1- The Five Story Elements ✒️

I'm including free downloads to help you and your child get into writing. Also, if you send me your Five Elements, I'll look it over and give you tips! Simply reply to this Email.

A young fan, Mikaela, asked me to share some writing tips once a month (or maybe every other month, since I don't want to drop the What Am I guessing game that everyone seems to look forward to). Here's her request.

Hi Susan,

You asked for ideas for the coming year, and I would love tips on writing. Maybe a monthly body language/feeling chart. Or tips on how to describe emotions. Show don’t tell tip is another idea. I really like how you come up with body language / feelings  for your books. You use a lot of different terms: 

• Grimaced
• Throat felt dry as dust
• Sudden intake of breath
• Searing pain
• Clammy fingers of panic clutched his insides.
• The scratchy rope bit into his fingers and made them burn.
• Boiling hot rage
• Stomach clenched

🎵 Let's Start at the Very Beginning . . . 🎵

Do you remember "Do, Re, Mi" from the Sound of Music? I wanted to dig right in and get straight to Mikaela's request, but I just couldn't (sorry, Mikaela). I decided I should start at the very beginning, like Maria, with the basics of story writing.

As a homeschool mom and grandma, and as a children’s author, I’m passionate about kids learning to write. I love to see them create stories. All too often, however, many children lose their joy of story-telling. They become bogged down with the writing process. When asked to put a story down on paper, they balk. Their eyes glass over. They don’t know how to begin. Other kids will write pages and pages, but their stories ramble on and on with no definite purpose, becoming a “never-ending” story.

So, how do young writers create a readable story? As your child's teacher, how do you help your budding young writer? Where do you begin? It all starts with ...

A Jigsaw Puzzle . . . A Story Puzzle

A story is not just one big collection of words tossed down on paper. It’s made up of smaller pieces—“elements”—like a jigsaw puzzle. Put the puzzle pieces together and you have the whole picture. Put the story elements together and you have the whole story.

Do you like to put puzzles together? I do . . . most of the time. I don’t like it when I have the puzzle nearly completed and discover that one or two of the pieces are missing. I feel cheated when that happens, and the puzzle goes into the recycle bin. It’s worthless.

A story is like a jigsaw puzzle. If one of the essential “pieces” is missing, it’s no good. The story rambles. It’s boring. The reader feels cheated or disappointed. So, the first skill a fiction writer must acquire is learning the five essential elements, without which a story falls flat. Movies include them. Narrative fiction uses them. Radio dramas have them. Bible stories are full of them. Once you learn to identify these five elements, you (and your kids) will have taken the first—and most important—step toward writing a story. Every part of creating a story falls within these five essential elements.

The 5️⃣ Five Elements of a Fiction Story

1. CHARACTERS are the most important of the five story elements. They drive the story. Learning how to create appealing characters is a skill that can make or break your story. The main character doesn’t always need to be a person. It can be an animal, or even a gold nugget. Your main character does need to be someone with whom the reader can relate. Your readers should care about your characters and what happens to them.
2. SETTING Put your main character (and the supporting characters, both heroes and villains) in an interesting or unusual setting. You should have a place (like the dark side of the moon, an old castle, or the Old West) as well as a time (the 1880s, World War 2, or even the year 2525). Readers want to know where and when they are. 
3. STORY PROBLEM Once you put your characters into a setting, give them an intriguing problem to solve. Not like a math problem, but a quest, an exciting adventure, or a mystery. Then make the problem worse! No problem = no story = boring. A workshop leader once taught me, “Create the most appealing characters you can, and then think up the worst kinds of problems for them to overcome.” Your character needs a chance to grow and change as a result of the story problem. Conflict = Exciting!
4. PLOT EVENTS are the good and bad things that take place in the story while the character is trying to solve the problem—however large or small the story problem may be. A lot of “ups” and “downs” (conflict) happen along the way. The plot is the element where you ask yourself “what if?” What if my character falls off a cliff? What if my character gets into an argument with her best friend?” Asking “what if?” is a great way to think up story problems for your characters. 
5. SOLUTION The ending of the story must be satisfying to the reader. When your character has solved the problem (or come to grips with it, or even unwillingly learned a hard lesson), then finish your story with an ending that leaves the reader saying, “Ah, that was a good story.” 

Stories include many other important elements (dialogue, description, a beginning hook, etc.), but these “pieces” fit within the five essential elements. Learning to do them well makes your whole story shine. However, you can have the cleverest dialogue in the world, but if you’re missing an essential element, the story will still fall flat. The five elements are the first story-writing skill. 

Show Me An Example, Please 👀

Coming right up. Kids love looking for the five elements in stories and movies. It’s simple and fun. For example, let's take a look at the account of Jonah.

JONAH AND THE WHALE

Characters Jonah; the whale; the sailors; God

Setting Old Testament times; the sea; a ship; Ninevah

Problem* Jonah does not want to obey God and go to Ninevah

Plot (what happens) Jonah runs away; boards a ship; a storm arises; sailors throw him overboard; Jonah is swallowed by a whale; gets spit out

Solution* Jonah obeys God and goes to Ninevah

* Notice that the solution always comes back around to the original problem.

Play this game yourself (or with your children) until you can identify the five elements from any movie or any book or story. Once they can dig into a story and see how it’s put together, they can start planning their own stories.

It Really Works!

I presented this lesson to my class of thirteen 8- to 10-year-old homeschooling students, most of whom did not like to write. The next week every one of them returned to co-op with the five elements written out for a story they wanted to write. Best of all, they were excited about writing a story! They knew how to begin now. All it took was learning this first basic skill. 

Teaching at the ACTS Homeschool Co-op in Puyallup, WA

Free Five Elements Downloads

To help you (or your child) practice this writing skill, click the button or the image to download a PDF file that contains:

1. a puzzle graphic (for younger kids)
2. a colorful Five Elements chart for all ages
3. a practice worksheet to find the story elements in books and movies.

Hint: The worksheet can also be used to plan your own story.

Five Elements Downloads

Example of the younger kids' puzzle to cut out

If you would like to dig deeper into this lesson, you can learn more about the Five Elements on this VIDEO > I created.

Recent Breaking News!

Circle C Adventures book 8 has come to my doorstep five weeks ahead of the official release date (April 22). I was very surprised to learn it came back from the printer so early. If you would like to buy a copy of Andrea Carter and More Tales from the Circle C Ranch, go ahead and click the button and get it from the Circle C webstore.

More Tales

SUSAN K. MARLOW

CIRCLECBOOKS.COM

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