Fiction

In this chapter

This chapter considers how children’s story writing develops, and how their mastery of the key elements of stories – plot, character, setting, atmosphere, language effects – can be assessed. Some of the common difficulties of fiction writing will be discussed, and for each sample analysed there will be suggestions of next steps for the writer.

Children write stories regularly during their primary years, although many of them will then write few or none during the rest of their education and the rest of their lives. Many children love writing stories and draw effectively on their reading of fiction during the process. However, for some children writing successful fiction is much more difficult than writing non-fiction: they find it difficult to orchestrate those ...