The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write a Story

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Write a Story

You have learned the moves. Now you get to spend all of them at once, on a story that is yours to tell and yours to see.

Every story you have ever loved has the same few parts working underneath it, and one of them is a point of view. Here is what to put in, and what each part does for your reader.

A narrator with a point of view

Somebody is telling this story from a particular vantage, and that vantage shapes what the reader sees. The reader should know who the narrator is, what they think, and why this moment matters to them.
Characters the reader comes to know

At least one person besides the narrator, drawn with enough detail that the reader can picture them and predict how they would act. Not a list of traits. A person.
A setting the reader can stand in

A place and a time, anchored with a detail or two the reader can see, hear, or smell. "The lunchroom" is a label. "The lunchroom that used to be silent, now roaring with actual conversation" is a place.
A sequence of events

Things happen, in an order, and each one moves the story forward. First this, then because of that, then this. The order is the story, and here the order is also how a mind gets changed.
A conclusion that lands

The story comes to a close that follows from everything before it, and that shows how the narrator ended up somewhere different from where they started. Not "and then I woke up." An ending the reader feels.

Spend your tools

And woven through all of it, the craft moves you already know. Here they are, pointed at a story.

Nelson · Specific nouns

A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea, and ideas can be named precisely too. "Things" says nothing. "The noise, the eye contact, and the boredom" names the abstract change exactly. Pin the idea down.

The ban changed things. The ban changed the noise, the eye contact, and the boredom.

Vinny · Strong verbs

A verb can hide the doer in the passive voice or put them on stage in the active voice. "Phones were collected" hides who did it; "a teacher collected our phones" shows the actor doing the work. Reach for the active voice unless you have a reason not to.

The phones were collected by a teacher each morning. Each morning, a teacher collected our phones.

Jake · Show, do not tell

Could we be more specific? Show the moment that matters, the empty pocket and the real question. But you may TELL the small connecting parts; not every sentence needs a full scene. Knowing when to tell is a craft too.

Lunch was different now, and it was boring, and I was annoyed. I reached for a phone that was not in my pocket. Across the table, someone actually asked me a question.

Connie · Compound and complex sentences

A short sentence lands hard. A longer one that opens with a word like "when," or joins two thoughts with a comma and a conjunction, carries more. Model the comma before the conjunction; that is the rule. Mix the lengths, and your paragraph finds a shape.

The ban started. I hated it. Then I did not. When the ban started, I hated it, but by winter I had stopped noticing my empty pocket.

The Mayor · Voice

You already switch how you talk, one way with friends and another in a note to a teacher. That switch is code-switching, and doing it ON PURPOSE is a tool. I write one way, Slang writes another, and each of us picks the register the moment needs.

Yo, the phone thing was straight-up unfair. For a note to a friend, that casual voice is fine. For a letter to the principal: The new policy deserves a second look.

The Mayor · The three parts of a multi-paragraph piece

A single paragraph has three parts, and so does a whole piece. The opening sets the reader up, each body paragraph carries one point, and the close lands the whole thing. At this grade your writing grows past one paragraph, so the three parts grow with it.

One long paragraph that starts, wanders, and stops. An opening paragraph that sets it up, a body where each paragraph carries one point, and a closing paragraph that lands it.

The Story Plan

In the Writing Company we do not start writing and hope. We plan the trip first. Here is my plan, and here is how I aim it at a story.

The Mayor's Power Plan

Pick it. Choose the idea worth the trip.
Plan it. Map your notes before you go.
Pour it on. Write, and keep pouring: more detail, more feeling, more of what only you know.

The Seven Story Questions

Answer all seven and the trip is packed.

Who is the main character?
When does the story take place?
Where does the story take place?
What does the main character do or want to do?
What happens when they try to do it?
How does the story end?
How does the main character feel?

Writers remember them as W-W-W, What = 2, How = 2. Say it out loud once. It sticks.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on the story you have been following: the year our school banned phones during the school day, and how the writer's mind slowly changed about it.

Pick it. The brainstorm found four strong memories from that year: the morning the rule was announced, the first loud lunch, an afternoon of pure boredom, and the day the writer realized the change. I pick the whole arc, because a story where the narrator ends up believing what they hated at the start has a point of view built right into it. Stories live in a mind that changes.

Plan it.

