creative writing roald dahl

Roald Dahl on how to create interesting characters, his daily routine and writing process, and seven tips for fiction writers.

A brief overview of Roald Dahl before delving into his own words:

This post is a collection of selected quotes and excerpts from secondary sources used for educational purposes, with citations found at the end of the article.

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7 Tips For Writers

1. You should have a lively imagination. 2. You should be able to write well. By that I mean you should be able to make a scene come alive in the reader’s mind. Not everybody has this ability. It is a gift and you either have it or you don’t. 3. You must have stamina. In other words, you must be able to stick to what you are doing and never give up, for hour after hour, day after day, week after week and month after month. 4. You must be a perfectionist. That means you must never be satisfied with what you have written until you have rewritten it again and again, making it as good as you possibly can. 5. You must have strong self-discipline. You are working alone. No one is employing you. No one is around to give you the sack if you don’t turn up for work, or to tick you off if you start slacking. 6. It helps a lot if you have a keen sense of humour. This is not essential when writing for grown-ups, but for children, it’s vital. 7. You must have a degree of humility. The writer who thinks that his work is marvellous is heading for trouble.

How To Create Interesting Characters

When you’re writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them and this is even more true in children’s books. I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is really nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact. 1

Daily Routine

Dahl always kept regular hours. He went to his shed twice a day, 7 days a week. He wrote for two hours in the late morning, and another two hours in the evening. Stressing the importance of this daily routine, he maintained that ‘writing is not inspiration, it’s keeping your bottom on the seat.’

He chose two hour blocks for creative work as he ‘never works too long at a stretch, because after about 2 hours you are not at your highest peak of concentration so you have to stop.’

His full morning routine in his own words:

I wake up and I listen to the morning news on the radio, either at 7:00 or at 8 o’clock, quite often 7:00. Then about five mornings out of seven, my lovely wife goes and gets the breakfast and brings it to me, and about two mornings out of seven I get it for her, which is a sort of nice compromise. We sit in bed and eat our breakfast and read The Times. We order two copies of The Times because that’s the only paper we like reading, so we have one each. I then slowly get up and I have a bath and I lie in it and do a lot of thinking. At 10 o’clock my secretary arrives with the mail that she’s open the day before, and we go through them very fast and very efficiently. Then at 10:30 I fill a thermos with hot coffee and take a mug in my hand and walk up to my work hut which is away from the house up in the apple orchard. I go into this splendid room which I really enjoy because it’s so comfortable. There is an armchair, I don’t sit up at a desk. I lie back in an armchair and I put my feet up on a trunk which I filled with wood to make it hard. The trunk is tied to the legs of the chair with bits of wire, so that I can put my feet on the trunk and push and it won’t go away. I take a writing board which I’ve made myself and I put it on the arms of the armchair, and underneath it I put a roll of thick paper so the writing board slopes exactly where I want it. I have six pencils and I sharpen them and I pour myself a coffee and I feel very comfortable. 2

Getting Ideas

It starts always with a tiny little seed of an idea, a little germ, and that even doesn’t come very easily. You can be mooching around for a year or so before you get a good one. When I do get a good one, I quickly write it down so that I don’t forget it. I don’t dash up and start to write it. I’m very careful. I walk around it and look at it and sniff it and then see if I think it will go. Because once you start, you’re embarked on a year’s work and so it’s a big decision. 1

Why He Wrote Short Stories Instead of Novels

I think I had a very strong feeling that it was my  metier , you know. And if you find that you can do something, you don’t rush off and try to do something else. I think I was probably right. I’m not a novelist, and, on the whole, the pure short-story writer is not a novelist. The short-story writer has got to get everything so tight, so close, and so concise. It’s the opposite of a novel. The novelist can spread himself or herself. They can take a page or two to describe the fucking landscape, can’t they? You can’t do that in a short story. 3

What’s It Like Writing A Book?

