Story Challenge! Term 3

Walking With The Wounded Story Challenge! Everyone has a story to tell and the Walking With The Wounded charity tell the stories of our service men and women who have been injured whilst carrying out their duties, they also tell the stories of those who support us and their endeavours. Their stories cover a range of genres from tragedy to triumph, through adventure and adversity to love and loyalty. Walking With The Wounded have joined forces with best- selling author Andy McNab to run their first WWTW Story Writing Challenge.

About Andy McNab Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was ‘badged’ as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, ‘will remain in regimental history forever’. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and the Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February He wrote about his experiences in three books: Bravo Two Zero and Seven Troop He is the author of the best-selling Nick Stone thrillers and has written several series of books for young Adults including: The Boy Soldier series, The New Recruit series and Dropzone series

The challenge… Andy McNab has written the start of a new story, your challenge is to complete this story in no more than 1000 words. The story can be in any genre that you like. We are looking for a story that shows: – Good imagination and creativity – Structure: the story develops and reaches a conclusion – Imaginative language: powerful verbs, adjectives etc – Creates atmosphere through use of language and settings. – Develops the characters.

Story Starter… ‘You better hurry or the shop will be shut by the time you get there! Take a tenner from my purse, that should be plenty’ Ryan sighed and kicked his ball against the wall one last time before going into the kitchen. His mum had been nagging him all day – ‘watch your sister’ ‘pop to the supermarket for me’ ‘tidy your stuff up’ …. She was making such a fuss about him just hanging around the house that getting out for ten minutes and picking up the bits she needed from the shop would probably be a relief! He grabbed the cash from her purse and headed out, slamming the door behind him. The supermarket was on The Parade, only a couple of streets away and next door to the post office and laundrette. Ryan daydreamed as he walked along, thinking about the next term at school, looking forward to playing football with his mates again. Everyone else seemed to have gone off somewhere for the holiday, Finley was at his Gran’s, Jacob with his mum and dad at their caravan and Regan’s Dad had taken him and his brother back with him to Spain for the last week of the holidays. He shook his head thinking how weird it was to be looking forward to going back to school. He knew he was nothing special and that sooner or later he’d have to start ‘knuckling down’ as Grandad called it, but it was football that made him want to go to school. The chance to play, be in the team, finally feel like he was good at something, really good. As he walked round the final corner into The Parade he was in a world of his own, scoring the winning goal and racing round the pitch with his hands in the air, so he hardly heard the shout and it was only when he finally looked up that he stopped dead in his tracks, not really believing what he was seeing.

Don’t forget you need to include the Words of the Week