Who? Me, the writer, telling it from my own seat, and my friend Priya, who fought the ban even harder than I did.
When? Last year, across the whole school year, starting the September morning the rule was announced.
Where? My middle school, mostly the lunchroom and the back hallway where we used to hide our phones.
What do I want to do? At first, get the ban reversed, because it felt unfair and controlling and like nobody asked us.
What happens when I try? The lunchroom gets loud in a way I did not expect, people start making eye contact, boredom comes back, and I catch myself not missing the phone.
How does it end? By spring I stop arguing against the ban, and I admit, out loud to Priya, that I changed my mind.
How do I feel? Uneasy at first, then surprised at myself, and finally a little proud of being able to change my mind.

Pour it on. Seven answers, and the story already has a beginning, a middle full of friction, and an ending that earns its feeling. Question five is where your story lives, and here it is also where the change happens. A story where the narrator believes exactly the same thing at the end as at the start is not a story. It is a speech.

Eight ways to prewrite

Before you plan your own, here are eight prewriting tools, run on that same year. Watch how different the same story looks through each one. Open any card.

Freewrite A stream of thought. Go wherever your brain takes you.

When they announced the phone ban I was furious, because nobody asked us, and Priya and I spent a week planning how to get it reversed. But then lunch got weird and loud, and one day I realized I had not thought about my phone in an hour, which had honestly never happened before.

What it gave us. A meander. It starts at fury, drifts, and lands on the moment the writer noticed the change. Your job afterward is to find the strand worth keeping.

Brainstorm If it pops into your head, it goes on the page.

The morning they announced the ban. Priya's petition. The first loud lunch. The back hallway where we hid phones. A whole afternoon so boring I read a cereal box. The day I told Priya I had changed my mind.

What it gave us. Options. The brainstorm found the whole arc laid out in pieces, not one scene. It widens the search before you commit.

Cluster An organized brainstorm. Lines show which ideas belong together.

Center: I changed my mind about the phone ban. Branching out: felt unfair at first, Priya's petition, loud lunchroom, real eye contact, boredom came back, caught myself not missing it, told Priya in the spring.

What it gave us. Relationships. The cluster picks one idea, the change of mind, and grows the reasons around it. The scattered scenes now point at a single story.

5W and H The journalist's six questions.

Who? Me, Priya, and the whole school. What? A phone ban during the school day. Where? My middle school, mostly the lunchroom. When? All of last year. Why? The principal said phones were killing focus and friendship. How? Phones stayed in lockers from the first bell to the last.

What it gave us. Coverage. Six slots force out details a freewrite skips, like the reason the school gave and exactly where the phones went.

Venn Diagram Two circles that overlap. Good for comparing two parts of your story.

Me in September only: angry, on Priya's side, sure the ban was unfair. Me in the spring only: quieter about it, talking more at lunch, not missing the phone. Both: still care about the school, still loyal to Priya, still have strong opinions.

What it gave us. A comparison you can use. The trick: it compares the narrator at two moments, the before and the after, which is exactly the change the story is about. Prewriting can map a point of view.

Five Senses See, hear, taste, smell, touch. The tool for sensory detail.

See: the lunchroom fuller of faces looking up instead of down. Hear: the roar of a hundred conversations where there used to be silence. Smell: the same cafeteria pizza, noticed for once. Touch: the empty pocket where my phone used to sit.

What it gave us. Specifics. Not "lunch felt different." The roar where there used to be silence. That is the level of detail that puts a reader in the room.

Series of Events A list of what happened, in order. The tool for narrative.

They announced the ban in September. Priya started a petition and I signed first. The lunchroom got loud in a way none of us expected. An afternoon got so boring I noticed my own thoughts again. I caught myself not missing my phone. In the spring I told Priya I had changed my mind.

What it gave us. Order. The events line up first to last, and the order is also the shape of a mind changing. Sequence is the bones of a story.

Character Sketch Everything about one character. Pick the details that help the story.

Priya has been my friend since fourth grade. She talks fast, argues faster, and once organized a petition to change the cafeteria menu. She is loyal, stubborn, and genuinely hurt when a rule feels unfair. She was the last one in our grade to stop fighting the ban.

What it gave us. A real person. Not every detail makes the final story, but knowing Priya this well means the Priya in the story argues like herself, which makes the writer's own change of mind stand out.

A story writer usually reaches for the Series of Events, the Character Sketch, and the Five Senses first. But any of the eight can crack a story open, and the Venn Diagram is quietly perfect when your story is about a change of mind. Pick the tool that fits the gap you have.

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