When you’re writing it’s rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe up on to the top of a hill, and you see something else, then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book because it’s got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see everything you’ve done all ties up. But it’s a very, very long, slow process. 1

His 5 Books To Take To A New Planet

1. Price’s Textbook of the Practice of Medicine . Reason: A professional medical textbook covering the description, diagnoses and treatment of virtually every known disease or illness. 2. The Greater Oxford Dictionary 3. The Pickwick Papers  by Charles Dickens 4. A book containing all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas 4. Johann Sebastian Bach’s B Minor Mass 4

How To Keep Your Readers Entertained

My lucky thing is I laugh at exactly the same jokes that children laugh at and that’s one reason I’m able to do it. I don’t sit out here roaring with laughter but you have wonderful inside jokes all the time and it’s got to be exciting, it’s got to be fast, it’s got to have a good plot but it’s got to be funny. And each book I do is a different level of that. The fine line between roaring with laughter and crying because it’s a disaster is a very, very fine line. 1

I have such a terror of boring the reader, of having the reader close the book and say oh god isn’t this boring, isn’t it slow. I always condense my work and when I’m rewriting it I try to cut out every possible sentence which doesn’t mean anything or isn’t useful because I have this terror of the reader throwing the book away. 2

Screenwriting

I used to do it for money, yes. Because it is a lot of money. And it’s such a beastly job, that no one would ever write film scripts except for money. Or unless you wanted to defend your own property. And even then you can’t, because they get hold of it and do what they like. I did  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ; I thought I was defending it, but in the end they buggered it up. Here you have a best-selling book, an enduring book, and they bugger the film up. Well, there’s no excuse for that–it’s just bad film-making. I hate film directors. The only nice experience I had was doing a James Bond film,  You Only Live Twice . I liked that. It was a nice director, and they left you alone, and they followed the script. It was lovely.  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang  was ghastly. Once you get a rotten director, or an egocentric director, you’re dead. But they pay a lot, so you take the money and run. 3

Writing For Children Is Hard

To write a children’s book of comparable quality to a fine adult novel or story is much more difficult. When you’re old enough and experienced enough to be a competent writer and you’re ready to write a book for children, by then you’ve usually become pompous, adult, grown-up and you’ve lost all your jokiness. So unless you are a kind of undeveloped adult and you still have an enormous amount of childishness in you and you giggle at funny stories and jokes and things, I don’t think you can do it. 5  

Writing Short Stories – Plot Vs Mood Pieces

I’m judging right now a short-story competition, a very serious big one, and there’s not one single short story I’ve read so far with a plot. They’re all mood pieces. You know: I went down to the kitchen and my wife was there and she had a saucepan and we had a little row and threw the carrots out the window and the dog came in and – they’re concentrating on their writing, and not on the content. Well, the average reader doesn’t care about the writing. They want something which will keep them reading, wondering what’s going to happen next. None of these stories says what’s going to happen next. And then to finish it satisfactorily, so the reader says ha ha, I wouldn’t have guessed that, how fantastic, how fascinating, ooh, golly! That’s jolly hard. My advice to people writing for your magazine would be–well, we assume you can write a bit, but remember that writing is only half the battle. The plot is the other half. And then putting it right. People who can write very well, like John Updike or Virginia Woolf, think they can get away with just writing. But you’ve got to have the plots, or people won’t care. 3

Why A Writer?

Reflecting on his years as a writer in Boy: Tales of Childhood , Dahl asserts that writing is draining but worth it for the freedom it offers.

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock.… A person is a fool to become a writer. His only [reward] is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

Dahl cites Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Frederick Marryat as having a huge impact on his work. Talking to Twilight Zone Magazine in 1983, he went into more detail about further influences:

D. H. Lawrence, for some of his sentences and phrasing, not for his construction–his use of words. And Hemingway, for his construction. The master, really, of modern writing. It seems to me that the universities, especially in America, make the trends, deciding whether somebody is in or out of favor. Hemingway was out of favor for a while. They’re completely wrong. He’s been a greater influence on modern writing, on English literature in this century, than anyone else who ever lived. He taught all of us the value of the short sentence, using adjectives very, very carefully–in other words, hardly at all unless you really wanted it to mean something. And you didn’t keep saying “wonderful” because it became meaningless. They’re great secrets, those, and nobody ever did it before him, they just didn’t. You can read the writers who came before him, people like Galsworthy and Bennett and even Mark Twain, although he was a very fine writer, they all threw these adjectives around. Hemingway had far greater impact. A page of Hemingway at his best has more power than a page of Twain. Or a page of Dickens, come to that. Dickens just threw adjectives around like peanuts. Although he was rather marvelous, because of it. 3

