I Didn't Plan This Story and Writing Prompts

On this page, author Kelsey Gallant shares the story of how she wrote her novel I Didn't Plan This! Writing prompts can be found in bold. It is best to complete these four prompts as a full set, in order.

​These prompts are designed for beginner writers in grades 5-7. The main focus of the prompts is to get your ideas on paper without worrying about perfection.

The title of this book is ironic because I really didn’t plan it. Not very much, anyway. The basic plot idea came to me one night when I was in the shower, and I jotted it down but didn’t think I’d ever do anything with it. Over the next year, I occasionally wrote small excerpts of it, and once I wrote profiles of each of the main characters, listing their likes and dislikes and personalities and interests.

Writing Prompt 1: Come up with a simple plot idea for a story. It can be as basic as “a kid who gets a new bicycle” or “a dinosaur that wants to be an astronaut”.

Then I started working at a middle school, and I decided I wanted to try to complete an entire novel during the school year. To make it more of a challenge, I was only allowed to write at school. I chose my “Alanna story” book plot (it didn’t have a title yet) as my school year book because it was about kids in middle school, so I figured I’d have lots of inspiration.

Writing Prompt 2: Set a timer for ten minutes and start writing a story based on that plot idea. Don’t worry if it’s not your best writing; this is just the start of a first draft. Also, don’t try to finish the story in ten minutes. All you are doing is starting it.

I usually wrote for about five to fifteen minutes each school day, typing away on the school computers. Sometimes I got a little bit of extra time in the middle of the day, such as if the students were in the computer lab and nobody needed help with anything. Since my time was so limited, I never looked back on previous chapters or edited anything from earlier in the book. I just kept moving forward toward the finish line. I knew in my mind where the story was going and what events had to happen in order to get there, but sometimes new plot elements would emerge as I wrote, and I’d realize I really liked them.
 
Writing Prompt 3: Take a break from writing for 5-10 minutes. Get up, stretch, talk, take a drink of water. Then set the timer again and write for another ten minutes. Once again, don’t try to finish your story—just continue from where you left off. Make sure you write for the full ten minutes. If you get stuck, think about what someone could do or say that could keep the story going.

I finished the first draft on the second to last day of school, and I was SO excited!!! I printed the whole book out and started reading it. It was fun, because there were some parts I didn’t remember but really liked. After I read the book the first time, I read through it again, this time taking notes of edits I wanted to make. Then I shared it with some of my family members and asked for their feedback. The book went through several rounds of editing before it was ready to be published.
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Writing Prompt 4: Read through everything you wrote during the first ten minutes and the second ten minutes. Make edits where needed. If you feel comfortable, share your story with someone and ask for their feedback.