Varying sentence structures
Instructions
1. You will need two dice.
2. Select a story title from the following:



Betrayal
Night Terror
Breaking the Rules
3. Roll the two dice and add the two numbers together. Look up the score in the table
below. Write down the score. Write the first sentence of your story, with the structure
given by your score.
4. Repeat this process until you have ten sentences in your story.
Score
Sentence structure to use
1
A question
2
A sentence of dialogue (don’t forget the speech marks)
3
A short, simple sentence
4
A sentence beginning with an adverb (e.g. Stealthily, she crept past the living
room where her parents were watching television and out of the front door.)
5
A single-word sentence
6
A complex sentence beginning with a dependent clause (e.g. Although he knew
he’d get no end of trouble for this, it was worth it.)
7
A sentence beginning with an ‘–ing’ verb (e.g. Looking nervously around her,
she quickened her pace.)
8
A sentence beginning with a phrase (e.g. Out of the silence, she heard
footsteps.)
9
A compound sentence (Use one of these conjunctions to join the two clauses:
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.)
10
A sentence with an embedded clause or phrase (e.g. Her mother, who usually
never noticed things like this, was getting suspicious.)
11
A sentence beginning with one or more adjectives (e.g. Sinister and imposing,
the castle loomed up ahead of her.)
12
A sentence using a semicolon to separate two clauses (e.g. She looked around;
there was still no one in sight.)
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