NCERT Textbook: Creative Writing | English Class 11 PDF Download

 Page 1


6.  Creative Writing
The teacher was explaining the lines in the beginning of Shakespeare’s 
play Macbeth. It was a description of the battle and the lines were:
Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage, 
Till he faced the slave;
With ne’er shook hands, nor baded farewell to him.
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,… 
The teacher asked the students what the word ‘unseamed’ meant. It 
was difficult. The teacher prodded them on. “What does ‘seam’  mean? 
Haven’t you ever come across the word?”  One of the students blurted 
out “Cricket ball”. 
This is an example of how each of us reacts to words according to 
what our own experience has been.
When we write about factual information, all of us write almost 
similarly. But when we write for pleasure each of us may write about 
the same event in different ways.
One very important element in creative writing is imagination. This is 
reflected in
?? our view or perspective
?? choice of words
?? the comparisons we make
?? the images we use 
?? the tone we adopt
?? novelty of ideas.
Let us study the paragraph below.
A town is like an animal. A town has a nervous system and a head 
and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other 
towns, so that there are no towns alike. And a town has a whole 
emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to 
be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble 
Chap 12.indd   98 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 2


6.  Creative Writing
The teacher was explaining the lines in the beginning of Shakespeare’s 
play Macbeth. It was a description of the battle and the lines were:
Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage, 
Till he faced the slave;
With ne’er shook hands, nor baded farewell to him.
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,… 
The teacher asked the students what the word ‘unseamed’ meant. It 
was difficult. The teacher prodded them on. “What does ‘seam’  mean? 
Haven’t you ever come across the word?”  One of the students blurted 
out “Cricket ball”. 
This is an example of how each of us reacts to words according to 
what our own experience has been.
When we write about factual information, all of us write almost 
similarly. But when we write for pleasure each of us may write about 
the same event in different ways.
One very important element in creative writing is imagination. This is 
reflected in
?? our view or perspective
?? choice of words
?? the comparisons we make
?? the images we use 
?? the tone we adopt
?? novelty of ideas.
Let us study the paragraph below.
A town is like an animal. A town has a nervous system and a head 
and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other 
towns, so that there are no towns alike. And a town has a whole 
emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to 
be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble 
Chap 12.indd   98 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Crea Tive Wri Ting 99
and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences. (from 
an adapted version of Steinbeck’s The Pearl)
The topic: A Town
Analogy or comparison: to an animal
Word choice: “has a whole emotion.” 
Comparisons: “faster than small boys can scramble and dart, faster 
than women….”
We find the first element of imagination operating in the way the writer 
visualises the town. Then he extends the primary analogy. The tone 
he adopts is light humour, a little sarcastic.
When we begin to write a story or poem we let our imagination free. 
We try to say things in a new way. This novelty is what makes our 
writing pleasurable to the reader.
Sometimes sentence structures are also different from factual writing. 
Consider the following:
They waited in their chairs until the pearls came in, and then 
they cackled and fought and shouted and threatened until 
they reached the lowest price the fisherman would stand. (from 
The Pearl).
In a normal construction we will not use so many ‘ands’. But the 
action of the story is best reflected through this kind of chaining of 
actions through ‘ands’. It is appropriate to the movement of the action 
described.  
Let us look at another example:
She dragged me after her into Miss Rachel’s sitting-room, which 
opened to her bedroom. At her bedroom door stood Miss Rachel, 
her face almost white as the white dressing-gown she wore. 
The author has used a simile: “white as the white dressing-gown she 
wore.”
In fact, the whiteness of a human face is because of a strong emotion 
— fear or shock. 
But here comparing the whiteness to the dressing-gown she wore 
serves to exaggerate and intensify the emotion.
Exaggeration is one of the ways in which fact is distinguished from 
fiction.
Now look at these lines from a well-known poem, ‘An Elegy Written in 
a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray.
Chap 12.indd   99 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 3


6.  Creative Writing
The teacher was explaining the lines in the beginning of Shakespeare’s 
play Macbeth. It was a description of the battle and the lines were:
Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage, 
Till he faced the slave;
With ne’er shook hands, nor baded farewell to him.
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,… 
The teacher asked the students what the word ‘unseamed’ meant. It 
was difficult. The teacher prodded them on. “What does ‘seam’  mean? 
Haven’t you ever come across the word?”  One of the students blurted 
out “Cricket ball”. 
This is an example of how each of us reacts to words according to 
what our own experience has been.
When we write about factual information, all of us write almost 
similarly. But when we write for pleasure each of us may write about 
the same event in different ways.
One very important element in creative writing is imagination. This is 
reflected in
?? our view or perspective
?? choice of words
?? the comparisons we make
?? the images we use 
?? the tone we adopt
?? novelty of ideas.
Let us study the paragraph below.
A town is like an animal. A town has a nervous system and a head 
and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other 
towns, so that there are no towns alike. And a town has a whole 
emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to 
be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble 
Chap 12.indd   98 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Crea Tive Wri Ting 99
and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences. (from 
an adapted version of Steinbeck’s The Pearl)
The topic: A Town
Analogy or comparison: to an animal
Word choice: “has a whole emotion.” 
Comparisons: “faster than small boys can scramble and dart, faster 
than women….”
We find the first element of imagination operating in the way the writer 
visualises the town. Then he extends the primary analogy. The tone 
he adopts is light humour, a little sarcastic.
When we begin to write a story or poem we let our imagination free. 
We try to say things in a new way. This novelty is what makes our 
writing pleasurable to the reader.
Sometimes sentence structures are also different from factual writing. 
Consider the following:
They waited in their chairs until the pearls came in, and then 
they cackled and fought and shouted and threatened until 
they reached the lowest price the fisherman would stand. (from 
The Pearl).
In a normal construction we will not use so many ‘ands’. But the 
action of the story is best reflected through this kind of chaining of 
actions through ‘ands’. It is appropriate to the movement of the action 
described.  
Let us look at another example:
She dragged me after her into Miss Rachel’s sitting-room, which 
opened to her bedroom. At her bedroom door stood Miss Rachel, 
her face almost white as the white dressing-gown she wore. 
The author has used a simile: “white as the white dressing-gown she 
wore.”
In fact, the whiteness of a human face is because of a strong emotion 
— fear or shock. 
But here comparing the whiteness to the dressing-gown she wore 
serves to exaggerate and intensify the emotion.
Exaggeration is one of the ways in which fact is distinguished from 
fiction.
Now look at these lines from a well-known poem, ‘An Elegy Written in 
a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas Gray.
Chap 12.indd   99 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
100 h ornbill Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
And waste its fragrance in the desert air.
The stanza carries a simple statement: many people with outstanding 
qualities live and  die unnoticed by the world.
To state this, the poet has used two strong images, ‘a gem’ and ‘a flower’.
He has used two contrasting places: the ocean, that is full of water 
and the desert with no water at all.
Also notice the rhyming words: ‘serene’ and ‘unseen’, ‘bear’ and  ‘air’.
The first and third lines also begin with the same words —“full many 
a”. The lines are of equal length.
All this together contribute to the literary quality of these lines.
Activity I
Put down the images that come to your mind immediately when you 
see the words in the box.
 cat cupboard wall pond bird
Activity II
Try to write four lines of poetry or four sentences of prose with one of 
these as the starting point.
Activity III
Write a short story beginning with this sentence:
When the last of the guests left, I went back into the hall.…
Activity IV
Look for a story, a poem and a newspaper article on environment 
conservation and  see how the style of each is different from the other.
Chap 12.indd   100 12/5/2024   10:19:43 AM
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