Composition Guidelines--------转载

Scenario-based Stimulus 2002 – 2010

2010 – bus stop – an elderly woman approaching unsteadily

2009 – shopping centre – heard a strange noise

2008 – lift – robbery

2007 – MRT train – blackout

2006 – supermarket – fire

2005 – school -a child sobbing during recess

2004 – home – power failure / blackout

2003 – home (corridor) – burglary / theft / break-in

2002 – beach – people running in different directions

2010 – shopping mall– a girl drops an ice cream cone from the first floor onto a man on the ground floor

2009 – beach – a boy is pinched by a crab while picking litter with his classmates

2008 – park – a child falls into a hole

2007 – foot of HDB block– two children throw eggs from their window at two students below

2006 – park – a ball rolls into the path of a cyclist

2005 – roadside –a car splashes water onto two school children at a bus stop

2004 – canal –boys fishing; one boy climbs over the rails

2003 – outside school– motorcycle accident occurs during dismissal time

2002 – park –boys disturb a beehive

Writing Ideas

Setting: home

Plot: an unexpected visitor

Example: It had felt like any other Sunday. Quiet, blissful and lazy. By the time I awoke, the late morning sun was already shining through the slits in the shutters, casting bright yellow bars on the floor. I yawned and stretched languorously like a cat, reluctant to leave my cosy bed. Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Setting: bus

Plot: a prickly situation

Example: The man picked a plump, pale yellow seed from the styrofoam box and ate the sticky flesh with relish.

Setting: at home

Plot: a blackout

Example: “That was a lame story!” scoffed my brother. “I’ve got a better one.” He snatched the torch from me and held it under his chin. Light and shadow struck his face, deepening the furrows. “A man was driving down a dark, deserted road one night when…”

Setting: at home

Plot: a surprising find

Example: Creak! The door protested as I pushed it open to step into the gloomy storeroom. I was fetching some batteries for my brother. His muffled voice floated up the stairs. “Look in the brown box!” he said. I found the box and opened it. Suddenly, something big, black and furry jumped out of it. Shrieking with fright, I stumbled backwards and crashed into my grandfather’s tarnished Taekwondo trophies.

Expanding a moment

Setting: school hall

Plot: a music competition

Example: Shawn strode to the centre of the stage, made a low bow and sat on the bench. As the applause died down, he gazed intently at the shiny keys, the music score running through his mind. Then, with his back straight as an arrow, his feet flat on the floor, his face intense with concentration, he raised his hands and placed his long, slender fingers precisely on the keys to play the first chord.

Setting: classroom

Plot: a funny incident in class

Example: Leslie stifled a yawn. Mr Ong’s voice was droning on interminably about the water cycle. Bored, Leslie drew a circle on the page and added three dots and a line for the eyes, nose and mouth. Dissatisfied with the nondescript face, he pencilled in a pair of nerdy glasses, a moustache, three strands of hair and a large horn protruding from the forehead for good measure. “Leslie!” The boy looked up with a start. His teacher was glaring at him angrily, his eyes flashing darkly behind the nerdy glasses.

Setting: swimming pool

Plot: the character tries out the diving board

Example: “Come on, Brooke! You can do it! Just one more small step…” the swimming coach cajoled her from the diving platform. Teetering close to the edge of the board, Brooke stole a nervous glance at the water below. One small step? It was more like a giant leap of faith that she had to take. After all, between the plank and the water, there was – nothing! What if she jumped the wrong way? Would she land on her belly? She had heard that a belly flop was very painful, that one would end up with chilli red skin on the face and limbs for days and that one could even die from… “Brooke! You’re holding everyone up!” shouted the coach. Suddenly, the board heaved up and down dangerously. Brooke turned around. Her coach was coming towards her!

Foreshadowing

Setting: school

Plot: Two boys are summoned to the teachers’ room to be punished for fighting during recess.

