Teaching Kids To Structure A Story

teaching kids to structure a story

Teaching kids to structure a story is not easy. A lot of students know how to begin, but can’t seem to finish. Others don’t know where to begin. There are plenty of writing templates out there which focus on detail: the five senses, character sketches, describe a setting… All of these are useful, but not at the planning stage.

What to give students at the very beginning?

This is the template I use with my nine-year-old daughter. For more experienced writers there’s a lot  more to it, but I have had great success with my own kid. She loves this template. She now knows how to finish off a story.

1. Who is your main character?

  • What makes your character scared/angry/upset?
  • How do they treat other people badly?

2. What do they want?

  • What is the one big thing your main character wants in THIS story?
  • They might want two things.
  • They KNOW about one of these things. (e.g. a new guitar)
  • But they DON’T KNOW about the other thing. (e.g. to play guitar in front of an audience so everyone loves them and claps)

3. Opponent / Monster / Baddie / Enemy / Frenemy

  • Who is against your main character?
  • Who wants the exact OPPOSITE thing?
  • Or maybe they’re after the SAME thing, but only one person can have it.
  • Who thinks they’re helping, but really they’re not?
  • Who pretends to be their friend, but really they’re not?

Talk for Writing Home-school Booklet: Villains Working at Greater Depth by Jamie Thomas

4. What’s the plan?

  • How will your main character get that thing they want?
  • What are they going to do?
  • Where will they have to go?
  • Who needs to help?
  • Sometimes plans work, sometimes they don’t.
  • Sometimes the first plan has to change a bit before it works.
  • Sometimes a character does not get what they want. This is called a ‘tragedy’

5. Battle

Before the end of your story there will be:

  • A big fight
  • A big argument
  • A near-death experience

6. What does your character learn?

  • Your main character has learnt something.
  • It might be about themselves. It might be something about life in general.
  • They did not know this thing at the beginning of the story.

7. How will life be different from now on?

  • Does your main character live in the same place, or in a new place? Maybe it’s the same place, but feels different now.
  • Do they have the same friends and family?
  • Have things changed between them and other characters?
  • Have they lost something, or got something new?
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)

On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.

Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:

1. Get a pet dog

2. Find a friend. Just one. Not too intense.

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