You are not actually writing short stories. Confused? You shouldn't be. A short story can be anything up to 100 pages long. In an exam, you are going to be writing between a side and a half and two sides of A4.

The biggest mistake people is to try to cram a story which is as long and as complex as the entire Harry Potter series, or all three volumes of the Lord of the Rings, into twenty minutes of writing. You simply won't have time to tell a complex story. So - KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Imagine you've been asked to write a story based on the title "A Lazy Afternoon". You sit down and write a simply brilliant story about a warrior tortoise. It is one of the best stories ever written - worthy of the Blue Peter Book Award - but the Grumpy Examiner isn't impressed...

If you were asked in maths to add 55 to 34 - and you decided you were going to divide 55 by 34, you wouldn't expect to get any marks, would you? You must always be careful to answer the question you've been set.

This year's St Cake's exam asked every girl and boy entering to write a story based on two of the characters in the comprehension in the first part of the question.

If you want to do extremely well in an exam - perhaps even win a scholarship - you need to try to write a story that's different (whilst remembering, of course, to be RELEVANT).

The last of our Fab Four rules is 'conflict'. This is a tricky idea - but it's also the most important thing to remember when writing a story - and that's why there's a special section on it, over here...

(c) Nick Hitchen 2007

Last updated on August 12, 2007