Story planning – Brainstorm a sandstorm!
I recently worked with some Year Six children on story planning and writing, under timed conditions. We had 45 minutes, 15 of which were for story planning and the remaining 30 minutes for writing the story. This was the brief: You are lost in a desert and get caught in sandstorm. The planning. First of […]
Make a short story out of your spellings
Want to know a fun thing to do with your weekly spellings list? Turn them into a short story. This is one of my favourite things to do with the children at Storymakers and it’s particularly useful if you have reluctant writers. What do you need? First you need a list of spellings, ten to […]
Using music as a prompt for your writing
Music can make a powerful writing prompt. This is a song about a young homeless girl, begging on the streets and a man who walks by, seeming not to have noticed her. This song is a message, a warning to us all not to ignore poverty, a reminder how, in comparison, we live in Paradise. […]
Choosing the best way to start your story
When you look at the different ways to open a story, you can see which works best. Here are a few types of story openers to consider: An action Weather Time A statement or fact A question Dialogue It’s interesting to see how your choice of opening sentence can direct your entire story. For example, […]
Creating characters for your stories
Creating characters is one of the first things we do when planning our stories at the Storymakers Writing Club. This is because when you consider character and setting, it can spark an idea for your story and there are a number of ways to come up with characters, my favourite being use of images or […]