Day 8 SoL Story Challenge: How to Tell a Realistic Fiction Story

Join hundreds of teachers and students as we practice our own writing by sharing a story from our lives each day in the month of March!

Readers, let me introduce you to my nephew, K. He's an awesome kid. Also, he loves to tell stories. Little L. and I are off to a birthday party today, so he took care of today's Slice of Life Story Challenge for us.

K. has a good feel for realistic fiction, don't you think? (Also, K. loves to draw, so that helps.)

Here are a few elements of realistic fiction that I notice in K.'s story, that you or your own kids or students might aim for in fiction storytelling:

* a realistic, believable character with strengths and weaknesses

* the character wants something, but something stands in the way ("The character wants…but…so… is a prompt I often use in the classroom for both reading and writing)

* the character tries and tries again to solve the problem

* usually the problem gets solved (though this is not always the case… there is such thing as a tragedy, you know)

Now here's K.'s older sister, my niece, M. She's just as awesome as K. She also tells a realistic fiction story. See if you can hear all the elements I listed above:

K. and M. did this within just a few minutes. If they can do it, you can do it! Try it now.

1. First, think of a character.

2. Now think of what they might want…. 

3. But… what stands in the way?

4. So… what do they do to get what they want?

This should get you started! Have fun storytelling!