Small Moment Stories

Lives are full of stories to tell! Writers use events from their lives – things that they do or things that happened to them— to write small moment stories.

Planning

As writers, sometimes students get so excited about their stories that they get started writing right away, forgetting to add important parts to their stories. Instead of beginning to write right away, students plan their stories by thinking of an idea, touching and telling the pages, sketching a quick picture on each page to remember what they want to write THEN finally beginning to write.

Zooming in on a Small Moment

Instead of writing about big topics (watermelon), writers write about teeny tiny (seed) stories - little stories inside the one big topic. The cool thing is that inside a watermelon topic there are many teeny tiny seed stories.

Telling Story in Itsy-Bitsy Steps

Writers write in small steps. When writers want to write stories that come to life on the page they tell their stories in small steps, bit by bit. Writers think about the main thing they did and then ask themselves what exactly happened step by step , bit by bit

Beginning

Writers include clear beginnings in their stories so that their reader can make a picture in their mind. One way to do this is to tell the time and place.

One day, I was playing soccer with my friends. And when I came up to the goal.

One sunny morning, I was going to bike. My cousin was going to play soccer.

One sunny day, I went hiking with my dad and my brother, Bryan.

Unfreezing Characters

Writers make their stories come to life, “unfreezing" the people in their stories by making them move and talk.

and I got off Hippy's back and walked her to the stable.

We rang the door bell, we all screamed "trick-or -treat.

and I said I don't want to play anymore and I said "can I go to Eric's house" and my mom said "yes".

Bringing Out the Inside

Writers can also add details from inside their characters' heads. One way to do this is to bring out the inside by adding what characters were thinking and feeling.