11 Plus exam stories must have dialogue

🗣 REMEMBER DIALOGUE (even if it is between a chicken and a man).

This may sound obvious to point out – but it's not.

As we move towards exam time, it's common for the most brilliant writers to forget some of the basics of story writing as they concentrate on using impressive description – but these 'basics' carry crucial marks. ✍️

One 'basic' element of story writing is dialogue (in fact, we start thinking about dialogue in stories in Year 1!).

Dialogue, or even one line of speech, lifts a story out of being just descriptive. It moves the plot and shows the characters' motives and feelings.

When dialogue is absent from a story, you can sense something is missing; the story sounds like a description of an event, and the characters feel 2D.

So, if you know you forget dialogue, here's a tip for exam time…

Could you add inverted commas to your plan to remind you?

An excellent place to do this is in the middle section, the story's problem.

Example 👇

⭐️Beginning

⭐️Middle ""(ADD THE INVERTED COMMAS HERE)

⭐️End

Oh, and if you are curious just what a man and a chicken could say to each other, what about this? 👀

“Why, what a clever little thing you are,” beamed the man through his slightly smeared glasses.

“I wish I could say the same for you,” replied the chicken scornfully.

Watch out for another top tip next week … just in time for exams!

Anna 🙂