except take exercise, get up early or be a useful member of the community.”
    A Woman of No Importance, by Oscar Wilde
  7. “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major, it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction, he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”
    Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
  8. “Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
    Jingo, by Terry Pratchett
  9. “There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, ‘Do trousers matter?'”
    “The mood will pass, sir.”
    The Code of the Woosters, by PG Wodehouse
  10. “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by CS Lewis
  11. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
    I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
  12. “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
    Dorothy Parker
  13. “For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”
    The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
  14. “For the better part of my childhood, my professional aspirations were simple – I wanted to be an intergalactic princess.”
    Seven Up, by Janet Evanovich
  15. “It wasn’t until I had become engaged to Miss Piano that I began avoiding her.”
    Into Your Tent I’ll Creep, by Peter De Vries
  16. “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
    The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde 

     

     

     

    If you’re looking for past papers with answers, especially in the run-up to 11+/13+ exams, GCSEs or A-levels, you can visit my Past Papers page and subscribe for just £37.99 a year.

Creating Off-the-shelf Characters

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Common entrance exams have a time limit. If they didn’t, they’d be a lot easier! If you want to save time and improve your story, one thing you can do is to prepare three ‘off-the-shelf’ characters to choose from.

You can work on them beforehand, improving them and memorising them as you go. By the time the exam comes around, it’ll be easy to dash off 8-10 lines about one of your favourite characters without having to spend any time inventing or perfecting them.

Here’s what you need to do.

The first thing to say is that you need your characters to be a little out of the ordinary. Most pupils writing stories tend to write about themselves. In other words, 10-year-old boys living in London tend to write stories about 10-year-old boys living in London!

Now, that’s all very well, and the story might still get a good mark, but what you want to try and do is stand out from the crowd. Why not write a story about an 18-year-old intern at a shark research institute in the Maldives?!

To decide which one you’d rather write about, you just have to ask yourself which one you’d rather read about. One thing you can do to make sure your characters are special is to give them all what I call a ‘speciality’ or USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

It might be a superpower such as X-ray vision or mind-reading, or it might be a special skill such as diving or surfing, or it might be a fascinating back-story such as being descended from the Russian royal family or William Shakespeare – whatever it is, it’s a great way to make your characters – and therefore your stories – just that little bit more interesting.

Secondly, you should also make sure all your characters are different. Try to cover all the bases so that you have one you can use for just about any story. That means having heroes that are male and female, old and young, from different countries and different historical periods and with different looks, personalities and USPs.

For instance, Clara might be the 18-year-old intern at a shark research institute in the Maldives, Pedro might be the 35-year-old Mexican spy during the Texas Revolution of 1835-6, and Kurt might be the 60-year-old Swiss inventor who lives in a laboratory buried deep under the Matterhorn! Who knows? It’s entirely up to you.

Thirdly, creating an off-the-shelf character is a great way to force yourself to use ‘wow words’ and literary techniques such as metaphors and similes. You may have learned what a simile is, but it’s very easy to forget to use them in your stories, so why not describe one of your heroes as having ‘eyes as dark as a murderer’s soul’?

If you use the same characters with similar descriptions over and over again, it’ll become second nature to ‘show off’ your knowledge, and you can do the same with your vocabulary. Again, why say that someone is ‘big’ when you can say he is ‘athletic’, ‘brawny’ or ‘muscular’?

Fourthly, try to stick to what you know. If you’ve never even ridden on a horse, it’s going to be quite tough to write a story about a jockey!

Alternatively, if you’ve regularly been to a particular place on holiday or met someone you found especially interesting, then use what you know to create your characters and their backgrounds. It’s always easier to describe places if you’ve actually been there, and it’s easier to describe people if you know someone similar.

So what goes into creating off-the-shelf characters? The answer is that you have to try and paint a complete picture. It has to cover every major aspect of their lives – even if you can’t remember all the details when you come to write the story. I’d start by using the following categories:

  • Name
  • Age
  • Job or education
  • Looks
  • Home
  • Friends and family
  • Personality
  • USP (or speciality)

Names are sometimes hard to decide on, so you might want to leave this one to last, but you just need to make sure it’s appropriate to the sort of character you’re creating. It wouldn’t be very convincing to have a Japanese scientist called Emily!

Age is fairly easy to decide. Just make sure your three characters are different – and not too close to your own age!

Job or education goes a long way to pigeon-holing someone. You can tell a lot from what someone does for a living or what they are doing in school or at university. You can include as much or as little detail as you like, but the minimum is probably the name and location of the school or college and what your characters’ favourite subjects are. You never know when it might come in handy!