His Transition Into Children’s Books

I spent the ensuing 20 years {from when he started writing} just writing short stories for adults, nothing else. Then I began to have my own children and tell them stories in bed and I probably ran out of a plot for a short story. I was telling one to my small children in bed and this one they seemed to rather like about a peach that got bigger and bigger as it grew on the tree. I thought well by golly why don’t I have a go at writing this myself, I’ve nothing else to do. So I sat down and gave it a go I enjoyed it enormously, I found myself loving doing it, you know, and that became James and the Giant Peach . 5

Dahl insisted that having to invent stories night after night was perfect practice for his trade, telling the  New York Times Book Review  : “Children are … highly critical. And they lose interest so quickly. You have to keep things ticking along. And if you think a child is getting bored, you must think up something that jolts it back. Something that tickles. You have to know what children like.” 6

How He Got Into Writing

Well I was working in Africa when the war broke out. I left my job and joined the RAF and learned to fly in the Middle East. Halfway through the war they wanted people who had been in combat to publish stories in the American papers to give Britain a boost. A man was sent to me, a famous writer called CS Forester who wrote Captain Hornblower stories, and he said I will take you out to lunch and you will tell me your most exciting adventure in the RAF and I will write it and it’ll be published, because I can always get them published, and it’ll be good for Britain, so I said lovely. I was terribly excited to go out to this famous writer, I’d read everything he’d written and we had lunch and halfway through lunch we had roast duck and he was trying to eat his and I was trying to tell him the story and he was trying to take notes. I said look, I’ll go home tonight and scribble this down roughly and send it to you and you can put it right. When I got home in the evening and started writing it, it sort of went very nicely and I felt the story growing under me. So I wrote it and sent it to him, didn’t expect here anymore. A week later I got a letter from him saying I was expecting you to send me notes. You have sent me a complete story. Did you know that you were a writer. Here is a check for $1000 from The Saturday Evening Post and they want some more. 2

His Wide-Ranging Interests

I love pictures and have always collected pictures even when I couldn’t afford to buy them and now I have some good ones, lovely ones. I love wine and have several thousand bottles in the cellar. I love furniture, especially 18th century English furniture. I loved cultivating plants, especially for kids. We have a good snooker table in the house and we play three times a week and that’s played with my local friends. Sunday is a long session. I mean we start at 6:30, four of us and we finish about 11:00. 5

8 Rules He Applied To All His Children’s Books

1. Just add chocolate 2. Adults can be scary 3. Bad things happen 4. Revenge is sweet 5. Keep a wicked sense of humour 6. Pick perfect pictures 7. Films are fun…but books are better! 8. Food is fun! 7

How He Would Like To Be Remembered

I could quote Oscar Wilde – “ When I am gone, let it be said that my sins were scarlet but my books were read. ” 8

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Next up : Charles Villiers Stanford on how to be original .

References and Related Resources

• Interview with Roald Dahl from Scholastic Book Clubs.
• Thrillmaker – a chat with Roald Dahl , YouTube.
• February 1983 issue of The Twilight Zone Magazine , RoaldDahlFans.com.
• The Book of Lists 3 – by Irving Wallace.
• Roald Dahl’s Writing Routine, 1982 , YouTube.
• Roald Dahl Biography , Notable Biographies.
• Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rule Book, TV Special.

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What do we learn from roald dahl's creative use of language, by dr susan rennie, 12 september 2016 - 17:20.

Quentin Blake

Roald Dahl is famous for his exuberantly inventive use of language. Dr Susan Rennie, chief editor of the  Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary , explains what his techniques teach us.

Don't take language too seriously

You may laugh when reading Roald Dahl, but you can also learn a lot about how language works. When we grow up, it's easy to forget how much fun it is to play with words, but the beloved children's author never lost that playfulness.

Although grown-up readers can appreciate his inventiveness, it is clear that children came first for Roald Dahl. He wouldn’t include a pun that went above a child's head, and his wordplay is always aimed at entertaining them.

