Day 1

Welcome to writing your own Spooky Story course. By the end of this week, you'll have your own spooky story ready to share with family and friends. I've taught in an elementary classroom for eighteen years, and spent a lot of time developing this fun course with my students. It was one of the favorite writing projects for many of them, and now I'm sharing it with the world. So, let's get started.

Over the next week you will:

Day 1: Build your Main Character

Day 2: Create a Sidekick and Villain/Setting/Plot

Day 3: Start the Spooky Story Rough Draft

Day 4: Write your Rough Draft help and guidance

Day 5: Proofread and Revising Tips for your Spooky Story

Day 6: (Halloween) Rewrite and finalize your Spooky Story to read tonight!

It's also time to get organized. To work on this project you will need:

• Writing materials such as paper, pen or pencil, or a laptop or other electronic writing device.
• A quiet writing area to do your work.
• If it is hard for you to concentrate with quiet in the background, try listening to music while you write. You can even make up a writing playlist of your favorite music to write to.
• Timer for writing time. Give yourself 10-15 minutes of uninterrupted writing time to do each activity. You may also write longer than the 10 to 15 minutes time.

After your writing area is set up. Let's begin with today's lesson.

Today, we’ll focus on character. Which means, you guessed it, you get to make up your very own spooky character for your story. Think of all those spooky stories you’ve read before, like Goosebumps or Scooby Doo. They all involve a girl or boy human kid that runs into monsters such as ghosts, vampires and zombies. But you don’t have to stop there. You can have your main character be a vampire, zombie or ghost if you want. The important thing is that your story will revolve around this character. They will be the center of your action. So, pick carefully.

Once you’ve decided on whom your character is, it’s time to add all the details that will come in handy while writing your story. It’s called prewriting. You can do it in a couple of ways. You can write a list answering questions about your character or you can fill in a detailed web of ideas about your character. I will include both. You can decide to do one or the other, or both ways. Get as many details as you can. They will come in handy when you work on tomorrow’s assignment, sidekicks and villains.

 Questions About Your Main Character:

• What is their name?
• Describe what they look like. Hair color? Eye color? Age? Height? Weight?
• How do they dress? What are their favorite things to go to school or work in?
• What are their favorite movies, books, or TV shows?
• Do they have a best friend? Who is it?
• What about their family? Brothers or sisters? What do their parents do?
• Describe their school or work.
• Do they have special powers or abilities?
• What is their flaw? Do they have trouble doing something?
• What are they good at?

To help organize your ideas, I've included two downloadable webbing graphic organizers to add details about your main character. You can use the webbing organizer or character trait worksheet. Your choice. Use either or both.

Make up your main character's name in the middle circle, and fill in details about them in the surrounding squares in the web. Yes. YOU CAN MAKE IT ALL UP! That's the exciting thing about writing. You are the boss. You make the choices and decisions about what your character will be. Have fun and use your imagination.

Special Extra Credit: Describe what is in their backpack or what they take with them always.

For added character description: Draw your character when you are done. The best way to get a clear picture in your mind about your character is to draw them after answering all the above questions.

Tomorrow, we'll be working on a villain character to create conflict in your story.

Until then, just keep writing!