Tag Archives: spooky plot

Tiffany Turner To Teach Online Spooky Story Writing Workshop

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It’s getting near that spooky time of year. After over 15 years of teaching a spooky story workshop to my students, I’m offering it for the first time online. Bring Halloween indoors in an academic way, and keep this season spooky, fun and safe! It will be available two ways.

1) This first way to sign up for this workshop is as a full online in-person experience taught by myself live on Zoom. It will be available through the tutoring center called Knowledge Quest. I’ve worked there now for 3 years tutoring students in person and in local schools before the pandemic.

Now, the opportunity to learn from myself, a published author and certified teacher, is through Knowledge Quest. It starts on Oct. 5 through Oct. 29. There are two sessions, one for grades 3-5 and the other for grades 6-8. Each session will have one hour a week for four sessions. Kids will have an hour of instruction and will be walked through activities and given assignments to continue writing between sessions.

**Some at home support, such as looking over the story and doing feedback with your child, will be required.

I’ve taught and developed this spooky story unit over the years and I have put up some parts of it FREE to do through my website. But this is the full unit, developed by me, and available only this upcoming month of October. By the end of the sessions, all the students will have written their own stories that they can share on Halloween night. They will learn character development, create a plot with problem/solution structure, study the spooky genre, and have a lot of fun! They’ll have a chance to unlock the creativity within them.

**Note times are Pacific Daylight Time since I’ll be teaching the workshop live through Zoom. Sign-ups for the live Zoom instructional spooky workshop is through Knowledge Quest.

Find out more and REGISTER HERE!

2) The second way to take the workshop, especially if it would be difficult to in your time zone, is to sign up for my online writing school course. It’s the first course available, and I plan to develop more through the next several months. I’ve decided to develop the spooky story writing workshop first since the basic posts on the blog are so popular, and my students loved it as their favorite story during the school year.

Here is the blurb from my writing school “Keep On Writing”:

Ready to have some fun writing? Here’s a course to help children love writing and enjoy it. I often found children didn’t get to enjoy the writing projects assigned when I was a teacher. So, I developed an, exciting “Spooky Story” writing project for the month of October that I taught for over fifteen years in my classroom. Now, your child can experience the joy of writing and using their imagination.

Taught through a Writing Workshop format, I go over all the steps of writing, prewriting, drafting, revision and proofreading and creating a final draft. Each lesson includes mini-lessons on the craft of writing including organizing ideas through graph organizers, writing dialogue, “Show, Don’t Tell”, plot creation, character creation and conflict, and problem/solution story structure.

Write your own Spooky Story in either a live workshop with Mrs. Turner or in her online writing school. Get spooky and stay safe this Halloween! Use your imagination and write!

When your child finishes the course, they will have a fantastic story of their own creation to share with family and friends. As they go through the writing process, they are asked to work with a family member or guardian with the writing process in which they learn to gain feedback on their writing and make changes. Anyone in the family or through Zoom can fulfill this role making it a bonding activity with your child.

Whether this course is being used during the fall for a Halloween project or any time during the year to engage children in writing, or help adults write for children, it has always been a student and child favorite. I now present to you, the “Spooky Story” Writing Project to help bring the joys of writing to your child.

The online writing school course is $19.99.

LINK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE & REGISTER!

**Happy Halloween!

-Mrs. Turner

Halloween & Spooky Story Project: Step By Step Plan to Keep Your Kids or Students Busy Until Halloween

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haunted character

Create your own spooky story this week with a step by step plan. Click on Day 1 below to get yourself started.

Note: This whole activity is available online at my new “Keep On Writing” Online Writing School. It’s set up as a tutorial to allow kids to work at their own pace with more in depth instruction. For more information, LINK HERE!

So, I am currently a semi-retired teacher writing full-time. But when I was teaching, I would teach my class one of my most loved and remembered writing units: A Write It Yourself Spooky Story Unit! I would spend a whole week, sometimes two, with my students writing a spooky story that they would then read-aloud on Halloween. We would spend the whole day in school reading them, and I’ve been told year after year, it was the one thing that my students remembered from being in my class.

So, I will share with you now, the step by step plan for getting your kids (or yourself) motivated and channeling that nervous Halloween energy into something productive. I first wrote these posts back in 2015. The links will take you to the original instructional posts.

If you are a teacher, and would like the full lesson plan for this unit. It is available on Teachers Pay Teachers in my Writing Is Fun Store.

Below is the list of each step. The link will take you to the post with all the information you need to get started.