The book in which he is at his most linguistically playful is undoubtedly  The BFG . Language is a central theme in this book. It includes over 300 words that he invented, from 'biffsquiggled' to 'whizzpopping', in the language known as 'gobblefunk'.

Try translating Roald Dahl's inventions

The BFG  (short for Big Friendly Giant) is the most translated of all Roald Dahl's books, and translators have had great fun coming up with versions of gobblefunk words that suit their own languages. For example, a 'trogglehumper' (a very bad dream) is translated into Italian as a 'troglogoblo', into Spanish as a 'jorobanoches' and into Dutch as a 'trollenklopper'. Meanwhile, 'frobscottle' (a tasty green fizzy drink) is 'frambouille' in French, 'Blubberwasser' in German and 'fuzzleglog' in Scots.

Create something new from everyday words

Roald Dahl’s inventions are rarely pure nonsense words. He often starts with a word that children will know, then changes the ending or blends it with another word to make something that is new and funny, but that children can still understand. So for example, wonderful becomes 'wondercrump', and kidnap becomes 'kidsnatch'. Sometimes he uses common English suffixes like –ful, –some and –wise, to make words like 'murderful', 'rotsome' and 'maggotwise'. At other times he adapts the meaning of an everyday word to make an 'extra-usual' one. For example, to whoosh means to move very quickly, and he makes this into 'whooshey' which describes a very strong smell (as if the scent had whooshed right up your nostrils).

Roald Dahl also loves what are called  portmanteau  words, where you blend two or more words together to combine their meanings. This is a common way of forming words in English. Take for example brunch (breakfast plus lunch), motel (motor plus hotel) and smog (smoke plus fog). In the invented language of gobblefunk, something 'delumptious' is both delicious and scrumptious; and giants don’t swallow and then gulp, they do it all at once in a single 'swallop'.

Imagine an animal nobody's ever seen

The invented words are not just in  The BFG . There is a whole bestiary of imaginary creatures which Willy Wonka needs to make his magic potions in  Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator , including the 'proghopper', 'slimescraper', and 'wilbatross'. Roald Dahl doesn’t explain exactly what these animals are or what they look like, but that is part of the fun. Does a 'slimescraper' collect slime to eat, or is it covered in slimy skin? Does a 'proghopper' look more like a frog or a kangaroo? It can be great fun for children to try to describe or draw these creatures, and to invent their own names using the same techniques of word-building.

Consider what's in a name

Like Dickens, who was one of his favourite authors, Roald Dahl delights in creating names that hint at the nature of his characters, and often his nastiest characters have the funniest names. We get an inkling from his name that greedy Augustus Gloop will come to a sticky end in  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , and that Aunt Spiker in  James and the Giant Peach  is far from gentle and cuddly. In  Matilda , the villainous headmistress Miss Trunchbull’s surname suggests a mixture of truncheon and bull or bully, so fits her perfectly; and the school that she runs, Crunchem Hall, sounds like 'crunch 'em', which is what she would like to do to her pupils. Dahl also uses one of his favourite techniques,  alliteration , to create memorable names for both good characters (Willy Wonka and Bruce Bogtrotter) and bad (the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean in   Fantastic Mr Fox ).

Have fun with a pun (or a mispronunciation)

As well as making up words that are fun to say, Roald Dahl loved making jokes from puns or mispronunciations. The BFG uses lots of  spoonerisms , which are made by swapping the sounds at the start of two words, so he says 'catasterous disastrophe' (for disastrous catastrophe) and 'jipping and skumping' (for skipping and jumping). The most elaborate example is one where he brilliantly works his own surname into the mispronunciation 'Dahl’s Chickens' (for Charles Dickens), whose books the BFG loves to read.

All this playfulness is enormously valuable. Roald Dahl’s writing can instil a love of language and wordplay that will stay with children through their lives. It encourages them to appreciate the richness and variety of language, but also to look at it critically. Why after all do we say frying pan, not 'sizzlepan' like the BFG? Why do the words that start with 'grob-' or 'trog-' always mean unpleasant things?

Children can also pick up literary techniques like alliteration and  simile  ('dead as a dingbat', 'fast as a fizzlecrump') and  onomatopoeia  ('lickswishy' and 'uckyslush'), which can help them be more creative in their own writing. Roald Dahl once said that he didn’t want his readers to get so bored that they decided to close the book and watch television instead. His joyfully inventive use of language is one of the ways that he ensured that would never happen.

