Category Archives: English Writing Instruction

Writing well takes study and practice.

A proven way to start a narrative

Posted on July 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

Lots of good approaches begin narratives.  “Once upon a time,” and “One day,” are two for inexperienced writers.  What’s a good approach for more sophisticated writing?

Start* with a wide view lens, farther back in time, such as

  • “I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known at the Great War.”  From this beginning, we learn the narrator is a young man (Yale was a men-only university in 1915), a WWI vet (a participant in WWI) , and from a moneyed family (Most Americans could not afford college, yet alone Yale University in the early 20th century).

Now change that wide-angle lens to a normal lens, narrowing in on place and time.

  • “I came back restless. . . .so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. . . .in the spring of twenty-two. (Uncertain about his future, the young man settles on selling bonds on the East Coast.)

Lastly zoom in, using conversation to learn about a character or setting.

  • “What you doing, Nick?”  (We know his name.)
  • “I’m a bond man.”  (He has secured a job selling bonds.)
  • “Who with?”
  • I told him. (The name of the firm is not important to us.)
  • “Never heard of them.”  (The firm is little known or the speaker disparages that line of work)
  • This annoyed me.  (Nick feels put down.)*

This type opening–starting with a wide angle lens, telescoping in to a regular lens, and then focusing on specific dialog–gives you a pattern to follow, a pattern with a proven record of success.  Look for this pattern, likely spread out over several paragraphs.

*From The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, Gatsby, pattern to start narratives: wide angle to narrow focus

Once upon a time. . .

Posted on July 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

Starting a work of fiction with “Once upon a time” has advantages, especially for children:

  • It gets them going, and getting going can be hard.
  • It decides the verb tense—the past tense—saving them time.
  • It decides the point of view—third person omniscient almost always—again, saving time.
  • Either it tells readers that knowing the exact time isn’t important or it gives writers time to consider the setting while they write.
  • It tells readers that the story which follows is a fairy tale, so expect  magic.

But usually—maybe always—“Once upon a time” isn’t needed.  When my students revise, I tell them to eliminate “Once upon a time” and start with what follows, like this:  “Once upon a time, a girl named Cindy dreamed to open her own bakery.”  I explain that “Once upon a time” is a crutch, and since they have moved along in their story, or perhaps even finished it, they don’t need the crutch any more. Deleting “Once upon a time” is usually the right thing to do.

“Once upon a time” has been used to start European fairy tales and folk tales for at least six hundred years.* At first it was used orally by story tellers.  Later it was kept by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and other writers when they wrote down the stories.

A similar opening crutch is “One day.”  “One day” tells us the exact day isn’t important, or at least not important at the beginning of the story.  That day might turn out to be important later on, but for the characters in the story and for us, the readers, that day was like any other when it started.

Is it wrong for student writers to rely on crutches like “Once upon a time” or “One day”?  Of course not.  These crutches get them writing that first sentence, often the hardest sentence of all.  Just remind them that later on they should delete that phrase unless what they write is truly a fairy tale.  Even then, ask if they want their readers to know from the start that they are reading a fairy tale.  If surprising readers is important, delete “Once upon a time.”  The story will be just as good—probably better.

*According to AI Overview in my Google search engine.

 

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, Once upon a time

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ideas on how to write

Posted on June 15, 2025 | Leave a comment

The American novelist and short story writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, did not write a book about how to write.  But he did share his ideas through letters to his daughter, his publisher, and other writers.  Here are some of his suggestions and insights.*

“I could tell you plenty [of] books in which the main episode, around which swings the entire drama, is over and accomplished in four or five sentences.”

In Gatsby. . .I started “from the small focal point that impressed me–my own meeting with Arnold Rothstein.”  [Rothstein, 1882-1928, was a gambler and racketeer who was murdered.  The character of Meyer Wolfsheim is based on Rothstein.]

“All fine prose is based on the verbs carrying the sentences.”

“I am a professional thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation.”

“The chief fault in your style is its lack of distinction. . . .And the only thing that will help you is poetry which is the most concentrated form of style.”

“I don’t think anyone can write succinct prose unless they have at least tried and failed to write a good iambic pentameter.”

“It takes half a dozen people to make a synthesis strong enough to create a fiction character.”

“When you tell an anecdote, tell it so your listeners can actually see the people you are talking about.”

“There comes a time when a writer writes only for certain people and where the opinions of others is of little less than no importance at all.”

“A novel either “is something entirely new and fresh and profoundly felt. . .or else it is a tour de force by a man of exceptional talent. . . .A great book is both.”

“The Great Gatsby had against it its length and its purely masculine interest.”

“If The Great Gatsby fails commercially it will be for one of two reasons or both.  First, the title is only fair, rather bad than good.  Second and most important the book contains no important women character, and women control the fiction market at present.  I don’t think the unhappy end matters particularly.”

“Writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.”

