Story Crafting

Introduction
Implementing Literacy: Made to Order
Aims and Objectives of Literacy: Made to Order

How to implement Story Crafting

PART I: GETTING STARTED

Introduction/Aims and Objectives

Skill 1: Establishing an Ideas File
Students learn how to develop and use an Ideas File as a source of writing inspiration.


Skill 2: What Happened Before and What Happens Next
Students explore the causes and effects of a variety of story-triggering incidents or situations and practice turning them into story ideas.


Skill 3: Establishing the Theme of Your Story
Students practice growing underlying themes that can help their fictional tales deliver important and powerful messages to readers.

Skill 4: Creating the Illusion of Reality
Students learn how to make characters, settings and plot events behave or transpire in realistic ways.

Skill 5: Understanding Dramatic Conflict
Student authors practice putting multiple conflicts into a story to make it interesting and exciting for the reader.

Skill 6: Understanding Story/Scene Structure
Young authors learn how to construct a fictional scene and practice putting scenes in the best order to create an interesting story.


Skill 7: Writing Descriptively: Wake Up Your Senses
Young authors reawaken their senses and establish a vocabulary of sensory words and phrases to enhance their descriptive writing.


Skill 8: Writing Descriptively: Use Figurative Language
Student authors practice using similes and metaphors to make their descriptive writing more evocative.


Skill 9: Writing Descriptively: Use Descriptive language
Students learn to recognize and use words with specific connotations in order to make their writing more effective.

Skill 10: Putting Everything Together (Writing Assignment)
Students take a story through the entire process from outlining to Final Draft.


PART II: WRITING THE SHORT STORY

Introduction/Aims and Objectives

Skill 1: Building a Strong Main Character
Students practice the techniques that authors use to bring fictional personalities to life on the page.

Skill 2: Constructing a Solid Dramatic Conflict
Dramatic conflict is the backbone of any story. Student authors practice building and developing the strongest possible level of dramatic conflict in their stories.

Skill 3: Creating an Interesting Setting
Students practice developing and using realistic, well-written settings to strengthen and deepen every element of their stories.

Skill 4: Structuring a Story Effectively in Scenes
Students learn how to make their stories flow interestingly from beginning to end.

Skill 5: Setting Up the Story
Student authors practice writing opening scenes that will lay a strong foundation for the rest of their story.

Skill 6: Hooking the Reader
Students practice creating story openings that will 'hook' the reader's attention from the very beginning of a tale.

Skill 7: Major Writing Assignment
Students are now ready to put together all the writing skills they have learned in a story-writing assignment which will be revised, edited and polished and handed in for evaluation.

PART III: WRITING LONGER FICTION

Introduction/Story Lengths

Skill 1: Adding Minor Characters to the Cast
Young authors learn and practice how to put minor characters to work in their stories, ensuring that every character pulls his/her weight.

Skill 2: Giving Characters More Depth
Students practice building more realistic characters that readers will identify with and care about.

Skill 3: Adding a Subplot
Student authors learn how to deepen and enrich their stories by adding well-integrated subplots.

Skill 4: Working with Settings
Young authors practice putting their story settings to work in various ways, making their stories more engaging for the reader.

Skill 5: Step-building Dramatic Tension
In longer fiction, dramatic tension keeps readers turning pages. Students learn and practice how to build tension using a tested story structure.

Skill 6: Major Writing Assignment
Students are now ready to put together all the longer fiction writing skills they have learned in a story-writing assignment which will be revised, edited and polished and handed in for evaluation.


PART IV: THE WRITING PROCESS: A SUPPLEMENTARY LIBRARY OF FICTION WRITING TOOLS

Introduction: How to Use the Fiction Writing Toolkit

Tools 1-23