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Inventing Characters Read! Journal Word Notebook

Choosing Titles The Fab Four Golden Rules Generating Ideas Stealing Ideas From an Idea to a Plan Planning from a Picture Stories Based on a Passage Stories Based on a Sentence An Example of Good Planning

Describing a Location Longer descriptions Describing a character's appearance Dialogue Distinctive Voices Show, Don't Tell Characterisation: Shown Feelings More Characterisation Techniques Playing with Sentences Playscripts Action Suspense

What is story structure? 1 Exciting opening line 2 Set the scene 3 Talking and describing character 4 Characterisation 5 Suspense 6 Action 7 Cliffhanger Standing Out: How can you stand out from the crowd? Clever Clogs: Non-Linear Clever-clogs: Two perspectives Clever-clogs: Narrative voice Practice 11+ exam titles

Checking your story in an exam Redrafting = improving your story What if I run out of time in an exam? The Grumpy Examiner's Pet Hates

Year 2 into 3 Lemony Snicket After Harry Potter Must-Read Authors Spy Novels Horror Stories Classics Animal Stories Adventure Historical Fiction Myths & Legends Fantasy Family Stories & Comedies

Here is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. What's wrong with it?

The problem with the story above is that it doesn't contain any conflict.

A simple way to think of conflict is as a problem. All good stories are based around the main character facing some sort of problem. But it needs to be a serious problem. Let's look at another example.

Now, this story did contain a problem: Sally hasn't got any money and she wants to go to the cinema. But the problem is that it's not a problem that anyone else would care about. Even if you were Sally's best friend, if she was telling you about this problem during lunch, you'd just end up nodding and ignoring her - and thinking about space monkeys.

When you're writing a one-and-a-half page short story, you need to think in terms of having one simple - but exciting - conflict.

a. Weather! Fire! Hurricanes!
A very clear conflict that's easy to pull off in a short story is some sort of problem involving the weather, or a disaster of some kind. The great thing about using a conflict like this is that straight away you'll have lots of descriptive ideas that you can stuff into the story. The concept is so simple that there's no danger of the Grumpy Examiner becoming confused - and at his age, it's very easy to confuse him...

b. The Arch-Enemy
If you want to write a truly exciting story, there's nothing so thrilling as trying to escape from an arch-enemy. Think of Darth Vader, Lord Voldemort or that big bully you hate and who left your school in Year 3. If you plan your story around somebody out to get you, there are fantastic opportunities to use suspense and action skills.

c. I am just a humble servant girl...
Most of the stories written in the Victorian period were based around a simple conflict: a character being socially inferior. A nice simple conflict to build a story round is an idea of a servant or slave being treated badly by their master. You can use this conflict not only for stories set in the past, but also for stories set in the future. Imagine a robot mistreated by his human owner.

d. I'm shy...
Conflict inside your main character can be really interesting. A character who is too shy to achieve their goal can be a fascinating character to write about.

e. It's time for crime!
My favourite type of conflict.

In the real world, crime is a horrible thing.

In an 11+ exam, if you get an open title, a fantastic way to ensure you grab the reader's attention is to write about crime - either taking the criminal's point of view (his conflict is trying to steal without being caught) or a police inspector / detective.

Last updated on August 12, 2007