Example: Barely had we stepped into the teachers’ room when an ear-splitting clap of thunder boomed overhead. Gordon and I jumped and shrieked with fright. Outside, a storm had just begun to brew. We tittered with embarrassment at our reaction, regained our composure and slowly made our way past the maze-like workstations and darkening windows to Mr Gun’s table…

Setting: amusement park

Plot: The ride of a lifetime!

Example: His jaws dropped at the sight of the black steel structure rising impossibly high into the sky. Named ‘The Hurricane’, the roller coaster was a mass of death-defying twists and turns and plunging dips.

“Hey, Benny, make sure you hang on to your harness. A man’s harness recently sprang loose while in mid-ride. Flew out of his seat like a human cannonball,” said Luke in an ominous tone.

“Don’t scare your brother! You know it’s his first time,” chided their mother.

Benjamin snorted and crossed his arms. “I’m not scared!” However, despite his show of bravado, he was frightened out of his wits.

Hyperbole

Setting: road

Plot: A jaywalker finds herself, er, in a tight spot…

Example: Madam Pui gazed at the towering structure of the overhead bridge before her and thought with dismay,“Aiyoh, this thing is so high, only a mountaineer can climb it!”

Setting: market

Plot: appearances can be deceiving

Example: Every time the hulking butcher brought down the cleaver with his large, meaty hand to chop up the beef into chunks, his customers jumped skittishly. “Anything else?” the glowering, gargoyle-like butcher would then ask. Most customers ended up buying more than they needed.

Setting: classroom

Plot: cheating during a test

Example: “If I fail again, my mother will skin me alive!” Aloysius moaned woefully next to me. I tried to picture my best friend turning up in school skinless but Mrs Thamburu interrupted my thoughts. “No more talking! You have forty minutes to finish the test,” she said, businesslike, as she handed out the papers to everyone. I scanned through the questions anxiously. They were challenging but not impossible to solve. A strangled gasp escaped from Aloysius. He was staring at the paper, eyes bulging, face ashen white and lips moving, mumbling, “No, no, no…”

Setting: school

Plot: What mischievous act would a bored student get up to in school? (You decide!)

Example: Ben let out a yawn so big that it threatened to split his face into two.

Setting: Chingay festival

Plot: the character is enjoying the Chingay parade when… (add conflict)

Example: The Chingay parade was a raucous riot of sound and colour. Many people, with their bellies filled with greasy hawker fare from the roadside stalls, now drank in the sights of the neon-lit, gaudy floats. Scott gaped at a heavily made-up woman on a passing float. She was belting out a Cantonese pop song into a microphone, her warbling voice blaring over two loudspeakers.

Setting: Merlion Park

Plot: lightning bolt etches excursion into memory

Example: Suddenly, there was a blinding bolt of lightning. Zzzzap! Crrrack! The ear-splitting clap of thunder was swiftly followed by a terrific crash of falling plaster from the statue. Everyone screamed and ran helter-skelter. It had sounded as if the Merlion itself had given a mighty roar. Had it come to life? When the dust cleared and the commotion settled, frightened eyes peered into the grey drizzle. There, curling from a newly-formed bald patch on the creature’s head, were wisps of smoke.

Setting: dental clinic

Plot: the narrator describes her experience at the dentist

Writing technique: opening the story with a question to the reader

Example: Did you have your tooth extracted recently? I did and it was every bit as scary as I had thought it would be!

Setting: road

Plot: road accident

Writing technique: flashback

Example: Jane looked at her legs – they were swathed in bandages. “Why, why oh why did I listen to Rachel?”she thought in agony. As she squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to blot out the hideous sight of her legs, images of that awful event came hurtling back…

Setting: train station

Plot: train breakdown

Writing technique: onomatopoeia

Example: Whoosh! A train pulled up to the platform and a steady stream of passengers poured through the doors, suddenly filling the air with a clatter of rushing feet and a hubbub of voices.

