KS3 / KS4 English Language: What makes good story writing?

Anthony Horowitz:Hello, I'm Anthony Horowitz. Creative writing is all about imagination, inspiration and ideas. Ideas for stories, plots, characters, locations, situations, dialogue.

Anthony Horowitz:There's no limit to what you can write about and no reason why everyone can't try it. And there are no rules, that's one of the brilliant things about it.

Anthony Horowitz:But if you have been writing stories for years like I have, you do pick up some tips and develop a sense of what works for you. And that's always useful to share with others. So with that in mind, let's get some thoughts from a line-up of writers you've probably come across.

Anthony Horowitz:And we'll start with them talking about the ideas that can get the writing started.

Jamila Gavin:My ideas just come from anywhere and everywhere. I mean they drop into your lap unexpectedly. It might be an overheard remark, it might be a little situation that you observe happening in the street, or in public, or it might be an article that I'm reading in a newspaper. It can be a very tiny trigger.

Keith Gray:I wish I knew where I got my original ideas from. I wish I knew and then I could bottle it and not worry about it because I think for most writers, the biggest worry is, or I know it is for me definitely, my biggest worry is running out of ideas.

Jaqueline Wilson:I never get a whole, huge, long detailed idea for a book. But every now and then, there will be just some tiny image that will appeal to me and I think, "Mm, I like that."

David Almond:A lot of the time, your ideas sort of hunt you down. And you don't really invent your own ideas, the ideas come looking for you.

Anthony Horowitz:So you've got a good idea, but how do you start your story? And what's more important, the beginning, the middle, the end, the way you write a sentence, or everything? It's going to be everything isn't it.

Jaqueline Wilson:I think it's very important to have a good opening to a story. I think I try harder on my openings than anything else within the story.

Keith Gray:It's hooking the reader, it's the old writers cliché of dead body on page one. You've got to pull the reader straight in there, and if you can do it with the opening line fantastic.

David Almond:I spend most of my time on the first third of a story. Getting the characters in place, getting the language right, getting the tone right, getting the point of view right. And I think what I'm looking for is that moment when the story takes on its own life.

Malorie Blackman:I start my characters-- In my books I tend to start them Just as they are approaching a moment of change. Something is going to change in their lives.

Malorie Blackman:Usually for the worse, because obviously you want to make a You have to make a story so something dramatic is about to happen, something that's going to change their lives. And then usually in the middle of the story, things will get worse before they get better.

Jamila Gavin:I think stories need resolution, especially stories for children, and that is not to say that we're talking about happy endings.

Keith Gray:I don't think all ends have to be tied up neatly. I don't think everything has to be resolved. But I don't like cheat endings at all, I want to feel rewarded by reading the book, with an uplifting feeling or with a different view on the world.

David Almond:The subject of a story should really dictate what the shape of the story is like. I mean a great story like Moby Dick takes the form of a quest, a great adventure across the seas. And the story itself feels like a journey across the seas.

David Almond:There are moments when the whole story becomes very flat, marooned and then it goes on again and chases the whale.

Jaqueline Wilson:I have to have an opening which leads you straight into the story, and you want to know what's happening, what's going on, who your character is.

Malorie Blackman:If you're writing a really tense scene, or something that's kind of action packed, short sharp sentences tend to work better because it kind of builds up the tension rather than long flowing sentences which kind of tend to slow the action down.

Keith Gray:If you're going to describe the inside of a room for example, then have something happening in that room which will convey the description. So for example if you If you just have a list of what's in that room, a clock, a mantlepiece,a chair, it's very dull.

Keith Gray:But if you have somebody sneaking around the room and they're poking in drawers and they're flipping through books on the shelves and they're fiddling with the ornaments on the mantlepiece. You're getting a description of the room as well as having action happening at the same time.

David Almond:I carry a notebook around like an artist's sketchbook. Something that interests me that I hear, I'll just scribble it down. It could be the simplest thing you know, what a dog looks like as it crosses the street.

David Almond:The kind of the dent in the red paint of a bus might seem important to me, so you write, "Oh, the dent in the red paint of a bus", and then you think, "Oh, how tedious", but actually, you know, it can be that that can generate a story.

Jamila Gavin:If you've got a chunk of wood and you start shaving it, and moulding it, and shaving it, and moulding it, until you've got exactly the shape you're looking for, then you're getting the balance of words, phrases, sentences. Play around with it.

Malorie Blackman:It just depends on the type of book and what you're trying to convey, and what sort of feel you're trying to give to the book. But I think starting with dialogue is a very immediate way of getting straight into the story and hearing your characters.

Jaqueline Wilson:I remember when I was about ten, I got one of those how to write manuals out of the library, which I read very solemnly. And I remember they had a particular passage in it, where it said, "Show, don't tell", and I do think this is very good advice.

Jamila Gavin:I suppose the one tip I've got, is reading aloud. I do read aloud what I've written, because I like to hear the sound of my words and to hear whether I'm getting the action and the rhythm, and the pace right.

Malorie Blackman:There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, but from those 26 letters we can make so many words from it, and from those words we can convey so many meanings and I just think that's just so amazing.

David Almond:I love working with sentences. I love taking my paragraphs apart and then putting them back together again. Sometimes I'll write a paragraph that's only got two words in it, because it looks nice, and because I just want to do that Sometimes I'll run a paragraph for a whole page, just for variation.

Jamila Gavin:We all know about, you know, artistic production being 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration, but that 10% inspiration for me is absolutely vital, because without it I can't do the 90% perspiration.