Creative Writing Commentary

Creative Writing Commentary

My style model is in the genre of social issues and is presented as a blog. The piece is about stigma that surrounds mental health and the writer aims to raise awareness of the impacts of the condition. The reason this appealed to me was because the writer is writing about their father who suffers from this and it reminded me of my grandfather who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, I decided to create an article informing people about dementia, as well as speaking about my own personal experiences; also suggesting ways in which I believe family members of sufferers can help. The article would most likely appear in either a blog about social issues, such as the one like my style model or perhaps in a leaflet located in a doctor’s waiting room. The reason I wrote this text was to create awareness for the disease itself and also perhaps provide reassurance for family members of sufferers that they aren’t alone. I wrote it for mostly people who either are caring for someone with dementia or the relatives of sufferers, however also people who want to find out more about the disease and how they can help e.g. by fundraising.

Throughout my article I have used examples of field-specific lexis, such as ‘sufferer’ and ‘memory loss’ which are both linked to dementia which reassures the reader that what they are reading is reliable. My style model has also done this, for example with lexis such as ‘mental health’ and ‘distress’. As well as this I refer to ‘my grandfather’ throughout. The personal pronoun ‘my’ shows the readers that I, as the writer, have experienced the effects of the disease on someone I love – making the tone of the article as a whole more personal. When I am explaining where he lived and ‘memory lane’ I used a range of specific imagery. By using adjectives such as ‘old’ and ‘quaint’ it shows that I have been there myself and it also creates a clear scene for the reader to think about. My style model also uses this technique, for example when explaining their village with nouns such as ‘street’ and ‘cliffs’.  

Throughout the article, I have used a range of both high-frequency and low-frequency lexis, for example I call my granddad ‘grandfather’ throughout which is quite low-frequency as many people often shorten the word to ‘grandpa’ or ‘gramps’. This gives the article more of a formal tone, however I have also used examples of high-frequency as well to help make the article more relatable and to get across that I have been through it myself and that I’m not just a reporter – what I am saying is authentic and genuine.

Furthermore, I have used a range of different syntax. I have mainly used declaratives and exclamatory syntax, which is just like my style model, for example the writer states ‘It affects one in four and nobody is immune’. My style model also uses a range of statistics which I have incorporated into my piece as it is mostly informative. I have used declarative when providing information and facts, for example ‘Affecting over 46.8 million people a year; dementia is truly a global health issue’ and exclamatory when referring to my own experiences, for example ‘…and we all know how much grandma and granddad like to talk about the past!’. I have written my article in the present tense when providing information – to almost emphasise the fact that dementia is an on-going issue happening now, however when speaking about myself and my experiences I have written in past tense.

I have organised my article in similar sized paragraphs throughout, each containing a different piece of information or experience, however my last paragraph is only two sentences long as I wanted to make an impact on the reader as it is short and makes a statement – much like my style model has done. I have used this layout as it looks organised and the reader can see what is in each paragraph – as for some I have used sub-headings. This means that if the reader only wants to know a certain piece of information, such as ‘What is Dementia?’ then they don’t have to read the whole thing, they can just get what they wanted out of it. As there is no particular order in how the information and experiences go, I can’t really say that my article is in chronological order; however it flows nicely from one paragraph to the other.

Overall, both the style model and original writing piece employ factual information as well as personal experiences. To create different representations however, I have written mine about a different disease that is personal to me. Throughout my style model there is use of field-specific lexis, high-frequency and low-frequency lexis as well as specific imagery which is mirrored in my original writing piece so the subject of dementia is represented clearly and in a way which will hopefully spread awareness for the disease and encourage readers to do what they can to help.