FICTION AND NON-FICTION WRITING
How to plan and structure a piece of creative writing
This guide deals with how to write a plan for both fiction and non-fiction writing at GCSE. It is not a guide for how to write effective fiction and non-fiction. It’s just about how to plan, which is, in itself, both important and challenging. There are other guides on the website which deal with how to actually write the different parts of both fiction and non-fiction pieces.
Why planning is essential
Planning is essential for any creative writing task. You must think about the whole piece before you start writing. You need to have something engaging at the start, and you need to develop your ideas / characters across your piece. You also need to bring your piece to some kind of satisfying resolution, ideally one which links back to your opening. This requires planning. It’s almost impossible to do this without at least some planning. This guide will take you through what it means to write a plan (and also what doesn’t count as a plan), before giving you some tips on how to plan both fiction and non-fiction pieces.
Two key principles for planning fiction and non-fiction
A plan is not the same as some notes or a brainstorm or any similar writing down of ideas. A plan is about structure – you are outlining the order in which you will write your piece:
What will you write first?
What will you write next?
What will you write after that?
And so on, until you get to the end.
In order for a set of ideas to become an actual plan, they must:
Be put in order (key principle 1)
Go from the start to the end (key principle 2).
That’s what a plan is. One way to think about this is to ask yourself what would happen if you gave someone else your ‘plan’ and asked them to write it up in full. How similar would their piece be to what you have in your head? If the plan is an actual plan, then their piece should be quite similar, at least in terms of overall content.
Exam planning vs. non-exam planning
Time constraints matter a lot when it comes to writing a plan. In an exam you will typically have about 45 minutes to plan and write your piece, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. You should spend 5-10 minutes planning, leaving you 35-40 minutes to write. This means your plan will necessarily be slightly less detailed than it might be if you were planning without time constraints.
That said, this guide will still take you through the ideal approach to planning. Depending on how quickly you are able to think and write, you may need to plan in slightly less detail than we outline here, though the two principles above still hold: your plan must be in order and it must go from the start to the end. It just might need to be a bit less detailed than the examples in this guide.
In an exam, the plan only needs to make sense to you, so you can include fewer small details than we do in the examples in this guide - as long as you plan in your head and know what you want to do, then the plan you write down should be fine.
Planning fiction
The first thing you need to understand when planning fiction is the difference between plot structure and narrative structure. Plot structure is the order in which the actual events of a story take place. Narrative structure is the order in which the writer tells the reader about the events in the story. These two structures may be very similar, but they are unlikely to be exactly the same, especially if the story is well structured. You need to plan your narrative structure, not your plot structure, with timeshifts signalled.
The second important thing to bear in mind when planning a short story is the concept of conflict and resolution. In order for a story to have some kind of narrative tension and drive (and therefore to be an actual story, and not just a sequence of events), it must have conflict (e.g. some kind of problem that needs to be overcome), and there must be some kind of resolution at the end (e.g. the problem needs to have been at least somewhat solved). Your plan must include the resolution; you need to know how your story is going to end before you start writing.
The final thing you need to include in your plan is what you, as the writer, will do in the story. You need to plan how you will tell the story, not just what happens in it. So, you might include things like “describe the café in detail” or “show don’t tell her reaction to the dinosaur” or “increase the tension here”. There are many ways you could plan these kind of directions to yourself, but some common ones are included in the list below:
Description (e.g. describe the man’s elegant hat)
Characterisation (e.g. convey Peter’s awkwardness and insecurity)
Direct speech vs indirect speech (e.g. use indirect speech to convey conversation)
Slow time vs. fast time (e.g. slow-time down – convey Sally’s fear with thoughts)
Show don’t tell (e.g. show don’t tell Grandpa’s frustration)
Timeshift (e.g. timeshift back to the funeral)
Intended effect on the reader (e.g. create suspense with ambiguous threat)
To make all of this a bit clearer, let’s look at two fiction plans, one bad and one good.
Bad fiction plan - not really a plan
Peter is feeling insecure about his new hair cut on his way to school
Thought it was good at first but now he’s worried people will make comments
When he arrives at school people are nice about it
He feels relieved
There’s nothing wrong with the plot here. It is simple, clear and has some conflict (Peter’s fear about his hair cut) and a resolution (people are nice). But as a plan, this is very poor. It doesn’t go into any detail about how the story will be told. It just has the basic plot structure, with very little sense of narrative structure and no sense whatsoever of how the writer will tell the story effectively. If we asked two different people to write this story, two things would happen: first, they would each have to do a lot of work figuring out what to write; second, in the end, they would write the story in very different ways. This means the plan is not clear or specific enough. It is a bad plan.