Day 1: Write Your Own Spooky Story, Create Your Main Character

Day 2: Creating a Spooky Setting Or Plot

Day 3: Starting the Rough Draft

Day 4: Continuing Rough Draft with Dialogue

Day 5: Revising and Proofreading Your Story

Day 6: Writing the Final Draft

Pumper

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title.

Also to celebrate Halloween, I’ve put my Halloween picture book, Pumper the Pumpkin, on sale for FREE from Friday Oct. 27 – Tuesday Oct. 31. I wrote the first draft when I was 10 years old and promised myself to finish it when I got older. I did.

So, have fun writing with your class or children this week. Or maybe you’re the child writer, and you’d like to take this on. Go for it! It may be the start of a new adventure for you. Writing is fun and challenging, and so worth the effort of seeing people enjoy your story.

Be sure to comment and let me know how you like this post. I’d love to hear what kind of stories you all come up with.

**If you liked this post or others, please be sure to follow my blog. My fourth book in the Crystal Keeper Chronicles is complete and is going through the revision process. So, get on the newsletter and blog list today. Be sure to get all the updates and informative posts coming up in the next several months!

And of course, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! WAAAHHAHHHHAHAHHAH!

-Tiffany Turner

Write Your Own Spooky Story: Day 2 Supporting Characters/Setting/Plot Planning

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Create a spooky setting with supporting characters to help with the problem towards a solution.

Create a spooky setting with supporting characters to help with the problem towards a solution.

Write Your Spooky Story Day 2: Supporting Characters, Setting, Plot Planning

Note: This whole activity is available online at my new “Keep On Writing” Online Writing School. It’s set up as a tutorial to allow kids to work at their own pace with more in depth instruction. For more information, LINK HERE!

Welcome back. Today is Day 2 of writing your own Spooky story. I’ve been getting feedback from people that you’re looking forward to writing a story with me this week. This totally makes me excited. I do really love helping people bring out their inner muse no matter what your age is. So, if you’d like to leave comments with questions or what your trying this week, I’ll be happy to respond.

Today, we’ll be working on creating sidekicks and villians. In every story, there needs to be conflict. These supporting characters help create that. First, let’s get some definitions. Sidekick: This is a supporting character for the main character. They can be their confidant and even go along with them as a wingman or helper to face oppositional conflicts. Villian: is also known as the antagonist. This is the character that causes opposition to the protagonist, also known as the hero or main character. They are not necessarily considered the “Bad” guy, or at least, they don’t consider themselves to be the bad guy or gal. They are simple the opposite of the hero.

They can be created similar to the main character, but you need to keep in mind what their motivation or interest in the main character might be. They should have a function relating to the hero or heroine.

All your characters should have these four elements:***

Character=Who

Their Goal=What

Their Motivation=Why

Their Conflict=Why Not

Setting Choice: Choosing a spooky setting will add to your horror fiction. Most spooky stories are set in a haunted house, haunted graveyard, haunted (Fill in the blank). You can get creative with this. Just keep in mind this is an important story element to make your story spooky. You’re characters can even move from a normal setting into the spooky setting later in your story. Just keep in mind, your description in your rough draft will make this spooky setting come alive.

Once you’ve got these basics mapped out for your characters, you’ll be ready for the next step, creating a plot or conflict. This is known as the problem. Give your characters a problem that will motivate them to reach their goal. Then, give them 3 tries to solve it. The first three tries should fail. The last try should be the solution. Once you’ve solved their problem, wrap up the ending conflict with a happily ever after or you could end with a cliffhanger if you want to write a sequel. A cliffhanger is leaving a problem or questions still not finished or answered.

For today’s assignment, you can use the character webbing graphic from yesterday to create your sidekick and villain. Then, use the graphic below to create a basic plot outline or plan. You need to create a problem, 3 attempts to solve the problem in the middle, with the last attempt being the solution. I usually number my attempts 1, 2, 3.

That will give your story a beginning, middle and end. Once you have all of this outlined or mapped, you’re prewriting will be done and you’ll be ready to start your rough draft.

So get busy. Tomorrow is the big day to start the official first draft, the most creative part of the writing process. Happy writing! -Tiffany Turner (Mrs. Turner)

***Information cited from Advanced Fiction Writing by Steve Alcorn.

Story map to plan out your plot, characters and setting.

Story map to plan out your plot, characters and setting.

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title. Free Oct. 27-31!

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title. Free Oct. 27-31!

Plus, for this week only starting today, Oct. 27, my Halloween Tale, Pumper the Pumpkin will be available for free on Amazon. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Pumper-Pumpkin-Tiffany-Turner-ebook/dp/B005X1CS1A