Ideas on kids story writing??

Question

My 10 year old has got to write for 20mins a night as he needs to reach a certain level in his writing. When it comes to starting a story i would love to help him but really i need to help him think of ideas. At the moment his mind goes blank,Bless him.

Answer 1

sit with him and encourage him to develop his creative thinking with genle hints from you!!!!!!!

ask him about his main character - get him to close his eyes and tell you as much about it as he can. what does it smell like? look like? feel like? sound like?

if he says angry, encourage him to develop a similie - as angry as a what..........?????
smells nasty - what do you mean nasty, tell me something it smells like, what do you feel when you smell him......does the smell of him make you feel terrified or brave?

do this for all his characters, then get him to think about the setting - if it is a mountain, get him to think about what sounds he might hear - eagles screeching, wind rushing round him, what can he see - down into a valley, trees and shrubery.
describe the trees - green!!!! what shade of green, how are the trees moving, and hopefully he will come up with good adjectives and adverbs to describe the trees. e.g. 'the deep green leaves, which twinkled at the ends of the branches, swayed gently in the breeze on the mountain top'

i hope that helps, just make it a gradual process for him and more of a fun exercise. you could get him to draw a picture of the setting a write describing words on that - developing his writing skills but in a different way.

Answer 2

Make three sets of cards- a set of 'things' (a cat, bowl of ice-cream, a vulture, a piece of poo, anything that's a bit random), a set of people (famous people or characters he knows and likes, or people in his family), and a set of random sentences, phrases or speech (like 'Oh, I forgot about that!' or 'Stop it, please!'). Every night he (blindly) picks one card from each pile and has to write a story of certain length (with beginning, middle and end, naturally). He can add any other details he likes to the story, but MUST use the things on the cards in some way, at least once.

It's a good practice method because it takes the pressure off him to come up with ideas himself- he's being 'forced' to use the source material he chose at random. If the stories he has to write inspire something of his own, then the next day, or later that same day, give him time to write his own.

Answer 3

Try & think of a load of first lines that he can work from - doesn't need to be the start of a story, it can be the middle or end e.g.
The jeep burst a tyre & lurched into the brush at the side of the track. In the distance the lion turned to look in their direction....
Jack crept into the graveyard just as the moon disappeared behind a cloud...
Or you can think of a subject e.g. haunted house, magical pencil, two friends competing to win go-kart race.
It wont take you long to come up with a load of ideas to give him a starting point for his writing.

Good luck

Answer 4

My mum used to give me and my brother a list of story titles to write in the summer holidays to keep us busy - they'd be things like 'the magic rocking horse' or 'the castle under the sea' or something and it was great fun, then we'd write the stories and tell my mum at bedtime.

Answer 5

Get him to get ideas from movies, songs and mix it with real life and add twists and turns to the story

Answer 6

What are his interests?Turn his interests into ideas for stories.

Answer 7

Instead of other people using their creative minds for you..Why don't you create a mind map and right down random ideas...??

Answer 8

anything that he is interested in...football, bikes, cars etc if he is interested it will make it much easier for him to get involved and generate ideas