Lesson video

Dragons or unicorns, fairies, elves, evil warlocks, a curse, a disappearing magical object.

The thing that sets a fantasy apart from others genres is the problem.

The thing that our hero goes on a quest to battle against or to rescue or to find.

And that's what we're going to be focusing on, in today's lesson.

The great thing about this moment, is the only limitation is your imagination.

You're going to choose, what problem your hero is going to face.

Maybe you'll even design your own creature or invent a new curse.

Hello, welcome back to Grammar with me Ms. Richards.

It's really lovely to have you back.

As you just heard, we're getting to a very exciting bit in our fantasy stories and we're going to be adding in or revealing a problem.

Now this is a bit that really sets fantasies apart because this is where our mythical creatures come in.

Our imaginations get to run wild and we get to throw in some danger as well.

Can't wait, but as always, first of all, we need to get ourselves set up and sorted.

Can you please make sure you've got a pen and some paper.

Now we talked last session, about having the story with you that you've been writing so that you can look back at the details and make sure your story really fits together.

Try and go somewhere nice and quiet, where you won't be distracted and turn any notifications off on your devices.

If you need to pause the video now to get yourself set up, that's absolutely fine.

Press play when you're ready to go.

I hope you're really excited about today's lesson, maybe as you've been writing.

So when you've done your opening and you've introduced us to your character, maybe you've already thought about what problem they might face, what quest they might go on, or maybe you're going to need a little bit of help, thinking it through.

And that's absolutely fine.

I can't wait.

What we're going to do in today's lesson, is first we'll recap how you punctuate dialogue.

This is probably something you already know.

If you've done the previous grammar units, often work with your own teachers but we're going to recap it.

And if you're not sure, then you'll find out all about it today.

Then we're going to look at how dialogue, so speech, character speaking, can be used to introduce problems within our stories.

We'll then look at what options are available in fantasies for these problems. And then you'll get your turn to add to your story and you'll have your quiz at the end but I'll be sharing my story too.

Let's start then by recapping and reminding ourselves of the rules for punctuating dialogue.

There are a number of rules that you probably know already for punctuating speech.

And it sounds really complicated 'cause there's quite a few elements to remember, once you know them absolutely fine, you'd be brilliant at it.

Rule number one then is we must have inverted commas or speech marks around all the speech.

Looks like this.

"I'm in a hurry," said the teacher, "can we make this quick?" Everything that the teacher is saying, is written down with speech marks around it so that your reader knows that that is someone speaking.

The next rule then, is that you have punctuation inside the inverted comments inside the speech marks.

So let me go back to the same example.

"I'm in a hurry," said the teacher, "can we make this quick?" You'll see our comma and our question mark the punctuation is inside the inverted commas, it's inside the speech marks.

Next rule then for you to remember is that you have a capital letter for the dialogue tag if it's a proper noun.

"I'm in a hurry," said the teacher, "can we make this quick?" Because said isn't a proper noun.

It's not the name of somebody, we have a small letter.

We don't capitalise it after the speech marks.

If I had a person's name, "I'm in a hurry," Mrs. Brown said, then Mrs. Brown gets a capital letter because it's a proper noun and we capitalise it normally.

That's the same with any name.

You remembering these right? You know them it's just a real recap.

We need to put a comma after the dialogue tag.

If it comes before the first inverted comma, if it comes before the first speech mark.

So if we've used our dialogue tag, Mrs. Brown said and then the speech is happening.

We put a comma before that.

Mrs. Brown said, and then you have your speech marks or your inverted commas.

"I'm in a hurry.

Can we make this quick?" And then the closed inverted comments.

So all of her speech is properly punctuated, but we have a comma before that first bit of speech because the dialogue tag comes in front.

If the dialogue tag so Mrs. Brown said, is between two bits of speech, then we have a full stop.

"I'm in a hurry," Mrs. Brown said.

"Can we make this quick?" So we have a full stop after the dialogue tag, after Mrs. Brown said.