13 September 2016 is Roald Dahl's 100th birthday. Teachers, you can  access free resources  for the Roald Dahl Dictionary on the Oxford University Press website.

You might also be interested in

• Seven lessons from Roald Dahl on how to be productive
• What should teachers know about teaching emotions?
• How a creative writing course gave me the freedom to write

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Roald Dahl Day: my glimpse into the great writer's imagination

I'm in a small room, sitting at a round table. A woman brings me a notebook. I open it and read the words scribbled 50 or 60 years ago. There is an idea on each page. Some are just a single sentence. Others are a paragraph, a line of dialogue, the description of an incident. What if someone committed a murder with a frozen leg of lamb? What if a poacher caught pheasants with drugged raisins? Reading this notebook is like peering into another man's imagination – and it happens to be the imagination of a writer whose books I have read and loved for almost my entire life.

Earlier this year, I was the writer in residence at the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. It's a wonderful small museum devoted to Dahl's life and works. In the corner of one room, the BFG looms over visitors. In a corner of another stands Johnny Depp's costume from the movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory .

Best of all is Dahl's shed, transported piece by piece from his garden. You can see the armchair where he wrote his books and a table lined with curious mementoes - his hip bone, for instance, saved from the incinerator after an operation, and a big silver ball which he crafted from Kitkat wrappers.

During my residency, I did some events at the museum, visited local schools to help students with their creative writing, and worked on my own book. I also spent several afternoons in the museum's archives, looking at Dahl's notebooks, letters, photographs, clippings and manuscripts.

The archive itself is housed in a long, thin, windowless room, temperature-controlled to preserve its fragile contents. The only door is guarded by the archivist, Rachel White, who sits in her office, collecting and collating information about Roald Dahl . If you want to read anything in the archives, she will fetch it for you and bring it to a table in yet another room. Here I sat with my own notebook and a pencil; no pens are allowed in here, nor cups of tea or glasses or water, or anything else that might damage the manuscripts.

I began with the notebooks, then looked through a big box of photos and newspaper cuttings that Dahl kept for inspiration. It's like a dustbin of discarded ideas, overflowing with characters who never got the chance to tell their own stories.

Next I read the opening chapters of Dahl's first novel for adults, Some Time Never: A Fable for Supermen . It was published in 1948 to poor reviews, has never been reprinted, and is now exceptionally rare.

Another box contains the drafts of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the screenplay that Dahl wrote, based on his friend Ian Fleming's novel . A pile of grey folders are stuffed with different versions, alongside notes from meetings with impatient movie tycoons. They're all interesting in their own ways, but one thing disappointed me: in all these drafts, there's no trace of the most memorable and terrifying character in the finished film. Rachel tells me that no one is quite sure who actually came up with the Child Catcher. He doesn't appear in Ian Fleming's novel (not much of the movie does), but he's nowhere to be found in Dahl's screenplay either. Perhaps those tycoons invented him themselves and slotted him into the film at the last moment.

Finally I came to my favourite of Dahl's books. It began as a short story, printed in the New Yorker in 1959, about two men stealing pheasants from a local landowner. Dahl was a great recycler of his own work – his characters often make a brief appearance in one book, then pop up again in another – and he couldn't leave this particular idea alone, expanding it and rewriting it for children rather than adults. Danny The Champion of the World was finally published in 1975, almost 20 years after the original story.

Rachel brings me another large grey box full of different drafts, each in its own folder. First there are Dahl's earliest handwritten versions, scrawled on yellow lined paper. A secretary would type them up. Dahl scribbled his notes and changes in the margins, and sent them back to be typed again. This continued until Dahl was content with what he'd written.

Reading through the different drafts is like watching someone grow up in front of your eyes. The ideas change. The characters develop. The writing tightens and strengthens. Here, for instance, are the last lines of Danny The Champion of the World as Dahl wrote them in his first draft:

It does not matter one bit whether you live in a caravan or a castle. What does matter is that you have a father or a mother or both who make exciting things happen around you, and who do exciting things with you, and who lead you into splendid adventures, for in that way you develop many of the good qualities you will need later on in life, such as courage, loyalty, steadfastness and perhaps above all a sense of fun.

