← Back to course
Reading and Writing 6-8 / Week 06 / Friday
5/6
Week 06 · Narrative Writing

Friday

Nova's Signal Review
// From the hook to the last line
⏱ about 20 min

Friday: Nova's Signal Review

Rocket lays four pages on the Signal Desk, hook to last line. "The Day the Corkboard Fell. Complete."

"And yours?" Raven asks. Rocket pats his notebook. "Complete. Mostly. The dialogue needs commas."

Nova circles the room once and settles above the lamp. "Signal Review," she says. "Tonight you review two stories."

"The crew's and mine," Rocket says.

"Hook, order, dialogue, senses, ending," Nova says. "Find each one in both."

Raven hands him a pencil. "What do you notice about your own first line?"

Rocket reads it and winces. "It starts with my alarm," he says. "Again." He crosses it out and starts near the surprise.

Look back

This week you read The Day the Corkboard Fell in four parts and wrote a story of your own alongside it.

You learned the hook and setup, sequence and transitions, pacing, dialogue rules, sensory detail and the conclusion.

Look back at any part of the mentor text whenever you need to.

REVIEW 1: THE SHAPE OF THE STORY
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What question does the hook plant?
Which part lingers on sorting the cards?
Which part is mostly dialogue?
The conclusion follows from the events because
REVIEW 2: THE TOOLS
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which is a transition?
Which is a sensory detail?
Which line is punctuated correctly?
Short lines like It held change the pacing by
REVIEW 3: FIX THE DRAFT
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
A draft begins: I woke up. I ate. I walked to the porch. The board had fallen. Where should it start?
A draft gives one sentence to the biggest moment and ten to a walk. The writer should
A draft has two speakers in one paragraph. The writer should
A draft ends: And then we had dinner. What is missing?
BUILD A NARRATIVE
  • ?Reflect on what changed.
  • ?Slow down with dialogue and detail where it matters.
  • ?Move through the events in order with transitions.
  • ?Show the last action with sensory detail.
  • ?Hook the reader and set up the narrator and place.
WHY THIS EXERCISEThis is the shape of the mentor text and of your own story.
SentenceTrue or false?
A good hook often starts near the most surprising moment.?
Every moment in a story should get the same number of sentences.?
A comma goes inside the closing quotation mark before a tag.?
A conclusion should add a brand new problem.?
Sensory details can be sounds and smells, not only sights.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEPacing changes on purpose. Endings follow from events. Senses go beyond sight.
Which word names how fast or slow a story moves? Type the word.
WHY THIS EXERCISENaming the tool helps you use it. Pacing is the one most writers forget to plan.
Try it
Read your whole draft aloud to yourself, hook to last line.
Mark every place you stumbled. Each stumble is a sentence to fix.

Two stories reviewed, one of them yours. Tomorrow is Press Day, and your story goes out with the issue.

← Thursday