If it is between speech because like we said there's a lot of things that you have to remember, when we're thinking about where we're placing, our words and phrases.

Where we're placing our dialogue tags, where we're placing our speech.

And there's a lot of little punctuation bits to remember.

But once you know them, they're really, really easy.

It's just rules that you have to follow.

The next rule then.

And this is the one that I think, so many of my students get wrong or struggle with, is that if you have a new speaker, they go onto a new line.

You'll see with the colour codes that you can see each speaker here.

"I'm in a hurry," Mrs. Brown said.

She ran down the corridor.

"I'll email you about the homework," the student called after her.

"If that's okay?" "Great!" Mrs Brown yelled from the end of the corridor.

So you'll see that as each speaker start speaking.

So Mrs. Brown or the student they're on a new line, that's really important.

It helps us tell which person is speaking.

You can remember that rule really easily 'cause it makes it a little bit like a play script where each character has their own line.

Here is a task for you.

So there were quite a few rules there and they should just be recap, they should just be revising if you're not sure of any though, just go back in the video and maybe write them down or just remind yourself of them again.

That's absolutely fine.

Your task when you are competent with all these speech rules is to punctuate these bits of speech.

So you need to pause the video, write these out, put the correct punctuation in.

Off you go.

How'd you get on then? It's a little bit tricky isn't it to remember everything.

So when we mark this, whether you've got different colour or you're using a normal pen, I want you to give yourself a tick for every bit that you've got right.

Because it's possible that we forgot one or two things but that doesn't mean that we've got everything wrong.

Hopefully you've got it all right though.

You started with an open inverted comma.

"What was that noise?" She yelled in fear.

And you haven't capitalised the s on she because that's not a proper noun.

If you got that right.

Give yourself four ticks, one for each inverted comma.

One for the question mark and one for the full stop.

In fact let's add a fifth tick.

If you left the s small, can you give yourself a tick there as well.

So you should have five ticks on that one.

If you haven't got it that's okay just correct your answer.

Number two then, he took a nervous step forward.

"I will go into the lair," he muttered.

There were lots of elements to remember there so give yourself a tick if you put a full stop after forward.

Give yourself a tick if you've got the inverted comments before I, and then a tick for the comma after lair, a tick for the close inverted commas after lair, a tick for not putting a capital h on he and a tick for your full stop, lots and lots of ticks hopefully there.

Number three, "It's important to wait to see if there is a trap," he declared confidently.

Again give yourself a tick for each of the things that you've got right there.

And if you miss anything, just add it in.

Four, "Take your time," he whispered.

"You must go slowly to avoid being detected." Give yourself a tick for each bit of punctuation that you've got there.

They're really tricky, there's a lot to think about.

Just pause the video for a moment and have a think to yourself if you've got it all great.

You can write down on your page.

I am a speech punctuation master, Well done.

Put smiley face on that too.

If there are a few things that you missed, I just want you to sit and work out, what thing did you forget? Do you forget to put punctuation in front of the dialogue tag? Do you forget that if the dialogue tag, comes in front of the speech that you must have a full stop? Did you forget your full stops at the end? 'Cause you were so busy focusing on the speech that you forgot the rest of the punctuation and just reflect for a moment, if there's a pattern in any of the bits that you missed.

Because often we think that we're really bad, at puncturing speech but we've got most of it.

And there's just one thing that we forget so we can reflect and work on that.

And if you've got it all right, very well done.

So pause the video, have your reflection, work out what it is that maybe you need to focus on little bit more in speech and press play when you're ready.

We've recapped the rules of dialogue today.

'Cause like I said at the start, we're going to use dialogue to introduce the problem that our hero faces.

Dialogues are really great tool in creative writing because it allows us to introduce another character.

You have to have two people in order to have conversation.

And that character can be really, really interesting.

What that does is, suggest that the problem is already known about, somebody in the story knows about this problem.