It's not bad, is it? But it's not exactly brilliant. The sentiment is nice, and it's expressed carefully and succinctly, but there's nothing magical about these words, nothing that will make you put the book aside and stare into space while you think about what you're just read. There's even something surprisingly teacherly about these words; you might expect a vicar to extol the virtues of "courage, loyalty, steadfastness", but not mischievous Mister Dahl.

He obviously wasn't happy with it either, and carried on honing and polishing his words over many drafts. By the final version, although he hasn't altered his actual ideas very much, their expression is incomparably different, and that changes everything. Here are the last few words that you'll find at the end of Danny The Champion of the World:

A MESSAGE  to Children Who Have Read This Book When you grow up  and have children of your own do please remember something important a stodgy parent is no fun at all What a child wants  and deserves  is a parent who is  SPARKY

Reading a manuscript is a moving and strangely melancholy experience. As you turn the crinkly pages, you can't help imagining the writer doing the same thing himself, adding a line here, trimming a few words there, and chuckling at his own jokes. But it's also fascinating and inspiring to see how a great writer comes up with an idea and refuses to let go of it, never allowing himself to be satisfied, working away for years until he moulds it into the perfect shape.

Extracts from Danny the Champion of the World © Roald Dahl Nominee Limited 1975, 2013

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Exploring the magical world of Roald Dahl through his writing style

I f there's one author whose books have left an enduring mark on the hearts of both children and adults, it's Roald Dahl. With a magical touch that weaves whimsy, adventure, and life lessons into every tale, Dahl's writing style is as fascinating as it is accessible. Let's hop on a journey into the enchanting world of Roald Dahl, where imagination knows no bound.

The art of simplicity

In ‘Matilda,’ Dahl introduces us to a brilliant young girl with telekinetic powers. Through Dahl's straightforward prose, we enter Matilda's world effortlessly. "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," reads one of the endearing quotes in his book 'Matilda'. Dahl's ability to address complex themes, such as neglect and injustice, through simple language is a proof of his storytelling intelligence.

If we take an example of ‘The BFG,’ Dahl takes us on an extraordinary journey with a Big Friendly Giant who captures dreams. His description of the BFG's unusual way of speaking showcases Dahl's talent for creating unique and memorable characters: "Words," he said, "is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life."

A world of imagination

In the iconic ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ Dahl invites us into Willy Wonka's candy-filled wonderland. His descriptions of the factory are brimming with imagination, "The walls and ceiling were covered with large patches of something that looked like thick, brown fur carpet. In the places where there were no patches of fur, there were large splodges of a revolting greenish mold." Dahl's vivid imagery allows readers to visualize Wonka's eccentric world, making it a memorable reading experience.

Timeless life lessons

In ‘The Witches,’ Dahl addresses themes of courage and resourcefulness as a young boy battles a coven of witches. Dahl's straightforward language carries a powerful message, "You are using the bravery of a small boy and the intelligence of a mouse to defeat your enemy. And you are doing it brilliantly." Dahl's ability to blend simplicity with profound themes makes his stories not only enjoyable but also impactful.

Which is your favourite Roald Dahl book and why? Tell us in the comments below.

READ ALSO: Exploring Jane Austen's timeless writing style

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Roald Dahl’s Creative Writing with The Twits: Remarkable Reasons to Write

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• Published: 4 February 2020
• ISBN: 9780241384602
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• Activity books & early learning
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Roald Dahl Creative Writing with The Twits: Remarkable Reasons to Write

Practise creative writing with Roald Dahl!

Write interviews, play scripts, diary entries and instructions! Find your own remarkable reason to write with the Twits.

These fun activities and writing tasks help to develop language and vocabulary skills, giving you the tools you need to write your own story. Learn how to use persuasive language, entertain your reader and add sparkle to non-fiction.

Roald Dahl's Creative Writing sparks creativity, builds confidence and inspires young writers through the wonderful worlds of these best-loved stories. Filled with top tips and ideas boxes, each book introduces techniques and methods to help you plan and write a phizz-whizzing story of your own!

