STEP 1: YOU MUST PLAN!

• You MUST plan. Don't just use the first idea that

pops into your head.

• You're relying on pure luck whether that idea is

a good or bad idea. We all know that it's a bad

idea to answer any (test) paper relying on plain

luck, but for some strange mysterious

reason, when it comes to composition, you

abandon all logic .

• While we're at it, let's also walk across the PIE

blindfolded. Remember: you MUST plan!

HOW TO PLAN

• Just guide yourself with the following basic

questions:

• Who, When, Where, Why, How and What.

• This is not meant to be a magic formula.

• The order in which you answer them is also not

important except What is always answered

last, and I will explain why later.

WHO

• Who are the characters in your story?

• You?

• A 3rd party?

• Your friends / classmates / family / relatives?

• John? Who?

WHERE

• Where did it happen? In School/at the

graveyard/in the park?

• Of course sometimes you can be limited as in

the example A Day At the Beach would have to

happen at the beach.

• A good student always asks, which part of the

beach? A better student asks where is this

beach?

WHEN

• What day did the story occur? Yesterday? Your birthday?

Last Christmas? September 1939? When?

• Don't forget the time! What time did it happen? Obviously

a story set in the afternoon would be very different from

one set in the middle of the night.

• When did it happen? In the morning? At night? While you

were in the park? Eating cornflakes? Reading the

newspapers? Doing all three?

WHY

• If the topic is "A Heart-breaking New Year", why was it

heart-breaking? If it was "A Joyful Birthday

Party", obviously it is not necessary to ask why it was

joyful. Elaborate.

• For some topics it may be harder to explain why. For

example, "A Day At The Beach". Why were you there?

Was it for a picnic (no!) or for some other reason (yes)?

HOW

• How did it happen? This may overlap with "What".

• Sometimes people have more fun reading how something

happens than the fact that it did happen.

• Especially if the method is especially clever or amusing.

Sometimes, you don't need to tell how something

happened (how you went to the beach), sometimes you

do (how the prisoner escaped from jail). Use your

common sense.

WHAT

• Lastly, What happened?

• In other words, it is a concise summary of everything you

intend to put into your story.

• Once you have put together WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHY

and HOW, you are now ready to say answer WHAT

happened.

• It is like putting meat on the skeleton of an animal except

without all the blood and stuff.

A NEGATIVE EXAMPLE

Back to the example of A Day At The Beach. One

teacher I know told me about a student who wrote

about a picnic he had with his friends. It began

optimistically with them finding a nice shady spot

to set up. It went downhill from there as he began

to narrate they had sandwiches (nice delicious

sandwiches), fried bee hoon (nice delicious fried

bee hoon), fishballs (nice delicious fishballs) and

packet drinks (nice delic... you get the idea). By

the time the teacher got to packet drinks, it was so

boring it could physically drive breath out of your

body.

Be Realistic

Use your common sense. Don't go overboard. A story that is wholly absurd

is as bad as a story which is boring. Don't insult your reader's intelligence

by expecting them to believe ridiculously exaggerated heroism. Really

don't. Really.

If you set up your story right, you won't have to resort to extreme solutions.

Nobody is going to believe you beat a man with a machine gun by dodging

through a rain of bullets and karate chopping him on the neck.

Last Words

Have fun. Planning makes it more fun, not less. Because it depends only on

your imagination, every student is as good as another. It is the only place

where the competition is completely fair. Go for it.