Narrative Writing Building Tension

Building tension is a key narrative writing strategy. This resource will support students and help them write exciting stories. The pages contain 6 useful ideas for building tension when writing a narrative story. Each strategy is accompanied by an example and a practical activity for students to complete.

This printable resource guides students through using story writing strategies such as “show, don’t tell”, using conjunctions, and sensory language to enhance their narratives. Additionally, a blank plot diagram is included. This provides a structured approach to planning a story.

In this printable resource, you will get:

• 6 strategies to build tension
• Blank plot diagram template
• Examples of tension in writing
• Tasks for students to complete

The strategies included are:

• Show, don’t tell
• Personification
• 5 senses writing
• Conjunctions
• Short sentences
• Onomatopoeia

Students will:

• Practice narrative writing strategies
• Feel confident to use the strategies in their independent writing
• Plan a story using the plot diagram

Teachers will:

• Provide students with an independent work activity
• Have a ready-to-print resource
• Use the examples and ideas to model during explicit teaching

This resource is aligned with the Australian Curriculum. It is suitable for students in grades 5 and 6. This resource is a useful tool in supporting students with NAPLAN preparation and fostering success in general writing skills.

AC9E5LY06 – plan, create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts whose purposes may be imaginative, informative and persuasive, developing ideas using visual features, text structure appropriate to the topic and purpose, text connectives, expanded noun groups, specialist and technical vocabulary, and punctuation including dialogue punctuation

AC9E5LE05 – create and edit literary texts, experimenting with figurative language, storylines, characters and settings from texts students have experienced