Great Story Starters

For Paragraph a Week this week you are to choose one of the following phrases as the beginning of a story. Finish the story. You need at least one paragraph to introduce the problem, then another paragraph to bring the story to an end. When you are done writing your story, go back and check it over to be sure you have added lots of interesting details and describing words--words that put the reader into the story, words that tell size, shape, kind, color, feel, smell, texture, sounds, etc. You will probably need to write this first copy again before you have an adult check it over, or perhaps you'd rather write your rough draft on lined paper, skipping every other line so that you can go back and make corrections and additions more easily.

Choose one of the following:

• I never expected that one day I'd open my closet and find.......
• It was obviously going to be an unusual day when my mom came into my bedroom and said.....
• She was a funny old lady, but I knew she had come to tell me.....
• It was my best friend's deepest secret and it would be a hard one to keep.......
• Goats, sheep ,and chickens belong on the farm, not in the middle of........
• Late one night the neighbor knocked on the front door and asked..........
• Something brushed up against my foot and my surprise turned to horror as I looked down and saw.....

Check your paper! You should have:

1. _____ title on top line, name and date in the corners
2. _____ top line is blank, then you indented each paragraph
3. _____ margins on the right and left sides of your paper
4. _____ You clearly have reworked your story, making lots of corrections and additions
5. _____ signature of person who proofread your rough draft