As part of an ongoing programme of language research, the department of Children’s Dictionaries & Children’s Language Data at 51������ has analysed children’s creative writing submitted to the BBC 500 WORDS story competition in 2023 and the results are out today!

You can find all the details about the winners of the 500 words story competition on the , and download the full for all the language analysis from OUP.

The analysis is undertaken by a team of lexicographers, editors and teachers, and is based on the Oxford Children’s Corpus, the largest children’s language database in English.

Key Findings from the Report

• Themes around contemporary conflicts feature more prominently in the stories than in previous years.
• There is a shift away from the topic of Brexit, with very few mentions of this word (and none in a political context).
• There is a substantial increase in the frequency of AI in the stories – often in relation to a dangerous entity that could take over the world.
• The stories indicate an increasing awareness of neurodiversity, and conditions are often portrayed as a strength.
• Barbie occurs twice as frequently in stories from 2023 than 2020.
• TikTok is seen as a more established app and part of everyday life in 2023.
• Lioness(es) increased in frequency compared with 2020, and over half of the mentions were in reference to football. In 2020, almost all mentions of lioness(es) were references to the animal.
• The 2023 stories are the first to demonstrate a lived experience of Covid in the UK, and the pandemic is evidently still a reference point for children.

Insights from the 2023 stories

• The proportion of boys and girls who submitted a story in 2023 was 39% and 61%respectively. Excluding names, words that are used much more frequently by boys than girls include: Madrid, titan, league, Godzilla and champions. Meanwhile, words that are used much more frequently by girls than boys include: gymnastics, pony, foal, makeup and tiara.
• Words that appear much more often in stories from the 5-7 age category than the 8-11 age category include: mammy, baddy and teddybear. Meanwhile, words that are used much more frequently in stories by children in the older age group than the younger age group include intrigue, commander and murder. Adverbs, including practically, seemingly and sincerely, are also used more frequently in this age group.
• Words which had much higher frequency in stories from 2023 than 2020 include seasonal trends such as pumpkin and Halloween, footballers such as Haaland and Raya, and animals such as capybara and axolotl. Camilla is also used much more often in stories from 2023 – both in reference to the Queen and as a general character name.
• Meanwhile, words which had much higher frequency in stories from 2020 than 2023 include ps4, bushfire, trump, Brexit and coronavirus.

Do check out the full report for more interesting facts about how children used language in the 2023 500 words competition, and congratulations and well done to everyone who took part and submitted a story, as well as to the well-deserved winners.��

Blog: 4 top tips for writing great plots

Blog: 4 fun ways to develop characters for a short story

Blog: How to find the perfect words for your story

Blog: Using storytelling to help develop reading and writing skills

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.

Plastic��has been revealed as the Children’s Word of the Year by 51������ for the BBC Radio 2’s 500 Words Competition. British children have once again shown themselves to be fabulously inventive, funny and socially astute.

This year, more than 134,000 children entered the competition and the team at Oxford Children’s Dictionaries have been poring through all the entries to identify trends and changes in the way children are using language.

Plastic��is our Children’s Word of the Year because of its significant increase in use (a total rise of more than 100% from 2017), the children’s awareness of and passion for environmental issues, and the creative solutions the children invented in their stories to combat environmental problems.

Children use plastic in their stories in an emotive way with titles such as:��The Plastic Shore,��The Mermaid’s Plastic Mission�����Ի���The Evil Mr Plastic.

“Sea animals are dying because of you and your plastic! Nets get caught around dolphins’ necks. Plastic used for bottles gets tangled around sea turtle shells…”

Some children even wrote their stories from the perspective of plastic containers.

“Reaching the surface I found it filled with my kind. Empty bottles bobbed on the surface like rubber ducks, bags of different sizes and colours floating like jellyfish, killing and collecting helpless sea life. A blanket of plastic suffocating the ocean.”

Writing about the environment

The words��‘r�𳦲⳦����’�����Ի���‘r�𳦲⳦�����Բ�’��have also seen an increase in frequency of over 100%. In their stories, children are taking matters into their own hands to come up with ingenious solutions to the plastic problem with, for instance: a ‘Reverse-o-matic Pollutinator Ray Gun’ for��“zonking all the polluting machines around the world”��(The Bookworm, boy aged 13); the ‘Fantastic-sewage-sooperpooper-suckerupper’ to��“stop sewage going into the sea so people could swim in it without it being horrible”��(Professor Igotit and the Fantastic-sewage-sooperpooper-suckerupper, boy aged 5); and ‘The three plastic-eteers’,��“a team fighting against plastic rubbish”��(The Three Plastic-eteers, girl aged 8).