That makes the problem feel established as something that's already there.

It means that our reader, gets to find out about the problem at the same time as our hero.

So we learn together and that helps us bond with our hero, a little bit more as well.

Now that we know how to punctuate our dialogue what we're going to do, is look at how that dialogue can be used, to introduce problems and how to use it in our creative writing.

Here's a bit of text creative writing from the romance genre.

I'm going to read it to you now.

"Who is he?" Jess said.

"Don't look!" she said.

"Him? In the red jumper? Oh! That's Benjamin.

His dad owns the village hotel," Natalia said.

"The hotel at the end of the road?" Jess said.

"Stop whatever thought you have.

He's engaged to Jennifer," her sister said.

So it's a very standard piece of dialogue, piece of speech, conversation between Jess and her sister, Natalia.

Let's have a look at what's good about this bit of writing.

First of all, we have a problem because Jess is asking after, this person she doesn't know, he.

And we find out that he's engaged to Jennifer.

So this person that Jess might be interested in or has noticed in some way is already engaged.

So he's taken.

So that's good.

Our dialogue has introduced a problem.

The other thing that's great about this bit of writing, is all of the speech is punctuated properly.

We've got our inverted commas around all of the speech.

We've got our punctuation inside the inverted commas.

We've got our punctuation after the dialogue tags.

It's fantastic.

It's been properly done.

And each speaker is on a new line.

It's a little bit difficult to see, when it's in a text 'cause we don't leave a line between the speakers.

We just put them on the next line.

So if you've written to the end of the line, it's a little bit difficult to see that you've done that, but we can see from colour coding that each person starts on a new line.

So this piece is punctuated really well.

They followed all the rules of speech.

Did it sound exciting for a story? I don't think it did because of this because it repeats said.

"Who is he?" Jess said.

"Don't look!" she said.

Natalia said, Jess said, her sister said.

It's a bit boring.

Said can be really, really useful.

We don't want to ever ban said or not use it because ultimately people say something, they said it.

But we can mix things up.

And sometimes there's a more appropriate tag to add that can add some extra detail about the character.

So let's have a look at this.

"Who is he? Jess whispered to her sister in excitement.

Now straight away, we've got that Jess is whispering.

So it tells us that this is maybe something that, she doesn't want lots of people to know that she's asking.

And we've managed to put in that it's her sister.

So that tells us straight away who Natalia is.

And the excitement, now shows us that Jess is quite interested in who this is.

Then, "Don't look!" she squealed.

So that dialogue tag now gives us some energy.

It matches the excitement but also a little bit of urgency.

I'll come back to the next bit in a moment.

We've then instead of Natalia said, so "His dad owns the village pub," instead of Natalia said, we've got Natalia replied.

Replied to just a really nice dialogue tag.

It's neutral but it shows the conversation taking place and they're responding.

And then we used Jess questioned.

"The pub at the end of the road?" Jess questioned.

That just shows that she's listened to what Natalia said and she's thinking about it and we know she's asked a question 'cause we've got a question mark.

And then the last one, "Stop whatever thought you have.

He's engaged to Jennifer," her sister warned.

Now by replacing said with warned, we know that Natalia, has put a bit of a tone behind what she's saying and she's making sure that her sister understands that.

The warning also makes us much more of a problem because Jess is being warned about something.

So this dialogue tags, give us much more understanding of the characters relationships between each other and their relationship to the problem.

Jess is whispering in excitement but Natalia is warning.

Now I said I'd come back to this bit.

As her sister spun around, obviously to stare at the man across the room.

This is what we call an action tag.

It's not about the way the character said the speech but it's about an action the characters taking whilst they say the speech or while somebody else is talking.

We can have all sorts of action tags.

We can have people yawning.

We can have people smiling, laughing or raising their fist or pointing.

We can have people hugging as they talk.

There's all sorts of actions.

And when you think about when you're speaking to your friends or to family members, we don't stand completely still, staring into space when we talk, we move around quite a lot.

