Start with visual choices
Pictures and tick-box options make getting started more manageable.
Create Your Story
From ‘I don’t know what to write’ to a complete first draft.
15 Guided Creative Writing Tasks — From First Ideas to Your First Draft
Create Your Story guides young writers through the creative-writing process, one manageable step at a time.
Learners begin with pictures, tick-box choices and short responses. They create characters, build a world and plan the events that move their story forward.
They also explore what their main character believes at the beginning, what their experiences teach them and how their actions show change.
The final three tasks bring everything together, supporting writers as they draft a connected beginning, middle and ending.
From ideas to writing
A manageable step at a time.
Create meaningful characters
Explore the protagonist, antagonist and sidekick, including their goals, fears, beliefs and relationships.
Build a connected story
Plan the disruption, decision, setback, discovery, climax and resolution using accessible prompts.
Show learning and change
Connect the hero’s experiences to the choices they make and the person they become.
Turn plans into paragraphs
Use optional sentence starters, word banks and lined writing spaces to draft the beginning, middle and ending.
Actual workbook pages
Look inside Create Your Story.
Tap or click a worksheet to open the full-size image. On a phone, pinch to zoom and read the prompts.
Create your protagonist
Visual choices help writers develop a character with a personality, beliefs and something to overcome.
Enlarge worksheet
Explore the resolution
Compare the hero at the beginning and end, and explain what caused their change.
Enlarge worksheet
Write your beginning
Turn planning into story paragraphs with prompts, sentence starters and writing space.
Enlarge worksheetConnected tasks
What makes it different?
This is more than a collection of story planners. Each task prepares writers for the next. Early ideas return as learners develop conflict, choices and character change. The final three worksheets then help them transform their plans into an actual first draft.
Who is it for?
Designed for developing and reluctant writers at secondary level, particularly those who benefit from visual prompts and structured support. It may also suit upper-primary learners, Enhanced Provision, SEND/ASN support, literacy intervention and home learning.
About the creator
Created by Olly Wyatt, a practising secondary English teacher and author, to help young writers develop ideas and build confidence through manageable steps.
Permitted use
Your purchase allows you to print and reuse the workbook with your own classes, teaching groups or children at home.
Please do not resell it, share the PDF with other teachers or households, or upload it to publicly accessible websites. Each teacher or household should purchase their own copy.