How to Write a Story

By Dave Beech

A brief guide to creative writing for young writers. Aimed at  10 to 13 years old students, who'd like a little extra advice about crafting great stories for schoolwork or pleasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D B English
• Release date: Jan 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386795865

Dave Beech

Dave Beech has been teaching English for nearly 20 years. His friendly, approachable style has helped students from all over the world improve their written and spoken language. He is also a writer of adult fiction, and has self-published two collections of short stories, and been featured in an anthology published in aid of the British Heart Foundation charity. A father of two daughters, he is married and lives in the north of England.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

1: GAPS

2: Words

3: Sentences

4: Paragraphs

5: Imagery, Mood, Literary Devices

6: Structure, Plot, and Theme

Character and Dialogue

Planning and Proof Reading

And finally...

Introduction

Person, Human, Child, Girl, Hat

EVERYBODY LIKES A GOOD story. When we’re very young, we listen to fairy stories like ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. As we get older, we move on to, perhaps, stories about horses and ponies, or pirates and buried treasure, or adventures in outer space. As we get a little older, we might enjoy scary horror stories, or slushy romances, or historical novels about things that happened long ago.

When we get to school, we are often asked to write a story ourselves. This can be a bit confusing. It doesn’t matter if you use a pen and paper, a computer, or even your phone.  How do we actually write a story? How do we know if it’s good or bad? What are the rules?

Don’t panic! This little book has been written to show you how to do it. We’ll look at things like when to start a new paragraph, the difference between a simile and a metaphor, how to use dialogue, and lots of other things, too.

This book can’t write the story for you, but it can give you some very helpful advice about how you, too, can write about horses and ponies, adventures in outer space, or anything else.

Enjoy your reading, and enjoy your writing!

GAPS

Image result for schoolchildren writing

WHAT DOES ‘GAPS’ STAND for?

It stands for the four things you need to think about before you even pick up a pen, or switch on your computer. Genre – Audience – Purpose – Style. Let’s look at them one at a time.

Genre

You pronounce it a bit like ‘jon -rer’ (don’t worry too much about how to say it, that’s not really important right now), and it just means what kind of thing you’re writing. Is it a story, a poem, a letter, an email, or something else?

When we’re talking about stories, genre also means what kind of story it is. Scary, funny, romantic, or something else? Maybe it’s got some funny bits and some scary bits, too. That’s just fine. It’s your story, you can put in anything you want.

So, the easy way to remember is that ‘genre’ means ‘what?’.

Audience