This creative writing unit on How to Write Spooky Stories is designed to provide a flexible framework with a wide variety of individual, group and full-class lessons. The unit can be taught in four to six weeks depending upon the amount of class time available.

This unit includes 115 pages of materials, including five full short stories that correspond with particular lessons.

The unit is broken down as follows:

Ideas

Where do we get good ideas for stories? Because students often struggle with ideation, the lessons in this section aim to provide various starting points and inspiration.

These include exercises such as:

• Starting Stories With Classic First Sentences (Class Exercise)
• Mapping Your Life to Find Stories (Visual/Illustration Exercise)
• Retelling Classic Fables, Fairy Tales & Myths (Partner Exercise)
• Paying Homage: Using Other Stories as a Launchpad (Individual Exercise)

This section includes Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. This story is used to explore how writers can use the work of authors who have come before them to inspire their work.

Throughout this unit, we provide insight into the development of our own Example Story, which will pay homage to Poe. This example helps students see how the concepts in these lessons can be applied.

Character

Great storytelling revolves around great characters. The lessons in this section provide framework for students to get to know their characters and better understand how their characters behave.

These lessons include:

• What Makes a Memorable Character (Class Discussion)
• Character Inventory: Getting to Know Your Character (Individual Exercise)
• Anatomy of a Character (Individual Exercise)
• My Character's Bedroom (Individual Exercise)
• Motivation: What Does Your Character Want Most? (Individual Exercise)
• Villain Inventory: Getting to Know Your Villain (Individual Exercise)
• Character Speed Dating (Classroom Exercise)

This section includes the story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. This story serves as a lens for examining how to develop compelling villains.

Setting

These lessons aim to provide students with a better understanding of how setting influences story, as well as how setting is integral to creating a scary story.

These lessons include:

• What Are the Scariest Places to Set a Story (Class Discussion)
• Change of Scenery: How Changing Setting Changes Stories (Individual Exercise)
• Setting Assumptions: City vs Country (Partner Exercise)
• Gothic Castle vs Modern Apartment (Class Debate)
• Liminal Spaces in Horror Stories (Class Discussion)
• House of Fear: How Our Homes Become Frightening (Individual Exercise)
• Your Setting (Individual Exercise)

This section includes the story The Kit-Bag by Algernon Blackwood. This story is used to examine how setting influences a story and becomes part of what makes a particular tale scary.

Fear

This section examines the question of fear in storytelling and how writers makes stories scary.

These lessons include:

• What Scares You? (Class Discussion)
• My Biggest Fear (Partner Exercise)
• Fear of the Unknown (Small Group Exercise)
• What's Under My Bed? (Partner Exercise)
• Isolating Characters (Individual Exercise)
• Time Limits (Individual Exercise)
• Raising Stakes (Individual Exercise)
• Foreshadowing (Individual Exercise)

This section includes the story The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs. Through this story we examine how a writer uses elements like Isolation, Time Limits, Raising Stakes, and Foreshadowing to increase suspense, tension and horror.

Writing

This section focuses on specific writing exercises and is designed to help students improve their work.

Lessons include:

• Spies, Spies Everywhere: Paying Attention to What's Around You (Individual Exercise)
• Lighting vs Lightning Bug: Choosing the Right Details (Individual Exercise)
• Emotional Charades (Group Activity)
• A Sentence is Full of Choices (Individual Exercise)
• Cutting & Pasting Paragraphs (Partner Exercise)
• Read Aloud (Partner Exercise)
• The 8-Word Sentence (Individual Exercise)

This section also includes a variety of sample paragraphs for students to copy by hand to help familiarize students with quality writing. Samples include writing from Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, John Steinbeck, Martha Gellhorn, Eudora Welty and others.

Resources

This final section includes the full text of our Example Story: Lady Fortunato's Revenge.

It also includes two reference lists:

• The 10 Best Horror Stories for Kids (the text of all ten stories can be found in a free PDF download on our website)
• 5 Great Horror Novels for Kids