I love narrative writing.
Expository writing, not so much. But narrative writing? With all its witty, tension-filled dialogue and conflicted characters with their messy lives? That’s totally my jam.
I love diving deep into my twisted little imagination to see what weird fictional world I can bring to life. As a romance writer, it’s a little like watching a soap opera unfold in my mind and I am absolutely here for it.
As an ELA teacher, you’ve no doubt taught narrative writing before, and are probably well-versed in the basic structure of a story. Every story has characters, a setting, and a plot that roughly mimics the three-act story structure with its beginning, middle and end.
But while storytelling might seem easy, narrative writing (both teaching it and writing it) isn’t as easy and clear-cut as people might think.
Oftentimes, when I ask my 4th or 5th graders to write me a story, what gets turned in is actually a summary of a story.
Yes, they have characters in conflict and some big events happen, but they don’t really write a story. What they write instead is more like an after-action report that gives me the gist of the plot. Which is not satisfying to read. At all.
I want to help you transform your narrative writing lessons so that you can move your students beyond simply retelling a story and into creating immersive, purposeful stories the reader can’t put down. In order to get there, we’ll have to transition away from the basic “Beginning, Middle, End” structure. Ready? Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
The Active Main Character and Their GMC
Stories aren’t about events.
Yes, events do happen over the course of the plot, but events alone cannot sustain a reader’s attention for very long. Why? Because no one cares about a random event.
But we do care about people. This is why at the core of every good story is a main character that we care about. Ultimately, stories are about characters that we care about and how the big plot event affects their life. More specifically, we care about how they REACT to the events of the plot.
The main character isn’t just present during these big events, waiting around for tragic things to happen to them. No! That would lead to a very unsatisfying story.
Instead, the main character should be the one driving the action by actively making choices and decisions.
The main character MUST be active in solving the overall conflict. Yes, some or even most of those decisions will turn out to be bad ones that have negative repercussions, but eventually, they will finally figure things out and reach their happy ending.
Eventually.
Until I started reading like a narrative writer, I’d never noticed that even in middle grade books, the youthful main character was always the one who solved the problem. How? By removing all the people who would typically solve the problem for them. The parents are always at work or otherwise gone and unable or incapable of helping. The teacher or police are too busy to help or not around.
In the book, City of Orphans by Avi, the police don’t get involved in “kid doings” and the parents are immigrants and don’t know how to navigate the court system. Which ultimately leaves the main character to be the one to step up and solve the crime.
You see, as readers, we want to see all those messy human emotions. We want to live vicariously through those story characters, to experience the same tragedies and emotions, but to do it from the safety of our couch, where we can’t be actually hurt.
Good narrative writing is where we build empathy for others. So, here’s how to craft a character readers will actually care about . . .
Start with the GMC, which stands for Goal, Motivation, and a Juicy Conflict.
GOAL: What does your main character want or need in life?
MOTIVATION: Why do they want this goal? What is their motivation behind their actions? This motivation piece is often missing from the stories our students tell.
CONFLICT: What (or who) is preventing or standing in the way of your main character achieving their goal?
I often use the following sentence when crafting the GMC: (MAIN CHARACTER) wants (GOAL) because (MOTIVATION) but (CONFLICT).
All of this information should show up right away in the story introduction. The entire story is about the main character’s struggle with the conflict and the life lesson they learn through this struggle.
Depending on the age and proficiency level of your students, you might also have your students give their character both a positive and negative character trait and a lesson their character needs to learn by the end of the story. This makes the characters both relatable and interesting for the reader and will really help with plotting later on.
💡TEACHING TIP: Once your students have decided on one or more character traits, have them brainstorm 3 different ways they can show those traits in action. What does their character SAY or DO to show these traits?
Example: Someone who is shy will hide in the back of the group during photos or performances. Their face might get red when called on in class. They won’t have a large group of friends, but might have one BFF. They might get tongue tied, speak softly, or stammer when asked to speak to someone new.
During the beginning and middle of your story, your main character will do 2 or 3 of these actions to SHOW (not tell) their core character trait, which helps the reader recognize the character growth at the end of the story.
Now, for my 4th and 5th graders, this is typically enough character development. As a romance writer, though, I also need to think through and add in character traits, fatal flaws or big wounds that subconsciously drive their actions, and their misbelief about life that colors their perception of reality.
💡LESSON IDEA: Practice crafting characters with a GMC. Spend a few minutes on a guided character drawing lesson (I usually use Art for Kids Hub on Youtube, but I also use these guided drawing cards), then spend a few minutes turning the character you drew into an active character for a story you may or may not write later. You can even “gamify” this by rolling dice or spinning a game spinner to randomly assign character traits and goals.
Plot Narrative Writing Like the Pros Using the Action, Reaction, Decision Cycle
Once you’ve nailed down your GMC, you’re ready to start plotting. Most teachers have their students come up with 3 possible solutions to the conflict, with the first 2 solutions failing. While this is not a bad strategy, it has the potential to make the story very event-driven.
Remember, stories are not about events that happen TO the character. Stories should be about the characters and how they both cause and react to the events. With that in mind, consider using the action-reaction-decision cycle for plotting your story.
For each action (plot event), your character must react, both internally and externally. This reaction can be shown through facial expressions, internal thoughts, or dialogue.
Then, your main character makes a decision. It’s this decision – whether consciously or unconsciously – that causes the next action. Each decision they make should raise the stakes and increase the tension for the reader.
It looks a little like this . . .