We use our hands, we use our faces, we move.

So action tags can be a really great way of making speech sound natural because they talk about the actions that people take or make while they're speaking.

We didn't have to put in lots but one or two is quite fine.

In this case, the action tag here, as her sister spun around obviously to stare at the man across the room.

That also links with why Jess is saying, "Don't look!" she squealed.

Because she's trying to stop her sister from turning around and being really obvious.

So this piece now reads.

"Who is he?" Jess whisper to her sister in excitement.

"Don't look!" she squealed as her sister spun around, obviously to stare at the man across the room.

"Him? In the red jumper? Oh! That's Benjamin.

His dad owns the village pub," Natalia replied.

"The pub at the end of the road?" Jess questioned.

"Stop whatever thought you have.

He's engaged to Jennifer," her sister warned.

So our dialogue tags and our action tags, just allow us to add a bit more detail information and show character dynamics.

Here's another one then.

Just to show you something different now, this one is from the action genre.

So our last one was from the romance genre.

This is from the action genre.

"Why am I here?" Naz said.

"Come in please," Professor Johnson said.

"Close the door behind you." "Okay," Naz nodded.

"This is top secret and not to be repeated outside these four walls.

It appears there was a plot to steal the famous painting, the Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet.

You must stop them." Professor Johnson said.

"Okay.

Where will I find the information?" Naz asked.

"The information is all in here.

Understood?" Professor Johnson replied.

Naz nodded in reply, "Yes sir." Again, this bit is great.

We've got our two characters.

We've got a problem of yield.

Our punctuation is correct.

And each character has a new line for them talking.

What I want to do is to just think, is this the best dialogue we can put in.

And do we need all of this dialogue? So at the moment, each character takes a turn and it's very, very equal.

Naz speaks then Professor Johnson speaks,.

Naz responds then Professor Johnson speaks again.

Naz asks a question and we go back and forth between the two characters.

There aren't really any action tags, but there are more dialogue tags.

We've got Naz nodded that's one action tag but the rest is just asked and replied.

So let's think about where we can improve this.

We're going to go through in short chunks.

So let's look at just this first bit.

"Why am I here?" Naz said.

At this point, Naz is directly speaking to Professor Johnson, which is fine we can do that but instead we could add in our action tag.

Naz paced the floor nervously.

He couldn't work out, why he'd been called to Professor Johnson's office.

There must be serious trouble.

We've taken away all of Naz speech rather than him directly asking Professor Johnson, we've just shown that he's nervous and we've shown that he doesn't know why he's there.

And we've been able to do that without speech, we've been able to take some of the speech away.

A large chunk here then.

This was the bit where Professor Johnson has said, "Come in please.

Close the door behind you." Naz responds and then we find out this big problem that there is a plot to steal the Water-Lily pond by Claude Monet.

And again, Naz has got some questions here, on what's going on.

This is fine.

This works really well.

And you could absolutely write your story like this but there's a few things I want to talk about to really stretch your understanding of how we can use dialogue to present a problem.

First of all, I'm going to remove everything Naz is saying.

We know that Professor Johnson, is our character in control here.

He's the one with the information.

He's the one that knows the problem.

And we know that Naz is clearly working for him in some way.

So I'm going to remove Naz's dialogue.

This shows the power difference between the two characters and it shows that one is now much more in control.

Professor Johnson is much more in control than the other.

It looks like this now.

"Come in please," came the sharp tones of his boss.

"Close the door behind you." Naz nodded before closing the door quietly.

He stood and waited.

"This is top secret and not to be repeated outside these four walls.

It appears that there is a plot to steal the famous painting, the Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet.

You must stop them.

The information is all in here.

Understood?" And you'll notice now, this is all Professor Johnson speaking.

So we haven't had to start a new line because this is all the same character talking.

Although we've got Naz's is action tags in between because he doesn't speak, it doesn't interrupt the place that we need to put, Professor Johnson's lines.

