Writing: Start Early

I had the pleasure of helping son #2 write a quick story this morning. His homeschool workbook had several words to study and 'envy' was one of them. He was asked to write a pargraph long story about that. After I explained what the word meant in terms he could understand he came up with something like this: "The early bird got the worm. The late bird hated that. He stole the worm. The early bird got it back and then shared it with the late bird."

Let's examine this. For structure, we do have a beginning, a middle, and an end. For plot, we have characters, crisis, and resolution. For theme, we have envy and redemption. Dialogue is a little thin. Scene and setting could also use some work.

I'd say he's halfway to a Hugo.