Good fiction plan - a proper plan
Peter gets out of his mum’s car outside school – thinks a Year 7 is looking at him funny – don’t say why (mystery) – Peter is frowning
Describe the setting outside school – make it clear how busy it all is - how many people there are to judge and laugh
Peter runs fingers through hair – it’s so short
Spots boy from his year going through gate – doesn’t see Peter – relief
Timeshift – tell hair cut episode – make reasons and haircut fears clear
Fast-time – Peter going into school and down corridors (nobody he knows well) – summarise fears – continues to frown
Slow-time – sees friends – walks towards them – create tension – describe their faces and Peter’s thoughts (paranoia) – still frowning
Direct speech – greeting and reply (no mention of hair) – include Peter’s thoughts
As they enter form room Dave (best friend) leans over and says “The hair looks good, mate.”
Peter smiles
This is a much better plan. It’s the same plot as the bad plan, but it actually explains how the story will be told; it’s not just a rough summary of what happens. If two people were given this plan then they would have a good foundation on which to build and they would both write roughly the same story, albeit with different specific details. This is what you want from your plans. It has lots of directions for the writer (direct speech, timeshift, slow and fast time, etc) and it includes enough specifics for the structure of the story to be clear. There is a lot that still needs to be decided in order to actually write the story, but that’s perfectly fine: you’re only writing a plan. This is a good plan.
Planning non-fiction – writing to argue/persuade
The first thing you will need to plan for most types of non-fiction is the opening and linked closing. You should be aiming to create a circular structure, where the end of the piece links back to the start in some way to bring about a satisfying ending. This should be included in your plan. You will also need to think very carefully about the opening paragraph of your piece, as this is so important for a successful piece of argue/persuade writing. (There are two separate guides on the website for how to write openings/closings - you should look at part 1 first, obviously.)
You will then need to plan the basic contents of each paragraph – one bullet point per paragraph. For exam pieces you only need a 3 or 4 paragraphs between your opening and closing; you won’t have time to write more. Remember that you will be making an argument in your non-fiction writing, so your paragraphs should build on one another; this is something you will think about as you plan.
For this part of your plan you might also want to include the type of paragraph you are going to write. Roughly speaking, it will be one of the following three types:
Argument paragraphs – where you explain your view of something and the reasons you hold it (could be abbreviated to ARG in your plan)
Anecdote paragraphs – where you tell a story about your own life (could be abbreviated to AN in your plan)
Real world evidence paragraphs – where you talk about something in the real world which illustrates your point, either something from the news or something from popular culture, like a meme or a TV advert or film or something similar (could be abbreviated to RW in your plan)
You will generally have a mixture of all three of these types in any piece of non-fiction writing, and you don’t have to include them all, but it can help to think in these terms as you plan. (There is a separate guide on how to write these types of paragraphs on the website.)
To make all of this a bit clearer, let’s look at two non-fiction plans, one bad and one good. This is for a question about whether or not it is important for people to go on holidays.
Bad non-fiction plan - not actually a plan
Holidays are a luxury, not a necessity
Lots of people can’t afford to go on holiday
Better to spend the money on essential things like food and clothing
Unfair social pressure
There are the bones of a good piece of persuasive writing here: there is a clear opinion about the importance (or not) of holidays, and there are some ideas that could make an argument. But there is no sense of structure. It is just a series of thoughts jotted down into a list. It’s a good brainstorm for a question about holidays, but it’s a bad plan.
Below is a better plan using the codes suggested above: AN = anecdote paragraph, ARG = argument paragraph, RW = real world evidence paragraph.
Good non-fiction plan - an actual plan
Opening - AN about holiday bores - they’re the worst
ARG - holidays are given too much importance in society - adverts, small talk (where did you go?), etc
RW - cost of living crisis - inflation, fuel, etc - lots of people struggling
ARG - unfair social pressure - better to spend money on essentials, on making the day to day better (e.g. home improvement)
Closing - AN about how to deal with holiday bores - cut them off - “Boring!” - “I didn’t go on holiday” - make them uncomfortable
This is a better plan. It’s still recognisably the same argument as the bad plan, but it’s arranged more clearly into a series of paragraphs which would come together to form a piece of non-fiction writing (an article or a speech, most likely). Each bullet point is a separate paragraph, and there is a clear idea for how to open the piece in an engaging way, with a linked closing at the end. The types of paragraph are also included in the plan using the abbreviations mentioned earlier in the guide (ARG, AN and RW). There is a lot that still needs to be decided in order to actually write the piece, but that’s perfectly fine: you’re only writing a plan. This is a good plan.
Summing up - key things to remember when planning a piece of writing
Planning is not an optional extra – you must plan every piece of writing you produce
A plan conveys the structure of the piece: it must be in order and it must go from the start to the end
When planning fiction, you need to plan the narrative structure of your piece (how you will tell the story, including directions to yourself on what to write) and not the plot structure (the order in which things happen)
When planning fiction, you must know how you will resolve your conflict(s) before you start writing
When planning non-fiction, you need to think carefully about how you will create a circular structure, with an opening and linked closing
When planning non-fiction, you should use one bullet point per paragraph, ideally including the type of paragraph you will write