Knowing how to write a story is a skill that every student has to learn for academic essay writing and examinations. In countless academic situations you are required to write a story, from a very young age right up to GCSE and A level English.

In fact the most important skill is often not really the story itself but the manner in which you construct and tell it. So mastering the art of story writing is a very important skill and one that will actually serve you throughout your life, as it contains knowledge of writing and structure that are essential to all forms of writing, and will come in extremely useful in the future.

How to plan a story

Planning is integral to story writing, because the questions are often quite open ended, giving you the opportunity to create as broad and complex a story as you like. To be successful in your story writing it is essential to be aware of your time limit and not to be over-ambitious about the amount of content you will realistically be able to write, and write well, in the time.

Remember that you will not be awarded marks for the actual events that happen in your story, but for {the actual writing you use in describing them, so it is much more advisable to choose a fairly simple story with only one or two major occurrences that you can really describe in depth and linguistic detail, instead of a very complex tale in which so many things happen that you barely have time to squeeze them all in and risk running out of time at the end before finishing your story. To earn a high grade, you must always get to the end of your story.

Stages of a story

The structure of a story is quite different from the format of other types of writing, and it is advisable to split your plan up into sections accordingly. So you might start with 'introduction', in which the characters and situation are introduced, moving on to 'build up', in which a problem or tense situation arises, then the 'climax', where the most dramatic part of your story occurs, followed by 'resolution', where the problem is solved and 'conclusion', which resolves all the issues and sometimes suggests what will eventually happen in the future as a result of the story.

Under each heading make a note of the events that belong in that section, and add any exciting vocabulary, metaphors, images or similes you will include when writing it.

Writing

When writing your story it is common to write too much in the earlier sections and run out of time at the end, so make sure that you split up the time available equally between the different sections of your plan and stick to these time limits strictly. Remember when dividing up your time to allow yourself an extra ten minutes to check through at the end for spelling and punctuation mistakes.

When writing your story, remember to focus much more on the way you are telling it than the events themselves. A very detailed and sensory description of a calm lake with birds landing for the night can be worth far more marks than a sketchy account of an explosion at a nuclear power station or an alien attack that simply tells us what happened without any really good description.

Language

So focus on your language, as this is the most important aspect of successful, high-grade writing. It is advisable to use lots of adjectives and adverbs, never describing a thing without telling us about its texture or colour, its character or emotions.

Never describe an action without telling us in what manner it was carried out as this adds a whole new depth and interest to your story, and is extremely important if you want to earn top marks.

Remember to use all five senses – don't just tell the reader what things look like, but also what they smell, sound, taste and feel like, as this will will pull the reader into the world of the story, bringing it alive as if they are experiencing it for themselves.

Other linguistic methods like metaphors, similes, imagery, alliteration, personification, and onomatopoeia will all help to improve the quality of your story writing and raise your marks, so think carefully when you are writing and add in as many exciting effects as you can.