Writing stories is the perfect way for your child to unleash their inner artist. Creating an entirely new world with only a pen, some paper, and a whole heap of imagination can be hugely exciting and rewarding, and also makes for fun literacy practice – but it can be hard to know where to start.

Harriet Muncaster, creator of the series, knows how difficult writers’ block can be. So, she has announced her creative writing challenge to focus your author-in-training and get them writing their best story yet!

Top tips

Is your child excited to try the creative writing challenge, but doesn’t know where to begin? Harriet’s free is bursting with tips and activities to help your child get inspiration, create characters, design exciting plots, and even edit and publish their stories. Here are our top tips, inspired by the guide.

1. Create a character

Instead of starting with a plot, it can sometimes help to create a character first. Having an interesting character makes it much easier to come up with exciting adventures, because your child can simply imagine the strange situations their character would find themselves in.

If your child likes drawing, they could try sketching their ideas first. Picture prompts, like , can help with inspiration. What kind of person or creature would live in a deep dark swamp? Or in an underwater city? Or on a distant planet?

2. Give your character problems

Once your child has created a strong character, they need a problem to overcome. For example, you might look at what your character most wants to do or have in the future. What could stop them from doing or getting that?

Your child’s character might want to:

• Win a competition
• Find their way home
• Rescue someone
• Defeat a dangerous monster
• Escape somewhere scary

Remember: easy problems make boring stories. If the problem is too easy to solve, then fixing it will be fast and unrewarding.

“When your character is solving a problem, it is usually a good idea to have them try two things that do not work, before they get it right on number three (think Goldilocks!).”

3. Describe your world

Even with interesting characters and an exciting plot, your child’s story will not come to life without vibrant vocabulary. Using the right words lets the reader see the amazing scenes your child is imagining!

Encourage your child to use adjectives to describe what their character is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting. Is that song quiet, deafening, screechy, or tinkling? Is that bridge enormous, tiny, strong, or rickety?

Similes are also great for inventive description. A simile is where you describe something as being like something else – for example, ‘the trains looked like giant metal caterpillars’, or ‘their eyes were round like saucers’.

4. Write lots!

This is Harriet’s most important tip. The more your child practises, the better they will get, and the more they will enjoy themselves!

For more advice and activities, download Harriet’s free .

More from Oxford Owl

• 4 tips to inspire children’s creative writing
• 4 fun ways to develop characters for a short story
• 4 top tips for writing great plots
• How to find the perfect words for your story
• Take a look at our
• Christopher Edge’s includes his top 10 tips to get your child writing, as well as free activity sheets.

Do you like making up stories about your favourite book characters, or inventing new characters? What happens when you try writing them down – does writer’s block set in?

From fear of the blank page to worries over spelling, writing a story can be a real challenge, as you try to use your reading and writing skills to tell a gripping tale.

To help you channel your inner author, we’ve asked the author of , Chris Edge, to share his top 10 tips to help get you writing:

1. Story sparks

Every story needs a spark of inspiration. Everyday life is a great place to start.

Maybe a place you visit on a day out could become the setting for a spooky story, or a newspaper headline about a Jack Russell terrier who makes friends with a tiger could inspire an amazing animal tale. When you start looking, you can find inspiration everywhere! Download our activity sheet.

2. All you need is a book

Find or make a creative space that’s your own – a notebook or journal for you to scribble down story ideas, invent incredible characters, or even draw pictures of the places where you want to set your story. A writer’s notebook is a private place where you can gather your inspiration.

3. Reader to writer

Every writer is a reader and every reader can be a writer too. Think about the books you are reading. What are the best bits? What are the worst? Who’s your favourite character and why? Write down your favourite lines and think about how the books you are reading could inspire your own spin-off stories and sequels.

4. Opening lines

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing a story is the fear of the blank page. You can conquer this fear by finding an opening line. Why don’t you take a book off your bookshelf and use the opening line as the first line of your own story?��Download our ��activity sheet.

5. Remix a story

Making a mash-up story that mixes together characters from different books, films, and TV shows can be a lot of fun. Choose a favourite character from a book and create a story that puts them into your favourite TV show or videogame.

How would Sherlock Holmes solve a Minecraft mystery? What would happen if Mr Gum entered��The X Factor? Let your imagination run wild!

6. A picture can inspire a thousand words…

A visit to an art gallery – or even just looking at photos in a magazine – can inspire a story. Talk to your parents about the pictures you see, and think about characters, settings, and situations you can turn into a story. Wordless picture books such as�������Ի�����by Aaron Becker can help you invent your own story to accompany the pictures.

7. Making a map

If you are a big fantasy fan and love stories about dragons, wizards, and monsters, try to create your own magical land. Look at maps of other fantasy lands such as Middle Earth and Narnia and think about the stories that are set there. Making a map can help to inspire fantastic adventures.

8. Comic books and coding

Writing a story isn’t always just about the words. Creating comic books, picture books, and illustrated stories can use your artistic talents too. Or you could move from page to screen and get coding to create an animated tale.

9. Share their stories

Try your new story out on your parents. Type it up, print it out, make it look like a book, and send it out to friends and family. Look out for creative writing competitions, such as����competition, that let children share their story with a big audience.

10. Have fun

Why not get your parents to join in and make up their own story too? The novel����was written by eight-year-old Isabel – and her mum Louisa Young – under the pseudonym Zizou Corder. Work together to make up your own bedtime story and you might find you’ve written a bestseller! Good luck!

Creative writing activities

Books from Christopher Edge

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