WRITING A NARRATIVE

 Use this sentence to begin a story:

 “I never thought something like this could happen”. Write about 175 words. 

I never thought something like this could happen. A few nights ago, I was in bed watching TV. I had been working very hard all day and now I was angry and exhausted. I was trying not to think how much I hated my boss when the lottery show started. I looked at the numbers and I couldn’t believe it. I was rich. I was very rich! The only reason I had bought that lottery ticket was because the previous night I had dreamed that after winning a lot of money, I paid a visit to my boss to tell him that he was a jerk. It felt so good that the following day when I was passing the lottery shop on my way to work, I couldn’t resist. The next day, I got up and went to work, as usual, but first I went to the bank to deposit the ticket. When I arrived at the office, I went straight into my boss’s office without knocking at the door, obviously. When he looked at me angrily, I smiled and said, “You are the biggest jerk I’ve ever met. I quit!”

Narrative tenses

• Use past simple to describe the events of a story in chronological order.

• Use past continuous to set the scene and to describe actions or situations that were in progress (not finished) at a certain point in the story.

• Use past perfect to describe events that happened earlier in the past.

• Use past perfect continuous to describe longer continuous actions (or repeated actions) that started earlier in the past.