Although we've taken away all of Naz's speech, we haven't just left him.

We haven't ignored him.

The reader still knows he's there because we put action tags in instead.

So Naz nodded before closing the door quietly, he stood and waited.

It shows that Naz is responding, but it also shows that he's been quite respectful to Professor Johnson.

And it shows that Professor Johnson, is our character who is in control and very powerful.

Now rather Naz asking questions and interrupting.

All of this is said by Professor Johnson.

This now really shows the reader that Professor Johnson is a powerful character and is in control.

By giving him the most to say and by saying it all in one go, it really shows the power relationship between the two characters.

Now, although we've got an action tag from Naz so we know he's there, all of the speech now is Professor Johnson.

What this means is we don't have to start a new line because we don't actually have a new speaker.

It's all the same speaker.

This was the last bit of our example.

Naz nodded in reply, "Yes sir." Actually again, we're going to give Naz more actions.

We're going to add some more details.

He's still going to nod in reply and say, "Yes sir." But now he took the folder from Professor Johnson's desk and walked out the room in silence.

The yes sir shows authority.

The folder suggests that there's more information to be found.

Now as a reader we don't know what's in that folder but neither does Naz.

So the likelihood is we're going to find out together, having a folder there, also makes Professor Johnson look very, very organised.

Naz then walks out the room in silence that shows that he's thinking and processing but also shows a respect and an authority again.

Shows that Professor Johnson is the person in control.

Our piece now sounds like this.

This is a change with all the actual detail.

Naz paced the floor nervously.

He couldn't work out why he'd been called to Professor Johnson's office.

There must be serious trouble.

"Come in please," came the sharp tones of his boss.

"Close the door behind you." Naz nodded before closing the door quietly.

He stood and waited.

"This is top secret and not to be repeated outside these four walls.

It appears that there is a plot to steal the famous painting, the Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet.

You must stop them.

The information is all in here.

Understood?" Naz nodded in reply, "Yes sir." He took the folder from Professor Johnson's desk and walked out the room in silence.

By just thinking about how much speech we include and actually which characters we let talk.

We can show a power dynamic between them Just because you've got a character in a scene, doesn't mean that they actually need to speak.

Often it can be more powerful to show just one character talking than trying to prove that you can have four or five people in a conversation.

We're not writing plays.

We don't need multiple characters.

If only one character needs to say something, then be selective and show that you can craft your writing by just picking one.

I know that was quite a lot to think about because when we're looking at paragraphs and we're thinking about all the choices writers make, there is a lot to think about.

In creative writing we have to look at things beyond just a single sentence.

So let's just pause for a moment and recap an overview.

When we're using speech in creative writing we must, make sure that we use correct speech punctuation.

We must start each speaker on a new line if we're having more than one speaker talking and we must let the reader learn at the same time as the character.

That's the great thing about including speech, is that the reader and the character learns at the same time because somebody gives them the information.

As a bonus though, there are some other things we can do with speech if we're really using our skills and we're really crafting or writing.

We can use dialogue sparingly.

That means think about whether all the characters need to speak.

Think about whether they need to say lots or one or two words actually might be enough.

We can use action tags instead of speech.

So rather than characters saying, "Okay I understand." or "Okay, I hear you." They can nod their heads and we can use speech to show a power dynamic.

So just like with Naz and Professor Johnson because Professor Johnson is in control, he spoke the most and Naz didn't say very much.

If you've got one character who's very, very powerful, a way of showing that, can be to show that they speak the most and your character who isn't very powerful doesn't get to say much.

They're not allowed.

And that speech can show that relationship without you having to tell the reader.

Fantastic.

So we know now how to punctuate dialogue.

We know how to use dialogue to introduce problems because we've seen it with Jess and Natalia and we've seen it with Naz and Professor Johnson.

So we know speech can introduce a problem but now we need to think about, what problems we would include in a fantasy genre.

