How to write a story based on a real character. Ideal for Paper 1 Question 5 of the AQA GCSE.

This story is written to model exactly what students should do to write a story that they can finish within 40 minutes, which is roughly the amount of writing time they get at GCSE. There are no published stories of around 500 words, so I have begun to write my own.

Writing one on a real character takes away the fear of planning - students already know how the story starts.

There are three copies of the story:
1. Without any annotation

2. With a key to the annotations which teach a range of skills many English teachers ignore:
a. The Power of Verbs
b. How to introduce the character in an interesting way
c How to use humour, not jokes
d How to build tension using contrast and juxtaposition
e How dialogue must reveal character before plot
f The power of repetition and rule of three, or triplets, in building a rhythm
h Paragraphing for impact

3. With a key to the annotations which teach the more conventional story writing skills:
a. Metaphor
b. Similes
c. Personification
d. Alliteration
e. Assonance, Half Rhyme and Hidden Alliteration

Finally, you also get a completely free video on how to teach this at: http://bit.ly/WriteAboutARealCharacter

The PowerPoint slides which teach this lesson, and which I use in the video are available as a separate resource.