A Story on a Rainy Day: Model Answer and How It Scores
Quick answer: An original 180-word exam story on a rainy day, set in a flooded Kochi lane, with notes on content, organisation and expression marks and three other ways to take the topic.
A story on a rainy day scores when the rain does something to the plot rather than sitting behind it as weather. Let the rain cause the problem, force the choice or end the story when it stops. The model below is about 180 words, set during a Kerala monsoon, and uses the rising water to push two neighbours together who would otherwise never have spoken.
This is one of the easiest exam titles precisely because rain has a beginning, a peak and an end built in. The danger is spending a hundred words describing the sky. One sentence of weather is enough; the rest should be people.
The task
Typical wording: 'Write a story in 150 to 200 words with the title A Rainy Day.' Some papers give a starting sentence: 'It had been raining for three days.' Because the title is so open, plan the problem before you write: a cancelled event, a flood, someone stranded, something lost in the water.
Model answer
The Terrace. The rain in Kochi started on Tuesday night and had not stopped by Thursday morning. Nila watched the water climb the front steps one at a time until her father said, quietly, that they would move upstairs. They carried the television, the rice and her school bag to the terrace room and waited.
From the terrace she could see into Mr Menon's house next door. He was the neighbour who shouted at children for touching his gate. He was sitting on his stairs with a torch in one hand and his cat under the other arm, and he was not moving.
Nila called across the gap. He pretended not to hear. She called again, and her father fetched the ladder they used for the coconut tree. Twenty minutes later Mr Menon sat wrapped in a towel on their terrace, the cat asleep on Nila's lap.
He taught her a card game his mother had taught him. By evening the water had begun to drop, and he was still explaining the rules. The following Sunday, for the first time anyone could remember, his gate stood open.
Why it earns marks
Against the usual three heads:
Three other ways to take the same topic
Each keeps the rain active in the plot.
What writers can take from this
- Let the rain cause the problem, not decorate it.
- One sentence of weather, then people.
- Give the rain an end; when it stops, the story can too.
- Set up an object early and return to it.
- Use the days of the week as time markers.
- Avoid 'pitter-patter' and 'cats and dogs'; examiners have read them.
Try it yourself
Write a 180-word rainy-day story in which the rain stops exactly at the moment your character makes a decision, and the last sentence is about what they can hear once it is quiet.
Questions
How long should 'A Rainy Day' story be?
As long as the question says: 100 to 120 words for CBSE Class 9, 150 to 200 for most school papers, 300 to 350 for ICSE. The model above is 180 and can lose the card game to reach 120.
Can a rainy day story be in the first person?
Yes, and it suits the topic, because rain is felt before it is seen. Keep the tense in the simple past and resist the urge to describe the sky for a paragraph.
Does a rainy day story need a moral?
Not unless the question asks. If it does, keep it to one line and make it fit the events: 'Storms bring strangers together' would suit the model above; 'Always carry an umbrella' would not.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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