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Writing a story: some ideas to help you. |
When you write a story, don't forget the 5 Ws (What, When, Who, Where, Why)
| What happened in your story? When did it happen? Who was in your story? Where did it happen? Why did it happen? Why were the characters there? |
- Use Past Continuous to "paint
the picture" ("The sun was shining, the children were playing,
mum was cooking and dad was reading the newspaper when suddenly...")
- Use verbs in Simple Past: ("She looked at me and she smiled. I showed
her my book.")
- Use words like "when" and "suddenly"
to join ideas using Past Simple and Past Continuous, e.g.: "I was studying
in my bedroom when suddenly, I heard a noise in the garden."
- Use adjectives to describe your characters and the places:
| The tall man The beautiful girl An enormous shopping centre An expensive new car A sophisticated plan |
- Use adverbs to describe actions:
| She spoke slowly. She ran very quickly They shouted angrily. |
- Include a short dialogue and reporting verbs:
| "What's the time?"
- she asked. "I don't know" - I replied. |
- Use connectors (words to connect sentences: and, so, but, because)
| It was late so we took a taxi. He was very tall and she was incredibly pretty. I was very tired because it was very late. We went to the cinema but we didn't like the film. |
- Mark different moments in your story.
| In the morning / afternoon /
evening At night At 5 o'clock After lunch, Last Friday, |
- Check every two or three lines
and check everything you have written when you finish.
- Check your spelling and punctuation.
Try to do the following exercises.
exercise
1 - Simple Past & Past Continuous - click here
exercise
2 - Adverbs and adjectives - click here
exercise 3 - Adverbs
and adjectives 2 - click here
exercise
4 - Simple Past & Past Continuous: a dialogue - click here