IdeaShare

For Day 2:

I'm a writer and this is my general process for stories. I wrote this for my daughter to help her find a method that is not so intimidating. Most people - kids and adults - get stuck at number 1 because they try to make it too perfect. You can confidently assure your kid(s) that perfection (or something like it) comes in the editing process.

1. Write out your rough draft however you want – don’t worry about spelling errors, grammar, or missing details. Just get the main story out.

2. If you typed your rough draft, print it out for this part. If you wrote by hand, then you’re already ready for this:

a. Pretend you’ve never read this story before - VERY important for this step.
b. Read your rough draft out loud. Find places that, if you didn’t know this story, would need more information or better descriptions. (You can also read the rough draft to your child and ask questions that aren't fully answered - sometimes they'll hear them themselves - and they can make notes as you go.)
c. Make a note whenever you find these missing pieces. You don't have to write what you’re going to add in, it could be “desc.” for more description. Or “miss” for missing info. “dial” for more dialogue, “sp” for spelling errors, etc. You can come up with your own shorthand clues if you don’t like these ones.

3. Go back to your writing desk and add in those missing pieces you just made notes of.

4. Re-read tips for dialogue, grammar, and your short story critiques from past lessons. Do you need to edit or add anything else to your story? Do you need to fix spelling or grammatical errors? If so, add/fix. If not, move to the next step.

5. Print and read through again (out loud is easiest to find mistakes). If all looks good, turn it in! If there are errors, fix them, then turn in!

Good luck to your kiddos!

My son had a hard time coming up with a plot until we used this story generator:http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/

• link: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/