Your story must have a beginning, a development (the body of the story) and an end. A story is usually in the past tense, so you need to revise all the past forms of verbs. You will get better marks if you use different tenses, vocabulary and expressions. Before you start writing, think of how the story is going to develop. Think of a simple plan for your story and write down a few words. For example:
- What happened at the beginning? (was travelling by train, my suitcase disappeared)
- What happened after that? (went to police)
- How did it end? (I found it/was empty)
Start writing and include all the details as you write, e.g. where you were travelling, who you were with, colour/size/contents of suitcase, what the police told you to do, people's feelings etc.
Make sure your story is easy to read. Use words such as Then ... , After that ... , While ... , When ... , etc. Don't have too many characters. You can use exclamation marks (!) to add drama or excitement. You can also use direct speech to tell us what the people said but don't use too much - it's not a dialogue!
Finally, read your story and check the language:
- Have you started with the sentence given and haven't changed it?
- Have you used paragraphs?
- Have you used different verb tenses?
- Are your verbs in the correct tense?
- Have you used good adjectives and adverbs?
- Have you checked your spelling?
One more thing - when you write a story, descriptive language is important so you should use different adjectives and adverbs, e.g. terrible (terribly), dreadful (dreadfully), awful (awfully), depressed, nervous(ly), excited(ly), wonderful(ly), terrific (terrifically), great(ly), amazing(ly), anxious(ly), terrifying, enthusiastic(ally), etc.
I hope it will help and I will be enjoying reading your stories!!!
