The Weekly Writer is an online feature that is inspired by the time–honored genre of serial writing.

Charles Dickens first made his name as a writer by publishing stories in magazine and newspaper installments. Later, his novels, which encompassed those installments, were filled with cliff–hangers and suspense.

Today, students may recognize this writing form within the pages of comic books and graphic novels. Newspapers often contain good examples of serialized fiction and nonfiction feature stories. The Observer of London and The New York Times Magazine began publishing serialized fiction stories in recent years.


Discuss the Weekly Writer with your class. Review the entries online each week, and ask students their opinions of them. Ask students to identify which sections of the entries work best, and then have them write their own.

Students can write individual entries. Or, with younger grades, conduct a mini–serial exercise and write an entry as a group. For example, go around the classroom and have each student supply a sentence about what happens next in the story. Write the students’ sentences on a blackboard, and have the class vote for their favorites. Repeat this exercise a few times until the students complete a sufficient entry.


Crafting the opening lines to a story can be a painstaking task. Different authors take different approaches. Nonetheless, their goal is to draw readers into the story, and in the case of the Weekly Writer, provoke the imagination of the next student writer in the story. Provide students with examples of various opening sentences from literature, and discuss what those words accomplish. Have students read the opening sentences written by the featured Weekly Writer author, Chris Van Allsburg, and write a new lead with a different literary technique. Here are some suggestions:

• Start the story in the middle of the action.


• Begin with a question or quotation.


• Use an announcement or bold statement.


• Set the time and place.


• Use dialogue.


• Use a puzzle or riddle.


• Use emotion.

We often receive submissions in which the student writer wraps up the story. Students should ask themselves how they can develop the story, not end it. Talk to students about the rising action of a story. There are a few ways to move a story along:

• Describe the problems.


• Build suspense.


• Introduce other characters.


• Use dialogue.

Students may want to explore how transitional words can help pace a story. This is a creative–writing exercise, and the words chosen should not feel forced. Discuss with the students how transitional words can show location and time or introduce a contrasting idea. Some transitional words are: about, as soon as, before, but, during, late, next, until, until now, when, whenever, and while.


Each week, the Weekly Writer presents another cliff–hanger. Ideally, the entry leaves readers eager to know what happens next. Students can prepare themselves to write by thinking about effective cliff–hangers they’ve read in their favorite books or seen in movies or on TV. Ask them to make a list and share these with the rest of the class.


Students should know that the climax of the story is not the time to introduce major changes to the personalities of the characters or to create sudden plot twists. At the climax, the characters are beginning to experience the outcomes of the conflicts they faced. Have students brainstorm what the characters might do to change or resolve those conflicts.


The featured Weekly Writer author will wrap up the story. However, as a class exercise, students can write their own endings to compare with the author’s. Practice creating alternate endings as a class. Take the opportunity to discuss with students how the characters’ choices can affect different endings.

• Narrative ending: ties up loose ends; a fairy–tale type of ending


• Reflective ending: when a character learns a lesson or discovers a truth


• Ambiguous ending: leaves the reader guessing but is often unsatisfying


• Full–circle ending: takes the reader back to the beginning with new knowledge


• Surprise ending: often entertaining but has the potential to get a little silly

Weekly Writer entries are selected each Wednesday and posted on the following Friday. The program runs twice a year and starts and ends according to traditional school semesters. Students whose entries are selected for the series will be notified by e–mail.

By participating in Weekly Writer, students emulate great authors, learn valuable writing skills–and unleash their creativity!