EXAMPLE: Bob gets to class and realizes he’s forgotten his homework at home (action) 
thinking about his teacher and parent being mad makes his heart drop, he feels sick to his tummy (reaction) so he decides to avoid getting in trouble by erases his friend’s name off their homework and secretly writes his own name on it (decision and new action). When his friend gets in trouble (instead of Bob), Bob feels guilty (reaction) and decides to avoid his friend for the rest of the day (decision & new action).
Keeping this cycle in mind as you plot your story will help you create a character-driven story that is satisfying for your reader.
Dialogue (and Internal Thoughts) With Purpose
Dialogue can be a little tricky to write and write well. Much of the time, when students include dialogue, it’s mundane and not really vital to the plot. And interiority? It’s pretty much non-existent.
Here’s the deal . . . Dialogue is not small talk. Instead, dialogue must move the plot forward, reveal character traits, or increase conflict.
My general rule of thumb for writing dialogue and internal thoughts is this: We always tell ourselves (internal thoughts) the truth, but what we say to others (dialogue) might be a lie.
Suddenly writing dialogue seems a whole lot more fun and exciting to write.
If you’re following the Action – Reaction – Decision plotting method, it’s easy to see opportunities to tuck in some internal thoughts. They fit really nicely during the character reaction moments. It’s this internal dialogue during each reaction scene that shows the main character’s vulnerability, plan, motivation, or fear, information that might otherwise not come to light.
As you read a narrative mentor text, look for internal thoughts and point them out to your class. When does the author use this interiority? How often? How are the character thoughts formatted?
You might find that sometimes the internal thoughts are italicized while not at other times. My editor explained it to me this way: If you’re using 1st person pronouns in your internal thoughts, italicize. But Google didn’t seem to agree with that rule. See if your class can come up with the rule other authors follow. Note: This “rule” might change based on the publisher or when the book was published.
As a fun warm-up exercise, try turning a line of dialogue into an internal thought and vice versa.
If your students are struggling with punctuating dialogue, you might like this hands-on grammar activity. Plus, it comes with a scoot activity!
Setting The Story Stage With Sensory Details
I won’t spend much time on setting details, but I will say that the setting should act like another character in the story. Much like an antagonist, the setting (which includes the weather) can present its own challenges for the main character by hindering them in some way.
For example, the main character has a big game today but forgot her cleats at home and no one is able to retrieve them for her. And it’s too far to walk.
Or the main character gets detention after school and misses the bus. In order to get home he takes a shortcut through the woods, but a storm is brewing. When it rains, he takes shelter in a cave but comes face to face with a hibernating bear.
I like to have my students draw their setting out. Or I’ll pull up images of the setting so we can build a collaborative word bank of sensory words to use.
As a writer, this is probably my weakest area, which is why I spend so much time practicing this skill with my students. I often hear the character dialogue first, then have to layer in the setting details later when revising.
A word of warning: When students first learn sensory details, every sentence tends to look like this: I hear the ocean waves. I see the sand. I smell the ocean. Not very exciting or creative, huh?
Instead of using telling words like hear, see, or smell, try to show the detail in action instead: The Pacific Ocean waves crashed upon the damp sand, lapping at my bare feet. Overhead, seagulls squawked as they circled, hunting for discarded food scraps they could swipe.
As you practice describing the setting with sensory details, spend a little extra time teaching the kids about the thesaurus so they can search for vivid word choices. Look for specific nouns and verbs rather than using general adjectives.
Instead of writing, “The locker room smelled bad,” say “The rancid smell of sweaty gym socks filled the air.”
Need help practicing this skill with your students? You might like these hands-on activities below.
Writing A Satisfying Ending
It’s finally time to show that our main character has not only resolved their problem, but grown as a person because of this conflict. What lesson has the character learned?
It works best if this lesson has already been figured out during the character creation and plotting phase, but can certainly be layered in during the revision stage as well.
When reading narrative mentor texts, it’s helpful to create an anchor chart of the lessons characters can learn at the end of the story. Not only does this help improve reading comprehension, but it also helps improve student writing.
Common lessons or morals might include:
- It’s okay to ask for help
- Progress is better than perfection
- It’s okay to not win all the time
- Don’t be a sore loser
For younger kids, I personally think it’s okay to directly state the lesson the main character learned. But for older students, we want to SHOW – through actions – the lesson being learned. For instance, in the case of a character who is scared to venture out of their comfort zone, by the end of the story, they must do exactly that. Don’t tell me your character learned to be brave, SHOW them doing something brave and scary for them.
As a side note, it’s totally okay if the main character doesn’t triumph or wind up achieving their initial goal. Life happens and sometimes you find out that the thing you wanted most in life wasn’t really worth the effort after all. Goals change. Characters should too.
Recap
So the next time you find yourself teaching narrative writing, keep these 5 story elements in mind.
- The Active Main Character
- The Plot: A Series of Bad Decisions (Action, Reaction, Decision)
- The Immersive Setting (Sensory Details)
- Dialogue & Character Thoughts
- The Satisfying Ending (Lesson Learned)
Remember, a story should be about a character with a problem and a life lesson to learn who actively makes decisions to achieve a goal, then reacts to what happens next, both through dialogue and internal thoughts. It’s this action-reaction-decision cycle that will drive the plot forward, but it is the internal thoughts and emotions that make us care about the character. The satisfying ending, where the lesson has been learned and the character may or may not have achieved their goal, is what makes the reader want to pick up your next story.
YOUR MISSION:
Plan a low-stakes, mini-lesson for one of these story elements that you think your students are ready to learn. If you need help coming up with an activity, read this recent blog post on low-stakes writing activities or take a look at these narrative writing activities from my TPT store.
Next Up?
Check out this related blog post that delves deeper into the mistakes students make when writing narrative stories.