So that we can start thinking about, what dialogue we might include.

Here are some example problems in the fantasy genre.

There might be a mythical creature spotted in the woods.

You can pick what that mythical creature is.

It could be fairies or unicorns or dragons or elves or creatures that you've invented yourself.

It might be that mythical creatures are going missing.

Maybe all the fairies are leaving woods or unicorns are no longer coming to the lake to drink.

It might be that a mythical creature, is terrorising a village.

Maybe giants are coming into a village and destroying it or dragons with their flames.

It might be a magical object is wanted.

So a flower or a plant that has healing properties.

A locket or an amulet has been stolen.

A crown has been stolen but it's got magical properties.

A lamp with a genie inside it.

Some kind of magical object is wanted.

In a fantasy, we might have somebody captured by somebody who has magic.

So a witch or a warlock or a fairy or a magical queen, might capture somebody and take them somewhere.

And that person needs rescuing.

Sometimes in fantasies particularly fairytales, we might see somebody who's been cursed and that curse needs to be broken.

Whether that curse is them sleeping for hundreds of years or then being turned into some kind of monster.

Maybe at night time, they become some sort of bird or creature.

In the day they're a person but at night time they turn into something else.

There's some kind of curse that needs to be broken and there'll be some magical way of breaking it.

Fantasies can also have villains, who are trying to take control.

Fantasies can all also have villains, who are trying to take control.

Maybe they want to be the leader of the town or the country.

And they're getting very power hungry and they're willing to hurt lots of people to get that control and that power.

I'd like you to pause the video and think, what would you like to include in your story? Think about your stories location.

Think about who your lead character is.

Which of these would be sensible for them to face.

Now you can combine more than one if you wanted to.

So you might have a mythical creature, terrorising the village who captures somebody.

A giant or a troll capture somebody and then you'd rescue them.

Don't overcomplicate it though.

Don't try and include every single one of these.

One or two at most is absolutely plenty for a fantasy problem.

Pause the video now and decide which one you're going to use.

This is what I've chosen for my story with Clover.

I've decided that a mythical creature, has been spotted in the words, and I'm going to decide it's a dragon that's been spotted because dragons are awesome.

You don't have to use a dragon if you want to use the same prompt as me but you wanted to use unicorns, giants, trolls, fairies, elves, a mythical creature you've invented yourself.

That's absolutely fine.

Or you can use any of the other options that you've picked but if you're struggling, you are welcome to use the same one as me.

What we now need to think about, is who is going to tell your hero this.

And again, there are lots of different choices, in the fantasy genre.

It might be a parent or sibling, who's going to tell the hero what the problem is.

Sometimes we can have a member of the royal family, the king or the queen gives an order or sets a challenge.

A commander of an army, might be talking about the problem and what's going to happen.

Sometimes our hero can overhear a conversation.

So they weren't actually the one that was meant to be told, somebody else is being told and our hero over hears it.

Or maybe you've got someone else in mind.

Someone I haven't thought of.

What we do need to do, is to be a little bit realistic and plausible about this.

You know the hero of my story is 12 year old Clover.

It's very unlikely that the king, is going to ask a Clover to come and be the hero to find the dragons that are in the Woodland, because the king has armies.

He has soldiers.

He has lots of people that he could order.

So it's unlikely that he would pick a 12 year old girl.

To make my story realistic then, I would pick one of the other options that is somebody Clover would meet like a parent, a sibling or a teacher.

Somebody that a 12 year old, is going to have interactions with.

If your character is a witch, then maybe they hear about this problem from another witch or a powerful warlock.

If your character is a soldier or a knight, then they might hear about this from another soldier or knight or commander in an army.

It needs to feel plausible.

You've guessed it.

Pause the video now and decide who is going to tell your hero about the problem.

Press play when you're ready.

This is what I've decided for my story.

Again, you are free to make all your own choices and I hope you are.

I hope you've got lots of ideas and you're making your own choices but I know we can sometimes struggle.