About the author

When he was at school Roald Dahl received terrible reports for his writing - with one teacher actually writing in his report, 'I have never met a boy who so persistently writes the exact opposite of what he means. He seems incapable of marshalling his thoughts on paper!' After finishing school Roald Dahl, in search of adventure, travelled to East Africa to work for a company called Shell. In Africa he learnt to speak Swahili, drove from diamond mines to gold mines, and survived a bout of malaria where his temperature reached 105.5 degrees (that's very high!). With the outbreak of the Second World War Roald Dahl joined the RAF. But being nearly two metres tall he found himself squashed into his fighter plane, knees around his ears and head jutting forward. Tragically of the 20 men in his squadron, Roald Dahl was one of only three to survive. Roald wrote about these experiences in his books Boy and Going Solo . Later in the war Roald Dahl was sent to America. It was there that he met famous author C.S. Forester (author of the Captain Hornblower series) who asked the young pilot to write down his war experiences for a story he was writing. Forester was amazed by the result, telling Roald 'I'm bowled over. Your piece is marvellous. It is the work of a gifted writer. I didn't touch a word of it.' (an opinion which would have been news to Roald's early teachers!). Forester sent Roald Dahl's work straight to the Saturday Evening Post. Roald Dahl's growing success as an author led him to meet many famous people including Walt Disney, Franklin Roosevelt, and the movie star Patricia Neal. Patricia and Roald were married only one year after they met! The couple bought a house in Great Missenden called Gipsy House. It was here that Roald Dahl began to tell his five children made-up bedtime stories and from those that he began to consider writing stories for children. An old wooden shed in the back garden, with a wingbacked armchair, a sleeping bag to keep out the cold, an old suitcase to prop his feet on and always, always six yellow pencils at his hand, was where Roald created the worlds of The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many, many more.

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Creative Writing with The BFG

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This fabulous book based on Roald Dahl's   The BFG   is just the ticket for all those aspiring writers out there.

Creative Writing with The BFG is positively jam-packed with fun illustrations by Quentin Blake, and focuses on the creation of splendid settings in your own work of fiction.

Ever wondered how writers decide on names for their made-up places? What made Roald Dahl decide how to furnish The BFG's home? What words can be found to make a setting really come alive for the reader? This book is bursting with exercises to really get those creative juices flowing!

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Roald Dahl’s Stories Inspire Minecraft Worlds & Creative Writing

For the second consecutive year, Minecraft Education partnered with The Roald Dahl Story Company for the Imaginormous Challenge, a creative writing program for students in the U.S. Over 5,000 students ages five to twelve entered creative stories for the chance to have their story-idea bought to life in blocks. We invited the Roald Dahl team to pen a blog post about the competition, and why Minecraft inspires creativity.

Roald Dahl’s Imaginormous Challenge 2018

The story-writing challenge takes its precedence from Roald Dahl himself, whose iconic stories often started as tiny ideas scribbled into one of his beloved “ideas books.” These little ideas would later become the stories, characters, inventions, and imaginative worlds featured in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, and many more.

To truly bring to life that even the smallest idea can turn into something spectacular, each of the five winners (who will be announced later in 2018) will have their story ideas transformed into one of five fantastic creations. One story will be built into a Minecraft world with the help of a team of Minecraft builders, including YouTube creator and Minecraft extraordinaire Stacyplays. The world will be downloadable from the Minecraft Education website, so that Minecraft players around the world can explore the story, and Stacyplays will explore the world in a video on her YouTube channel. (The 2017 Minecraft winner’s fantastical world, Fluffletopolis , can be downloaded and played right here.)

Check out the new Fantastic Mr. Fox lesson and Minecraft world . We welcome you to share your class’s Roald Dahl inspired creations with us on Twitter or Facebook .

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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Gagarin Cup Preview: Atlant vs. Salavat Yulaev

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Gagarin cup (khl) finals:  atlant moscow oblast vs. salavat yulaev ufa.