*These quotes come from F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips.  NY:  Scribner, 1985.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction

How to start writing a narrative

Posted on December 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

A high school student asked me how to start writing a narrative–not how to continue on but how to start.  What should the writer think about?  Here are some good ideas:

A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the past, stories began with exposition, and some teachers still suggest that way of starting. But today many  professional writers start as close to the inciting event as possible and weave background information into ongoing action.  If you’re writing about a trip to New York, for example, forget the plane ride and hotel and start the story where the action starts–losing your balance while climbing the Statue of Liberty.

 

Determine the story’s arc, which is often the protagonist’s arc. What problem / situation does the protagonist want to solve / change? Readers search for change.  That change is usually growth in the protagonist.  If everything / everyone is the same at the end, start over.

Make sure the story’s problem is mentioned in every major scene. Keep the reader focused on it and on how the protagonist is dealing with it.

You want your readers to share the emotions of the protagonist. You want your readers to feel like they are the protagonist.  You want your readers to care about him/her.  Readers identify with emotions so make your character’s emotions known.

Whose story is this? Readers can focus/care about a single character better than a group.  Decide whose story this is.  He/she needs to be in every scene if you use first person POV, and in almost every scene if you use third person POV.  Keep your protagonist front and center starting in the first paragraph.

Readers need to orient themselves as to the time and place of the story. In the opening paragraphs, identify the setting.  You need not go into detail but make the reader comfortable.

Don’t belabor opening sentences. Just get going and you can go back later to refine the opening.

Expect your first draft to be imperfect. Expect that you will revise to polish everything from dialog to sentence structure to throwing out whole parts.

If you are handwriting, write on every other line of lined paper, leaving room to insert words in the spaces between the lines. Leave the backs of pages blank.  Learn to live with cross-outs, insertions, and a mess.  If you run out of room, use the back.  Write notes to yourself in the margins.  Rewrite a page only when you can no longer follow your arrows.

If you write on a computer, cut and save paragraphs, dialog, and anything else you might want when you revise.  Save this material at the bottom of your narrative in case you change your mind. Make back up copies on the cloud.  Send drafts to yourself as email attachments with the date so you have multiple backups.

Lastly, read your writing aloud, over and over.  Revise over and over.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction

Let students learn from other students’ writing

Posted on December 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Students love to read what other students have written, especially if everyone is writing about the same thing and if everyone is the same age.  Students are immediately engaged, checking to see how their peers handle the same writing assignment as themselves.

For example, I have asked elementary students to read the textless picture book Flora and the Penguin by Molly Idle.  Then I have asked them to analyze the table below.  It contains student-written versions of parts of the Flora story.

Linda Marion Nancy
One day there was a girl On a cold winter day a girl Once upon a time Flora
There was a penguin who wanted to play with her. When a penguin poked its beak out of the water A penguin named Steve put his body in the water.
They started to dance while ice skating.  They did more and more ice skating until they were tired. They skated this way and that way. They skated and danced together.  They jumped and twirled.  They slid across the ice.
When the penguin saw a fish, he jumped in the water. The penguin smelled a school of fish. Steve poked his head in the water.  Flora said, “What are you doing?”  Steve disappeared.
When he came out he had a fish in his mouth.  Then the penguin gave it to her as a present. The penguin came back with a fish in her mouth.  Flora was outraged.  The penguin gave the fish to Flora. Steve got a fish.  He gave it to Flora as a present.  Flora thought the fish was disgusting.
She threw it back in the water. She threw it back in the water. So, she threw it back in the water.
Before she left, she put her [shoe]lace in the water and tried to get a fish.  So, she kept on pulling until she got a fish. Flora felt sorry for the penguin, so she took off one of the lacings on her skates.  She dipped it in the water so she could get a fish for the penguin.  The two of them pulled as hard as they could and out came a fish. She took her [shoe]lace out.  She put it in the water just like a fishing net.  A fish approached.  They both tugged and tugged and tugged and tugged on the lace.  They caught the fish.
The fish got eaten by the penguin. They started skating and they were happy. They started skating all over again.

Usually when  students analyze the writing of other students, they recognize when it is good.  They note that “This version has dialog” or “This version tells that it’s morning.”  Analyzing the writing in the table above, one second grader said he like the “tugged and tugged and tugged and tugged” part because it shows how hard it was to catch a fish.  Another said she liked “They skated and danced together.  They jumped and twirled.  They slid across the ice.” because it showed different kinds of play.

Students are surprised to see that some second graders write better than some fifth graders.  We discuss what the second graders do that the fifth graders don’t.  “More details.”  “Different ways to start sentences.”  “More interesting verbs.”

Help your students become better writers by exposing them to the writing of other students.  Encourage them to analyze why some writing is better than others.  Take a simple scene such as a girl and a penguin sliding across ice and ask students to describe it.  Then share responses and discuss what is good about them.

As they say, good writing is not rocket science.  Mostly it’s revising.

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Posted in action verbs, adding details, critical thinking, details in writing, English Writing Instruction, how to motivate child writers, revising first drafts, student writers as teachers, teaching writing