So if you want to use my choices, that's absolutely fine.

I'm going to have Clover over hear a conversation, between a parent and her brothers.

We've already met her father and mother very briefly, when we introduced to Clover and we know she's got brothers.

So I think it makes a lot of sense for her to hear the conversation between them.

They're people should be around a lot.

And because she's only 12, I think it's more plausible that she would overhear the conversation rather than be asked to join in on a dangerous problem.

So that's my choice.

Yours might be very, very different and that's okay.

Here's what we're going to do though.

We're going to just jot down our ideas so that we don't forget.

And we're going to make a little plan.

I've given you a sentence structure, like this that you'll fill in in just a moment.

So here's mine.

My fantasy story is set in the village of Elm Mundale.

My hero is a 12 year old girl named Clover.

She hears about the problem of dragons returning to Mundale woods from her older brother talking to her father.

When Clover hears, she feels determined to prove she is as brave as her family.

Now if you've decided to use the same choices as me, that's fine.

You can copy this one down as yours.

If not, what I'd like you to do, is to pause the video and fill this in for your story.

Putting in your choices.

Press play when you're ready.

We know this order now.

We've seen it in our last few lessons.

We know that our stories are going to be different because we're making different choices about who our characters are.

What problems they're facing.

And who's going to tell them about the problem.

But our story order is always going to be the same.

So this session is on revealing the problem or revealing the quest that our character is going to go on.

We love reaching this slide, don't we? This is our free writing time.

It's the point that you get to write and I get to write.

As always, we're going to talk through our picture prompt.

We're going to talk through what you need to include.

And then you'll be able to pause the slide to complete the task.

First of all, this is not our prompt for today.

This is not our picture.

And I can imagine you're here going, "What? But we've picked our problem? We've picked our mythical creature or stolen object or our cursed person.

And I want to write about that." But not yet because we haven't reached the point of our hero, actually meeting the problem.

We just reached the point where they find out, about the problem and that takes place somewhere much more simple.

So I'm going back to where we met our character.

That inside location, whether you picked a great hall with a king or you picked an office or a family home.

Actually the conversation is going to take place there.

And this frustrates a reader 'cause they just want to get out with the quest and they want to have that big climatic moment, where they meet the problem.

So we get to drag it out for them slightly.

So today you're going to write at least one paragraph but many, many more if you get excited writing like I do.

It's going to have dialogue in it.

And you're going to introduce the problem.

Remember to think about your plan.

Who it is that's introducing the problem.

Think about what problem and making sure it's all plausible and remember to use correct speech punctuation.

So you've got a new line for each speaker.

Think about how much speech you need.

Can you show any power dynamics? Does every character need to talk? If you know what you're doing? And you've got a fantastic idea, pause the video now, get going.

If you're not sure you know, there's a little bit of help available for you.

Because we're all doing something a bit different.

This one's a little bit harder to give you a structure.

What I've done is created a relatively generic, opening to this paragraph.

So blank gulped nervously.

Pronoun couldn't believe that, someone had asked to see them.

Character name or pronoun wondered what they wanted.

It had to be something serious.

Name sat down.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here.

It's important you listen carefully." And this would then be the other character speaking.

They said firmly.

So now for mine, Clover over hears the conversation.

So this doesn't quite work but if somebody had asked to speak to Clover, it would read like this for my story.

Clover gulped nervously.

She couldn't believe that her father had asked to see her.

She wondered what he wanted.

It had to be something serious.

She sat down.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here.

It's important you listen carefully," he said firmly.

So if I was having a direct conversation, this story's data is really, really useful and can apply to lots of problems and situations.

If you're doing a story that's overheard, you might have to think a little bit differently.

For me I'm still going to use this for Clover's overheard conversation but I'm going to change it slightly.

So she's still going to gulp up nervously but she can't believe that her father has asked to speak to her brothers and she wonders what he wants to talk to them about.

