Fairy Tale Writing Prompts
I want you to form a group and then write a fairy tale together. You can write any type of fairy tale you like. Below are some basic ideas for the type of fairy tale you might want to write:
- Retell a classic story (What if the hare won the race instead of the tortoise? What if the prince and the princess didn’t live happily ever after? What if the wicked witch of the monster won the fight?)
- Modernize a classic story (How would the story go if sleeping beauty lived in New York City? What if little red riding hood went to the mall instead of her grandmother’s house? What if Jack climbed the bean stalk and ended up at IUP or Clarion?)
- Tell a legend about your where you live. (How did Pennsylvania get its name? Who helped create Indiana University of Pennsylvania? What kind of classes do those squirrels on campus take? Why do black bears live in Pennsylvania? Who was the greatest football player/teacher/worker to ever live in X place?)
- Write a story for children (Try telling a story that you think young kids would enjoy hearing. Remember, for a kids’ story, you have to use mostly simple words and ideas.)
- Write a story for adults (If you want to be more daring, try telling a story you think college students would enjoy. But please, don’t make it too exciting. We don’t want to get censored! It’s ok, though, to tell a story that might work for adults. Think of the films Shrek and The Princess Bride which work well for both kids and adults.)
- Make up your own story. (Many stories have a moral, like being kind to others. Come up with your own characters and tell a story about them.)
The Rules
- Be creative! I want you to expand your skills at writing with some style. That’s why I am asking you to write a fairy tale and not an essay on the pro’s and con’s of harsher gun control laws.
- Your group will get points for trying to write a good story. These stories will be graded, so you need to do a good job on them.
- You have plenty of time, so try to write a decent story. Don’t rush. A good fairy tale ought to be a couple pages long.
- Everyone will be asked to vote on the best stories. The winners will receive a prize.
- Save your story as you are working. Store it on the h: drive.
- This is supposed to be FUN!!!!!
Fairy Tale Format
- When your story is all finished, add a good, catchy title at the top of the page (one of the main things people will use when deciding which stories to read is the title, so it is important to come up with a good one; do NOT title the story something generic like “Fairy Tale” or you will lose points)
- Under the title, type each group member’s first and last name onto the story
- Also list email addresses for all group members so that later, when people read your story, they can send you some comments about it
- Add color and font choices to give your story some style
- You might also want to add some clipart or pictures from the Internet as well to enhance your story
- Your fairy tale should be about a page or two in length; it should be long enough to tell a good story
- When your fairy tale is finished, proofread it to make sure the story doesn’t contain any errors (you’ll lose some points for grammar errors; grammar is only part of the grade, though)
Publishing Your Group Fairy Tale on the Web
- Write your group story in Microsoft FrontPage
- Save the story in h:wwwiup
- When you save your file, give it a simple name like fairytale, but don’t put in any spaces or capital letters
- Link your group story to EVERY group members’ home page (be sure to put the title of your story on your home page and, if it isn’t clear, label the story as group fairy tale as well)
- If the file is saved in your folder, you can just click on it; it the file is saved in your partner’s folder, use an address like the one below where username is your partner’s IUP login name (4 letters like xgbt and fairytale is what you named the file; you need to add .htm to the filename so the link will work):
- http://www.people.iup.edu/username/fairytale.htm