Much like the Elitserien Finals, we have a bit of an offense vs. defense match-up in this league Final.  While Ufa let their star top line of Alexander Radulov, Patrick Thoresen and Igor Grigorenko loose on the KHL's Western Conference, Mytischi played a more conservative style, relying on veterans such as former NHLers Jan Bulis, Oleg Petrov, and Jaroslav Obsut.  Just reaching the Finals is a testament to Atlant's disciplined style of play, as they had to knock off much more high profile teams from Yaroslavl and St. Petersburg to do so.  But while they did finish 8th in the league in points, they haven't seen the likes of Ufa, who finished 2nd. 

This series will be a challenge for the underdog, because unlike some of the other KHL teams, Ufa's top players are generally younger and in their prime.  Only Proshkin amongst regular blueliners is over 30, with the work being shared by Kirill Koltsov (28), Andrei Kuteikin (26), Miroslav Blatak (28), Maxim Kondratiev (28) and Dmitri Kalinin (30).  Oleg Tverdovsky hasn't played a lot in the playoffs to date.  Up front, while led by a fairly young top line (24-27), Ufa does have a lot of veterans in support roles:  Vyacheslav Kozlov , Viktor Kozlov , Vladimir Antipov, Sergei Zinovyev and Petr Schastlivy are all over 30.  In fact, the names of all their forwards are familiar to international and NHL fans:  Robert Nilsson , Alexander Svitov, Oleg Saprykin and Jakub Klepis round out the group, all former NHL players.

For Atlant, their veteran roster, with only one of their top six D under the age of 30 (and no top forwards under 30, either), this might be their one shot at a championship.  The team has never won either a Russian Superleague title or the Gagarin Cup, and for players like former NHLer Oleg Petrov, this is probably the last shot at the KHL's top prize.  The team got three extra days rest by winning their Conference Final in six games, and they probably needed to use it.  Atlant does have younger regulars on their roster, but they generally only play a few shifts per game, if that. 

The low event style of game for Atlant probably suits them well, but I don't know how they can manage to keep up against Ufa's speed, skill, and depth.  There is no advantage to be seen in goal, with Erik Ersberg and Konstantin Barulin posting almost identical numbers, and even in terms of recent playoff experience Ufa has them beat.  Luckily for Atlant, Ufa isn't that far away from the Moscow region, so travel shouldn't play a major role. 

I'm predicting that Ufa, winners of the last Superleague title back in 2008, will become the second team to win the Gagarin Cup, and will prevail in five games.  They have a seriously well built team that would honestly compete in the NHL.  They represent the potential of the league, while Atlant represents closer to the reality, as a team full of players who played themselves out of the NHL. 

• Atlant @ Ufa, Friday Apr 8 (3:00 PM CET/10:00 PM EST)
• Atlant @ Ufa, Sunday Apr 10 (1:00 PM CET/8:00 AM EST)
• Ufa @ Atlant, Tuesday Apr 12 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)
• Ufa @ Atlant, Thursday Apr 14 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)

Games 5-7 are as yet unscheduled, but every second day is the KHL standard, so expect Game 5 to be on Saturday, like an early start. 

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Roald Dahl's Creative Writing with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: How to Write Tremendous Characters

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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Roald Dahl’s Creative Writing with The BFG: How to Write Splendid Settings Paperback – January 24, 2019

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Bring your story alive in a whoppsy setting! Explore adjectives, imagery, similes and more with the BFG.

These fun activities and writing tasks help to develop language and vocabulary skills, giving you the tools you need to write your own story. Learn how to set a scene, appeal to the senses and write detailed descriptions of your setting.

Roald Dahl's Creative Writing sparks creativity, builds confidence and inspires young writers through the wonderful worlds of these best-loved stories. Filled with top tips and ideas boxes, each book introduces techniques and methods to help you plan and write a phizz-whizzing story of your own!

• Reading age 7 - 11 years
• Part of series Roald Dahl
• Print length 32 pages
• Language English
• Dimensions 8.31 x 0.16 x 11.73 inches
• Publisher Puffin
• Publication date January 24, 2019
• ISBN-10 0241384575
• ISBN-13 978-0241384572
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Puffin (January 24, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 32 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0241384575
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0241384572
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 7 - 11 years
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.3 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.31 x 0.16 x 11.73 inches
• #296 in Children's Composition & Creative Writing Books
• #3,264 in Children's Classics
• #3,803 in Writing Reference

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