Setting: beach

Plot: a gruesome find

Writing technique: imagery

Example: The sky was a polished blue with not a single wisp of cloud anywhere. Beneath its stillness, the sea lifted muscles of waves onto the shore, the water spreading across the pale white sand like a peacock’s tail. The air was redolent with the smell of salt, suntan lotion and picnickers’ grilled satay at the barbecue pits. Stacey and her parents quickly picked a shady spot under a clump of palm trees to lay their things. Then, Stacey raced across the sand and splashed noisily into the cool water with a wide grin plastered across her face. “Be careful!” her mother had called out. However, Stacey was a good swimmer and there were lifeguards patrolling the beach. Nothing could possibly go wrong on a perfect day like this.

Setting: large canal

Plot: a near-drowning incident

Example: Dave leant over the railings and dropped the pebbles into the canal. Plop! Plop! Plop! The brown water gurgled and chortled in reply, as if amused by his actions.

Setting: school canteen

Plot: the character finds a wallet and decides to keep spend the money

Example: Students jostled for space at the tables where many were already seated elbow to elbow. Heads were bent over, busy chewing, munching, gulping and even talking with mouths crammed with food. Lucas slurped down the last of his noodles, wiped the grease on his lips with his sleeve and let out a long, satisfied belch.

Setting: park

Plot: the narrator’s kite is stuck in a tree; her father tries to rescue it

Example: The higher my father climbed, the taller the tree seemed to grow. The kite lay entangled in one of the branches, forever out of my father’s reach. Are trees mischievous? I think they can be. This one was playfully testing my father’s agility and confidence.

Setting: classroom

Plot: Planet of the Apes?

Example: The students stared into their classroom through the windows, dumbstruck by the unexpected visitors. Chittering and chattering excitedly on the tables and chairs were four long-tailed macaque monkeys. One of them was tearing the pages of an English workbook and mechanically stuffing them into its cavernous mouth. Two others were busying themselves with rummaging through bags for tasty packed lunches. The largest one of them all was perched atop Mr Loy’s desk. It was chewing the metallic ends of the teacher’s spectacles and seemed to regard the buffoonery of the rest of the gang with great disdain.

Setting: shopping mall

Plot: character accidentally drops her ice cream onto the head of a man

Example: The ball of strawberry ice cream rolled out of the cone and dived straight down, blissfully free from human consumption, then – splat! Judy gasped in horror. It had hit a man squarely on the head!

Setting: shop & home

Plot: a stolen pen quickly loses its lustre

Example: Back in the sanctuary of her room, she shakily withdrew from the pocket the pen that she had stolen. She could not believe it. The expensive pen she had been hankering for ever since she clapped her eyes on it in the display window a month ago was now hers! “Oh, won’t my friends turn green with envy when they see it!” she thought with pleasure. Then, as she twirled it lovingly in her fingers, a frown crossed her face. There was a hairline crack on the casing. How could she have missed that at the shop? Later, when she tried to write her name with it, she discovered that it left blotchy, blue stains on the paper.

Setting: shop & home

Plot: a stolen pen quickly loses its lustre

Example: Back in the sanctuary of her room, she shakily withdrew from the pocket the pen that she had stolen. She could not believe it. The expensive pen she had been hankering for ever since she clapped her eyes on it in the display window a month ago was now hers!“Oh, won’t my friends turn green with envy when they see it!” she thought with pleasure. Then, as she twirled it lovingly in her fingers, a frown crossed her face. There was a hairline crack on the casing. How could she have missed that at the shop? Later, when she tried to write her name with it, she discovered that it left blotchy, blue stains on the paper.

Setting: Singapore Botanic Gardens

Plot: a boy fishes out a wallet from the bottom of a pond

Example: “You silly boy! Just look at you, all wet and muddy! And your new shoes – ruined! And for what? A dirty, old wallet!” the angry mother rebuked the child. The park warden took the wallet from the poor boy and looked inside. When he saw the identification card, he let out a low whistle. “This is amazing!” he exclaimed, his eyes shining with excitement. “You’ve just found…(continue this with your own ideas!