AUTOEVALUATION SHEET (to re-write a letter)

DICTIONARY WRITING PROMPTS

Sometimes simply using new words can inspire your writing to take a new direction. In this exercise, a few words chosen at random will provide a new focus for today’s writing.

Sometimes new words can suggest entirely new directions for your writing. Let chance lead you to words — and then to themes and stories — you might not have come to on your own.

Time Required: at least 30 minutes

Here’s How:

1. Open the dictionary up to a random page. With your eyes closed or averted, point to a random place on the page.
2. Open your eyes and write that word down at the top of a piece of paper.
3. Repeat the above steps two more times, so that you have three words at the top of your piece of paper.
4. Using a timer, freewrite for 15 minutes, being sure to incorporate each of your three words into the piece. Try not to judge or edit your writing: just keep the pen moving.
5. When the timer rings, stop writing. Evaluate what you have written. Note if the words have generated a theme or idea that you might not have written about otherwise.
6. Revise this piece or a portion of it into a story, a prose poem, or a poem. If nothing strikes you, feel free to discard it and try again. Your first attempt may just be a warm-up exercise.
7. Want to see this writing prompt in action? Reader James B. sent in his response to the work. His sample will show you one way to approach the writing exercise.
8. Try another creative writing prompt.

Tips:

1. Write for the entire time, even if you feel stuck or frustrated. It takes some time just to warm up. On the other hand, if 15 minutes isn’t enough time, give yourself more.
2. If the words you’ve found don’t lead to anything that inspires you, don’t beat yourself up. The idea is to get you writing. You’ve already succeeded simply by writing for the full 15 minutes.
3. You can also try this exercise with different books. Any book will do, but books that typically contain words, phrases, or themes very different from your own writing may have the best effect.
4. Feel free to adapt or disregard any of the steps or rules. The most important thing is to spend time focusing on language and to write something new. Follow the rules only if they help you do the exercise. (Check out the writing sample to see a more flexible approach.)

What You Need:

• Dictionary or other book
• Paper
• Pen or pencil.
• Timer

WRITING FROM PICTURES

Photographs or other images often suggest a narrative. Working alone, in pairs, or in groups, discover a story you wouldn’t have thought of on your own. 

Pictures, and especially photographs, carry with them implicit narratives, making them ideal for generating new short story ideas. Choose one of photograph writing prompts, or use this exercise with a class or writing group, having each student/member bring in a picture and trade with someone. Whether you do it alone or with a group, the exercise will help loosen you up and get you to explore new themes. For groups and classes, exercises like these break up the routine and build cohesion. 

Difficulty: Average 

Time Required: 1-2 hours 

Here’s How:

 

1. Either choose an image, or have your students each bring in a picture and trade. With groups, have some kind of system for the trade so that students don’t plan ahead. (Have everyone pass their picture to the right, for instance.)
2. Spend ten to fifteen minutes free writing on the photograph.
3. Choose some aspect of your free writing exercise as a starting point for a short story. The story does not necessarily have to explain the picture, so long as the picture has in some way inspired the resulting work.
4. Share the stories (either that day or the next time the class meets, depending on how much time you have) alongside the pictures, explaining, when necessary, how the picture resulted in the work.
5. If you wish to continue working on the story, you may want to refer to articles on plot, dialogue and character as you revise. 

Tips: 

1. Don’t worry overmuch about conforming closely to the photograph. The point of the exercise is to get you started writing — ideally something you wouldn’t have written otherwise.
2. You can also do this exercise by opening a magazine at random or asking a friend to present you with an image. You can also give yourself the assignment of using an image from that day’s mail. (Generally junk mail includes some images.)
3. Don’t use something you’ve written in the past just because it fits the picture. Use the exercise to write something entirely new.

What You Need: 

• The photographs or image
• Paper
• Pen

SECRETS

This popular writing exercise for groups or pairs uses secrets to suggest plots and themes you might not write about normally. Your little secret could give someone big ideas.

This exercise is ideal for writing groups, but can be done with as few as two people. By exchanging secrets, fiction writers are prompted to explore a topic they may not have considered otherwise.

Difficulty: Average

Time Required: 1-2 hours

Here’s How:

1. Each writer should take out a piece of paper.
2. Write down one secret and fold the paper up.
3. Put all of the secrets in a hat, box, or other container.
4. Each person draws a secret. (Draw again if you get your own.)
5. Use the secret you receive as a jumping-off point for your short story.
6. At the end of the session, or the next day, share both the short story and the secret that inspired it.

Tips:

1. Be creative in how you work with the secret.
2. Have fun, both in picking a secret for the hat and in writing about the secret you choose. The best part about this writing exercise is the element of surprise.

What You Need:

• Secrets
• Paper
• Pen
• Container of some sort

FREEWRITING

At the very least, freewriting forces you to put words on the page (a good start toward curing writer’s block). Ideally, however, you’ll find yourself writing about ideas and situations worth greater exploration.

Freewriting is one of the best and easiest exercises you can do. It requires a minimum of time and prep, and is perfect for those suffering from writer’s block. Freewriting is a way to generate new short story ideas, and to go places with your creative writing you wouldn’t go otherwise. At the very least it will get you to set pen to paper.

Do you learn best by example ? See one way freewriting can play out in practice:

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: 10 minutes

Here’s How:

1. Sit down at a desk with pen and paper, ideally in some quiet place, though freewriting can be done anywhere.
2. Decide beforehand that you will only be writing for ten minutes (longer if you’d like) and that you will not stop before that time is up. Set a timer or an alarm.
3. Write without stopping until the timer goes off. Do not lift your pen from the paper, even if this means writing, “I don’t know what to write,” over and over again. Write nonsense, write anything, but don’t stop writing.
4. Look back over what you’ve written and see if anything sparks your interest. If so, use it as a point of departure for a short story, or for tomorrow’s freewriting exercise. If nothing comes of it, don’t be discouraged. The only goal to this exercise is to fill the page with words. If it leads somewhere, consider it a bonus.
5. If you want to get out of your own head during your freewriting sessions — or you just want to shake things up — these writing prompts will help you do that.

What You Need:

• Pen
• Paper
• Timer or alarm

Writing Ideas: Some Things to Try

1. Take a notebook to the pool or just sit on your front steps.
Observe whatever you see and write it down for five minutes.

2.Can you do it for longer?

3. Spy on some people having a conversation.
Do this sitting on the chairs in a food court in the mall.

4. With a friend, have a silent (written) conversation.
I write my sentence, then pass the notebook to you.
You write, and pass it back.

5. Do the silent conversation with your friend again, but this time, tell lies!

6. Do the silent conversation with your friend again, but this time,
pretend to be characters from your favorite book.

7. Do it again, but make up your own characters.

8. Write a novel next November with your class or by yourself!

More ideas in: http://www.meredithsuewillis.com/