Creating a completely developed novel out of thin air is a tall order – but there are effective methods for guiding your children.

Here are some of my favorite strategies:

1. Explain the story’s steps to the kids

It’s unhelpful to send pupils into an assessment or exam with no notion what they’re going to confront. As instructors, we understand the mechanisms that are essential for success. In creative writing, the difference between a successful and poor short tale is a sense of a “whole” storey — one that follows Freytag’s pyramid.

This is an excellent place to start when educating kids because it lends itself to sections that can be included in a checklist or a structure strip. We can’t reveal the topic or title of this narrative, but we can offer pupils the gist of it.

Try to emphasize to students that they must write within certain parameters: they must capture a snapshot in time; there must be comprehensive description, a limited number of characters, and sparse conversation.

These “rules” assist pupils to focus on the subject at hand and minimize the universe of possibilities.

2. Take a literary persona and make it your own

Harry Potter “just sort of wandered into my head…fully formed,” JK Rowling said. This is rare for students taking an exam.

Our characters are archetypes, but constructing them under duress is challenging. We have to question what a 15 or 16-year-old can think of.

Consider this: youngsters have read, heard, or seen literally hundreds of stories, each with rich and varied characters they might employ in their own storey.

By integrating or referring a character from another work of literature, they demonstrate to the examiner that they can adapt characters and settings to produce something new.

3. Inspire through video snippets

Students can also write from moving images as a powerful story-writing tool. I’ve discovered that silent videos with no speech are typically the most impactful

Using a human eye as a starting point and structure for students of all writing levels is another amazing clip from the TV show Lost.

You’ll find that students enjoy the movie since it gives them ideas and allows them to focus on writing abilities.