Short Story Writing Using Ala Carte Elements
Middle School Creative Writing Lesson Helps Students Start Stories
Apr 6, 2009
When assigning a short story, give the students ideas from which they can choose. These ideas can help students to write stronger stories.
Discuss Elements
Short stories are just that, a story that is short. To help drive home the point, remind students that they need to stick with a few characters, a short span of time and an underlying message or theme.
When beginning the lesson, each story element of conflict, theme, character, setting and plot twist can be listed for students on a hand-out. Students should choose one conflict, one theme, two characters, one setting and one plot twist. From this list of elements, students should be able to write a short story.
Need for Conflict
First, discuss the need for a conflict. Solving only one conflict is a way to limit the story’s length. Tell students to choose from the basic types, such as man versus man, man versus nature, man versus himself and man versus the supernatural.
Underlying Message
Second, have students select a theme. There are many themes from which to choose, but a few could include friendship, growing up, family, frustration, jealously ,dreams of escape, love infatuations, betrayal, love and hate, or sin.
Choosing Characters
Third, students can choose the type of characters they want to write about in their stories. They can choose to have a protagonist, the main character and sometimes the hero. And, they can choose an antagonist, a person who works against the protagonist by creating obstacles. In a short story, these may be the only types of characters that are needed.
For each protagonist and antagonist, the student needs to decide the sex, age, physical build, personality, profession, and/or personal drive.
Select a Setting
Fourth, students need to choose a setting, which sets the mood of the story. Students could choose from a dark alley, swollen river, an empty house, a wind-swept field, a messy bedroom, a thick forest, a baseball diamond, a smelly locker room, the school cafeteria, a pizza parlor, or the city zoo. This is just a small list that the teacher can add to later.
Plotting a Twist
Plot twists can include but are not limited to changes in time, flashbacks that give new or concealed information, character or identity changes, etc. The twists will take the story in a completely different direction. There is even a plot twist generator website by Manon that creates plot twists to help the writer.
Hopefully, the list of ala carte elements will get students writing. Another way to “shake things up” is to have a bowl for each of the elements. In each bowl, write one item per small slip of paper. Students can randomly choose pieces of paper from the bowls.
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