1.1—Elements of a great story 

This double-sided worksheet pairs with "Stories Are Like Tacos: Episode 1".

Page 1: Students are given an example breakdown of Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and then space to break down one of their own favorite stories. 

Page 2: A labeled version of my taco simile with explanations. 

1.2—Planning and Building The Plot

This double-sided worksheet pairs with "Stories Are Like Tacos: Episode 2."

Page 1: Walks students through the (3) steps of building their plot: Answering the Big Three (Who, What, How), diagraming a 1-sentence summary, and creating a short synopsis. 

Page 2: Two plot tips and some workspace for students to plot out a story they know to get the hang of it. 

Click HERE for a sample short synopsis of Deathwatch, as created by Bookrags. 

1.3—identifying and creating your theme 

This double-sided worksheet pairs with "Stories Are Like Tacos Episode 3".

Page 1: Walks students through (2) strategies and examples of theme building: Identify what theme they want to include in their book and strategically plan ways to SHOW AND NOT TELL through their plot

Page 2: Activity where students choose a book and identify the author's theme and how it is shown, not told, through various plot devices. 

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A BOOK

Page 1: My crash course HOW TO overview of book writing, start to finish.

Page 2: Some helpful "What if" statements to get you started. 

so you want to get published

Page 1-2: My crash course overview of getting traditionally published.