As you’ll have gathered from my previous posts, I’m all for slow writing. It makes for thoughtfully-composed narratives and descriptions. However, when all is said and done, only 45 minutes are available to write a story in an exam, and this includes planning and proof-reading.
If your teen is in year 10 or 11 and has been systematically taught the skills needed to compose a story, but still struggles to come up with ideas under the pressure of timed conditions, then this blog post is for you. Below I boil down the key skills needed to write a successful story into 5 simple ‘hacks’. Here goes…
1 Three part structure
All stories need to contain three key ingredients: An opening hook, a conflict or climax, and a resolution or twist at the end.
At school, your teen will have studied how other authors build tension and drama from the opening hook to the conflict or climax (and if they haven’t, I can definitely help!), and they need to think how to achieve this in their own story, but these three components should govern the rest of their planning.
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My tutees fall into two main camps with stories. They either go ‘extreme’ in their stories, and come up with the most unfeasible of climaxes, or their story’s peak is anti-climactic. Extreme is dangerous because unless the student is a very skilful writer, they tend to fall back on clichés (think gruesome murder, monsters, aliens from outer space) which are not convincing, or engaging. Their stories consist of a string of improbable events and little in the way of ‘showing’ (i.e. engaging description). On the other hand, a sense of anti-climax tends to arise if the student relates the story very closely to their daily lives. Choosing between A level options may be a drama for any teenager (I still remember the angst I suffered!) but it perhaps doesn’t make for the most interesting reading. To guide students’ thoughts on plot, students can use…
2 Famous plots
I’ll bet when you read through the list below, you can come up with at least one novel or play which fits each of the famous plots. Nothing is original, and students need to take the pressure to be original off themselves. Doing so will guide them away from the dangers of writing an ‘extreme’ plot (see above). Examiners and teachers award marks for how the story is crafted; for how skilfully the writer uses vocabulary, literary techniques and structural devices. The main thing I’m interested in is if the writer can really engage my emotions and interest. So that they can concentrate on doing this, students should be encouraged to fall back on the tried-and-tested plots below.
3 Useful plot devices
J.B. Priestley made very savvy use of some of these devices when he wrote An Inspector Calls. He uses a phone call at the end of the play to deliver the final blow to the complacent Birlings once the Inspector has physically left the building. All of the characters have told lies before the Inspector appears and the play hinges around the Inspector painstakingly and ruthlessly extracting the truth.
Your teen should take note of the fact that plot devices are a very useful way of both driving the plot forward and of playing with the story’s structure. It’s possible, for example, to have a letter delivered that reveals the ‘truth’ after a mysterious event has occurred. It’s a great way of delaying the great reveal right to the end of a story. Robert Louis Stevenson knew what he was doing with Jekyll and Hyde. He also knew how to make a character multi-dimensional, and your teen needs to do this too.
4 Constructing a three-dimension character
My tutees tend to look at me as if I’ve lost my marbles when I ask them to come up with a name and back story for a character that they want to include in a story. They also typically find it very tricky to start. However, with some prompts, it’s amazing what they come up with.
When teaching them how to do this, I make it clear that a)each of the cells need to inform the other and b) students should use a thesaurus, or a word-list I’ve prepared. This serves the purpose of enriching their vocabulary.
5 Writing an engaging opening sentence
I find that once students have got a really good opening sentence written, they are primed to write the rest of the story. They need to know what constitutes an engaging sentence though and what sort of things ‘hook’ the reader. Here’s a list I use to help tutees.
Hopefully your teen will find this useful. If you would like me to give them step-by-step lessons on how to bring their stories to life and how to write engaging descriptions, just get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.