“Language empowers children, giving them a voice to express their passions and opinions, which they have put to powerful effect in this year’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show’s 500 Words competition. Children have shown they are acutely aware of the impact plastic has on our environment and how it will affect their own future. They have used their stories to devise imaginative ways to combat this issue and bring about change in their world.”

Women in history

The inclusion of women in history in storylines increased by 33% year on year, in writing by both boys and girls, with a list of figures’ names that shows an engagement with areas ranging from aviation to computers to political activism. New appearances in 2018 are Emily Davison and Ada Lovelace, along with substantial increases for Emmeline Pankhurst (833%) and Amelia Earhart (350%). Cleopatra remains the most mentioned woman in history.

Phrases such as ‘the one and only’ or ‘the first woman’ show that the women mentioned are looked upon with aspiration, as role models.

“I am on the spaceship 3000 to become the first woman on the moon”

Language inspired by mythology

Among mythical beasts,��unicorns��are still the favourite subject by a fantasy furlong. The horned horse appears over 20,010 times in this year’s competition, with 85% of the mentions coming from girls, mostly aged 5–7. Children also use language creatively to invent their own unicorn words.

“Worrycorn: a unicorn with a great gold mane, and a sparkling pink unicorn horn bright enough to melt an ice cream in a freezer that can ‘record all your worries and make them disappear.’”

Playground crazes

In 2018 it’s all about slime: the word��slime��was used 3,242 times in stories and was mentioned more by girls than by boys.

There has been a 96% year-on-year increase in references to the craze for making and playing with this squidgy, gooey material made from various ingredients, including PVA glue, bicarbonate of soda, food colouring, shaving cream, and contact lens solution. As a slither-off of the slime effect, kids also used��bucket,��pot,��blob,��trail of slime�����Ի���slime monster��in their stories.

“Just like all 10 and 8-year-olds, me and Evie love making slime. Squishy slime, bubbly slime, edible slime, even bogey looking slime, we love it all.”

Fidget spinners��increased from 1 mention in 2017 to 130 in 2018.

Politics, Brexit and ‘The Donald’

Of the political words/names which have grown most in frequency of use since 2017,��Brexit��tops the list with an increase of 182%. It has been mainly mentioned as an item on the news, or as a boring topic of conversation.

“I am told that I shall be attending another meeting for Brexit negotiations in Brussels today. Was slightly excited for a moment about travelling abroad again, before quickly remembering how mind-numbingly boring the last Brexit meeting was. I might have to bring a book, or maybe a pillow.”

Children have also used it creatively in the form of similes –��an exit as big as Brexit��(Down the haunted lane, girl aged 7). There are also interesting allegorical and figurative uses, such as:��“Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a princess who lived in a castle which was guarded by a monster. The monster was called Brexit and everyone blamed him for everything. He kept asking ‘why is everyone blaming me?’”��(Misunderstanding, girl aged 9).

Last year, thousands of children used language in clever, witty, and subversive ways related to the US President, making��Trump��the 2017 Children’s Word of the Year. Fascination with ‘The Donald’ shows no sign of abating, and he takes the top spot for famous people mentioned for the second year in succession. Once again, vocabulary associated with Donald Trump (president,��White House,��fake news�����Ի���wig) featured strongly.

“My name is Walter Wig and I sit on Donald Trump’s head.”

There were also many inventive creations inspired by ‘trump’, such as��Snozzletrump,��Pinetrump�����Ի���Snuffletrump.

Writing about human tragedy

Emotive writing on Syria, the plight of refugees, terrorist attacks such as the Manchester Arena bombing and school shootings also provide powerful material for stories. Mentions of homelessness are on the rise with children presenting an empathetic imagining of the experience of living on the streets.

“Ice cold snowflakes swirled like feathers around me, I pulled my ragged, ripped jacket tightly around my shoulders … I’m homeless, lonely and scared.”

The tragedy of Grenfell Tower is also hauntingly portrayed in a number of stories.

“He saw fireflies drifting in the night sky … he had not seen these in England before … What the young boy did not realise was the fireflies were in fact burning embers from the floors below … His tower block was named Grenfell Tower.”

Such stories illustrate that youngsters will not shy away from traumatic events; rather, they will try to understand them and confront them in a thoughtful and sensitive manner.

The extraordinary range of subject matters in this year’s 500 Words Competition reflects a remarkable awareness of the wider world from these young writers. The choice of��Plastic��as the Children’s Word of the Year is a fitting acknowledgement of the creativity and skill they demonstrated by engaging so insightfully with the issues that matter to them.

More from Oxford Owl

• 4 tips to inspire children’s creative writing
• Writing non-fiction for fun
• How to write your best scary story ever!

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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