So once they sit down, she's going to sneak in and listen.

So you can play with it.

You can adapt it.

But it's there if you need it.

If you've written yours already and you've come back to the video, fantastic.

Let's just do some checks then.

By now you should have written at least one paragraph.

Should be dialogued.

It should have speech in it.

It should talk about the problem that the hero or characters in your story will face.

And you've used correct speech punctuation with a new line for each speaker.

We know by now that creative writing, we will forget things and that's fine.

And we do need to make edits to our work.

So what you can do now is pause the video, reread your work and look for these things.

Give yourself ticks when you've done them or highlight where you've introduced the problem.

And just see if there's anything now that you want to add or change.

Are you excited about the problem that your hero is going to face.

I'm really, really excited.

I've really enjoyed writing this section.

I nearly got carried away.

As always I'm going to share now, how Clover finds out about the problem in my story.

I'm going to make myself disappear so that I don't distract you up here in this top corner.

So that you can listen carefully to the next stage in this saga with Clover.

Make yourself nice and comfortable.

Later that day when lunch was finished and all the chores had been done.

Yes, even knights have chores to do at home.

Clover and her brothers, were settled back into their positions of armour cleaning and reading.

When their father softly cleared his throat.

"Boys," he said.

"There was something I needed to talk to you about.

Tonight a," he stopped for a moment.

Suddenly remembering that Clover was still in the room.

She deliberately tried to sink deep into the chair.

Keeping her body as still as possible.

So she wouldn't be spotted.

"Clover, why don't you take yourself out into the garden.

Practise with a wooden sword or maybe set up a training course.

We'll come and join you after," he smiled softly.

It was one of those casual adult comments that were suggestions but also orders.

Clover got up from her chair slowly.

Her movements were careful and deliberate, as she gently placed her book down.

She was drawing out her time in the room in case her father decided to start.

When it was clear that he was going to wait until she left.

She huffed and moved towards the door.

She took her father's nod, as a sign that the door needed to be shut to.

She closed it reluctantly.

Then at high speed, she ran around the side of the house and crept under the kitchen window.

It'd been left open to get rid of the smell of stew from lunch.

And she knew, if she really scrunched up her eyes and concentrated, she'd still be able to hit every word.

Clover gulped nervously.

She couldn't believe that her father, was consulting with her brothers.

It had to be something serious.

She paused for a moment, fearful of getting caught, but this was soon replaced with curiosity.

She returned to listening intently.

"I'm sorry for the secrecy.

I'm sure you're wondering why I'm speaking to you.

It's important you listen carefully," Clover heard her father say.

"A dragon has been spotted in Mundale woods." Clover and her brothers gasped in response.

Dragons hadn't been spotted in Mundale woods since the awful battle of Okmo, many, many knights lost their lives that fight.

It had raged for days and half of Mundale, woods had been burnt down by the dragons during the battle.

Mundale had won but only just.

Many villages still feared the return of the dragons.

It seems that time has come.

Clover shook her head from recalling her history lessons and refocused on the conversation taking place inside.

"We're leaving tonight as the sunsets, we'll meet the others at the forge.

From there we'll be tracking out the mountain under the cover of darkness.

We must remove these dragon before others join it," Her father paused.

"I know you've only just finished your training but I would be proud to have you at my side.

You're ready." Clover froze in place.

Her father and her brothers, would be facing a dragon, tonight.

She didn't know if she was scared or envious.

The scraping of the chairs on the floor, alerted her to the movement inside.

Their conversation had finished.

Quickly, she scooted out from under a window and grabbed her wooden sword from the rack just as her father popped outside to check on her.

What did you think then of Clover overhearing this conversation that she wasn't meant to be part of? What choice do you think Clover's going to make, when her father and brothers, join the group that are going out to hunt for this dragon in the woods.

Before we can find out before we can write that bit, you're going to need to finish your quiz for this lesson.

Don't forget it.

I will see you next time.