How to write a story for B1 Preliminary

Now, before seeing a sample task, we will focus on what is a story,

so we can understand this kind of task better and have a more
accurate expectation of what is expected of us in this part of the
Writing for PET.
What is a story?
According to the Lexico.com (before Oxford Dictionaries), a story is
«an account of imaginary or real people and events told for
entertainment«. For this reason, precisely, you have plenty more
freedom to write, as you can make up most of the story. But  just
like it happens with every other type of writing, a story must follow
a particular structure which makes sense to the reader. So let’s
move on to the different parts of a story.
Parts of a Story
A story can roughly be divided into the following parts:
 Title: The title should either summarise the whole story
(without spoilers!) or have something to do with the main
theme.
 Exposition: This is the beginning of the story, where the
characters and setting are established. It serves as the
introduction to the next part, the action, and the so-called
conflict of our story.
 Action: In this part, the characters deal with conflict and do
things to solve it.
 Resolution: This is where the conflict is resolved and the
story concludes with an ending, normally without any loose
ends.
Now that we know the different parts of a story, we should see an
example.

Sample Story for B1 Writing

Let’s take a look at the following example of a Preliminary (PET)

Writing Part 2 task, where we can see an answer to the sample
task we saw above:
In the example above you can see the different parts of a
story very well defined. Just like with emails or letters, your
story should be visually appealing. For this reason I recommend
the following:
 Write your title in capital letters.
 Leave a clear space between paragraphs.
Expressions to use in your story
In this section, we are going to focus on different expressions you
can use in the different parts of a story. While the vocabulary
used in the story will vary completely, depending on the topic, there
is a set of expressions which you can make use of quite frequently
if you memorise them beforehand. Let’s take a look:
How to begin a story
When you start a story, if the first sentence isn’t given to you, you
can use phrases like these:
 It all began…
 When I first…
 At the beginning…
 It was a hot/cold summer/winter day. 
Just to be clear, these are only some simple examples which
you can use, as there is no right or wrong way to start a story.
That’s the beauty of it! 😍
Time phrases
One of the great differences between writing a letter, essay, article
and so on, and writing a story is the need to pay careful attention
to the time over which the story develops. In order to define the
order of the events in the story, we must use time expressions or
time phrases. So let’s see a few:
 Then
 After that
 Not long aftewards
 As soon as
 While
 Meanwhile
 As
 Some time later
 A little later
 ____ minutes later
 a moment later
 Later (that morning/afternoon/day/night…)
 Just then
It is essential to use these expressions properly. Otherwise, it won’t
be clear exactly how the story develops.

Creating suspense
When writing a story, the aim is not to inform or to convey
information; the real purpose is to entertain the reader, just like
when you read a novel you expect to be entertained. For this
reason, a story, even a story for Preliminary (PET) Writing Part
3 should aim to do so: entertain. And a cool way to entertain is to
create suspense, which we can do by using some of the following
expressions:
 Suddenly
 All of a sudden
 Without warning
 Just at that moment
 Unexpectedly 
 Out of the blue
 Out of nowhere
 Right away
 Straight away
Direct speech
In every story there are characters and they usually interact with
each other, so it is always good if you know how to use direct
speech, that is, reproduce the words the characters actually say
or think. The tricky bit about this is the punctuation and the
verbs to choose, because it’s good to use some verbs other than
«say». Let’s take a look at some examples:
 «I’m coming with you,» she said.
 She said, «I’m coming with you.»
 «Do you like it?» he asked. 
 «Don’t do it!» he screamed. 
Pay close attention at where the comma (,) or other punctuation
marks go (?, !). Also, don’t forget to use inverted commas («…»)
to enclose the direct speech. In British English we normally use
single inverted commas (‘…’), but it’s not important so choose the
one that suits you best.
Finishing your story
This paragraph, the resolution, should be separated from the rest,
and it’s a good idea to start it with one of the following expressions:
 In the end
 Finally
 When it was all over
 Eventually 
  After everything that happened
 Luckily
Again, these are just a few examples. There’s no right or
wrong way to conclude a story, as long as it makes sense with
the rest of the piece of writing.
Verb tenses
One of the reasons why stories are particularly challenging for B1
students is that they tend to take place in the past, which makes
it necessary to use a range of past tenses approriately.
The main three past tenses you should really try to use are the
following:
 Past simple (-ed/irregular form)
 Past continuous
 Past perfect
If you take a look at the example of Writing Part 3 above, you’ll see
how I used these tenses in combination, when possible:

 Past simple and continuous: 

It was midnight and I was trying to sleep. 
 Past perfect and simple: 
I had completely forgotten it was my birthday.
 Past simple: 
This time I picked up the phone quickly and shouted, «Hello?!».
So that’s how you should try to tell your story. Please avoid a
simple succession of past simple tenses alone, like:

I woke up and got out of bed. Then I went to the kitchen

and made some coffee.
It’s not wrong, but it’s just not good enough for a story. 😉