Looks includes hair, eye colour, build, skin colour and favourite clothes. The more you describe your heroes’ looks, the easier it’ll be for the reader to imagine them.

Home can again be as detailed as you like, but the more specific the better. It’s easier to imagine the captain of a nuclear submarine patrolling under the North Pole than someone simply ‘living in London’…

Friends and family are important to most people, and it’s no different for the heroes of your stories. We don’t need to know the names of all their aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, but we at least need to know who they live with and who their best friends are.

Personality covers many things, but it should show what your characters are ‘like’ and what their interests are. Again, you don’t have to go into enormous depth, but it’s good to introduce the reader to qualities that might be needed later on in the story, such as athleticism or an ability to sail a boat.

USP stands for Unique Selling Point. It’s used in business to describe what makes products likely to succeed, from cars to Coke. When it comes to characters, the USP can be anything that makes them worth reading about. One of the reasons Superman is so popular is his superpowers: his ability to fly, his X-ray vision and the fact that he’s invulnerable. His greatest weakness is also important: Kryptonite. It’s the same for your characters. What can they do that most people can’t? What qualities can they show off in your stories? What will make them people we admire, respect and even love?

If you wanted to make Superman one of your off-the-shelf characters, this is what your notes might look like:

  • Name: Superman (or Clark Kent, Kal-El, The Man of Steel, The Last Son of Krypton, The Man of Tomorrow)
  • Age: Early 20s (when he first appears)
  • Job or education: News reporter at The Daily Planet in Metropolis
  • Looks: Tall, with a muscular physique, dark-haired, blue eyes
  • Home: Krypton, then the Kents’ farm in Smallville, Kansas, then Metropolis (or a fictionalised New York), where he lives in a rented apartment
  • Friends and family: Jor-El and Lara (biological parents)/Jonathan and Martha Kent (adoptive parents), Lois Lane (colleague, best friend, girlfriend), Jimmy Olsen (colleague), Perry White (boss as editor of The Daily Planet)
  • Personality: Noble, honest, caring, gentle, resolute, decisive
  • USP (or speciality): Superpowers, including invulnerability, super strength, X-ray vision, super hearing, longevity, freezing breath, ability to fly (but vulnerable to Kryptonite!)

Once you’ve created the notes for your three characters, you can write a paragraph of 8-10 lines about each of them. This is your chance to create something that you can easily slot into any of your stories, so use the past tense and stick to what the characters are like, not what they’re doing. That will be different in each story, so you don’t want to tie yourself down.

Here’s an example using Superman again:

Clark Kent led a double life. He wasn’t happy about it, but he needed his secret identity so that no one would find out who he really was. He might have been a mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet with a crush on his partner, Lois Lane, but he was also a crime-fighting superhero: he was Kal-El, Superman and The Man of Steel all rolled into one!

His secret was that he’d actually been born on Krypton and sent to Earth as a baby to protect him from the destruction of his home planet. He’d been found by a childless couple living on a farm in Smallville, Kansas, and Jonathan and Martha Kent had adopted him as their own.

They didn’t know where he’d come from, but they’d provided him with a loving home as they watched him grow into a blue-eyed, dark-haired, athletic young man with a passion for ‘truth, justice and the American way’.

And they soon realised he was special when they saw him lifting a tractor with one hand…! He was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
“Look! Up in the sky!”
“It’s a bird!”
“It’s a plane!”
“It’s Superman!”

Try using your characters for stories you’re asked to write by your English teacher (or tutor, if you have one). The more often you use them, the better they’ll get as you change things you don’t like about them, bring in new ideas and polish the wording.

If it helps, you could even do what one or two of my clients did for their sons, which was to feed their descriptions into an AI model to make pictures from them!

Next Steps

Try to create three off-the-shelf characters. Make them different ages, male and female and from different parts of the world. Start with the notes and then create a paragraph of 8-10 lines for each one in the past tense, ready to drop into any story…

If it helps, you could also print out a picture from the internet and put it on your wall, adding notes to it to describe all the details of the character. For example, if you like fantasy tales of ‘swords and sorcery’ and want a hero to match, you could find a warrior from a film such as The Lord of the Rings and scribble down words like ‘helm’, ‘scabbard’ and ‘jerkin’. You could even add poetic devices to describe your hero’s main characteristics, such as his ‘arms of wrought iron’ or his ‘eyes as green as emeralds’.

 

 

 

 

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