What happens next? Building a plot

Creating cool characters is my thing. I like to draw them all the time wherever I am. Mum says I should try writing a story for Jane Pain. She's a cool, futuristic warrior from the year 2100 who protects the Earth from evil aliens. But I'm trying to think of what happens next.

Then let's figure out your story together. Wheee! Hi there. I'm Winnie the Bookworm, but I like to be called Winnie the Worm. That's because stories can come from anywhere, not just in books, and I love, love, love helping people to write their own stories. And with a character as brilliant as Jane Pain, building a plot is going to be fun! The plot is what happens in your story. It needs a beginning, a middle and an end. It's a bit like a journey: you start off in one place and end up somewhere else with interesting places to visit along the way. One way to think of a plot is like a huge building made of bricks, and every brick is a piece of the plot in your story. For the beginning of your story, maybe a massive alien drops from the sky and lands on the

biggest building in the city! This event is a problem the hero needs to solve, but in the middle part they don't solve it right away. Maybe Jane is too confident because she thinks this new monster will be easy to beat, but it's too strong for her! After the

hero realises they've made a mistake; they need to think more carefully about how to solve the problem. Maybe she watches the alien and sees that it can't hop very high because it's so heavy. Then she spots a huge hole in the ground outside of the city and comes up with a proper plan to stop the alien. For the ending, Jane could lead the alien all the way to the edge of the hole until…

Until the alien hops in the hole and gets stuck! Then they build a new tower on top to stop him getting out.

See, you're building the plot yourself now! And don't forget: Write something that you want to read! Have fun!