Encouraging Creative Writing is a website created by Oxford Owl offering help and 
advice in how to inspire children to write enthusiastically and willingly.
“Is your child always making up stories about their favourite book characters, or characters they’ve invented? What happens when you suggest writing them down – does writer’s block set in?” (Oxford Owl)
The author of “How to Write Your Best Story Ever,” Chris Edge, shares his top ten tips to get children writing with Oxford Owl:
- Story sparks – to get started some spark of inspiration is needed and there is a list of suggestions along with a “Stuck for a story” download which is full of different genres to help children think about what they want to write.
- All you need is a book, giving a child a special notebook to keep their ideas, there are some great designs on the market these days which would encourage writing.
- Reader to writer, thinking about the best and worst bits of what they enjoy reading, tips for how to make the best of their reading to help develop their writing.
- Opening lines – the opening line can be the most difficult – help them out! If they are still stuck download the “Start your story activity sheet” which prompts them to write just one paragraph as an opening.
- Remix a story – a mash-up of characters from anywhere into new stories with ideas and suggestion.
- A picture can inspire a thousand words… Suggestions on using images to inspire writing.
- Making a map – treasure island, fantasy worlds, dragon and goblins etc, all sorts can be inspired from a map.
- Comic books and coding, children love comics and it is possible to make plenty of digital ones with free apps and computer code.
- Share their stories
- Have fun
Encouraging creative writing finishes with: “Why not join in and make up your own story too? The novel Lionboy was written by Louisa Young and her eight-year-old daughter Isabel under the pseudonym Zizou Corder. Work together to make up your own bedtime story and you might find you’ve written a bestseller! Good luck!” (Oxford Owl)
This site is well worth a visit, it is full of ideas and support for young writers.
