Jamie Johnson author Dan Freedman spills his secrets for writing stories

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To inspire your students to write, use these tips from Jamie Johnson author, Dan Freedman.

Jamie Johnson is an incredibly popular series of books which follow the life of a football fanatic school boy. More than 800,000 copies have been sold worldwide and the stories have been adapted into a hit TV show for CBBC.

Even successful authors can struggle starting a story sometimes. At times, Dan Freedman has said to himself: “I can’t do it. I’ve got no ideas. I’m rubbish at writing. I don’t know what to put down”. Here's Dan's advice for story writing.

"This might sound simple, but it’s very important. Use experiences that have happened in your own life. For example, I went to visit a school in East London on the day they had a football match in the school playground between the teachers and the pupils.

It was the best atmosphere of any game I’ve ever seen! And, you’ve guessed it, when I wrote my next book, Jamie Johnson: Skills From Brazil, it was all about Jamie playing in a school match against his teachers."

"Really get to know your characters. Ask them lots of questions. What’s their favourite type of pizza? What’s their middle name? What’s their biggest fear? What do they hope for? What’s their biggest embarrassment? What’s their biggest secret?

If you know all those facts about your characters and where they’re really coming from, you’ll find that they can actually write your story for you. That way, instead of thinking, “What am I going to write next?” You can actually ask, “What would my character say about that and what would they want to do next?”

"Never think you have to write the perfect story first time round. None of us do. The way we write is not a moment; it’s a process. So, don’t think that you have to create excellence immediately.

Start by putting something down on paper, then have a look at it and see if there is anything you can improve. And it goes along like that. Over and over, improving and developing. That is what writing really is."

"Some writers just sit down and see where the story takes them. I’m not that good! I need a plan. An overall design of a story gives me confidence. When I’m thinking about what will happen, I often see the end of the story first, then it’s a case of making sure the rest of the story builds towards that moment.

Even if you do have a plan, don’t be afraid to change it if you come up with a better idea. You can always change your tactics to make sure you get the right result."

"Will the reader care about the characters you’ve created? In my opinion, sentence structure, punctuation, grammar etc are not really the things that make a great story. They are important tools to ensure people can understand what is being written, but the most important element of a really good story is when the reader cares about what is happening to the characters.

If there is no emotion involved, then it’s not really a story - more just a collection of information. So how do we make the reader care? One method is to give our main character a goal and then put lots of obstacles, hurdles and challenges in the way of the character achieving it. That way, hopefully the reader will be supporting the character along the way, which means … they care."

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