Creative Writing: Prompt #1

*
*
Select ONE of the following options:
Option #1 (250-500 words):

Write a description of yourself from your mother, father, brother, sister, best friend, teacher, or pet’s point of view. Consider your appearance, actions, values, etc. In other words, try to see yourself as one of these people or your pet might see you (adapted from an exercise developed by Rose Kent, Cincinnati, Ohio, from Writer’s Digest online).
Option #2 (250-500 words):

Write a short short story that includes the sentence, “She took Marko’s pencil drawing of his late mother just before she died, ripped it into small pieces, and ate them.” Try to figure out what event or events that would lead up to such a shocking action by the girl or woman (you decide her age).
Option #3 (outside of class):

By yourself and with your notebook/journal, go to your favorite Skopje café (preferably outside and downtown, where it is busy) and order your favorite drink. Try to select a spot where you can observe the most activity. Then spend about 30-60 minutes observing (1) the other patrons, (2) the servers, and (3) the people who pass by. Write down your observations, including pieces of interesting conversations among groups of people. Also, note some details about your surroundings (in your details, include the five senses: touch, smell, sound, sight, and texture), the café itself, the outside of the café, weather, time of day (day or night), foliage around the café, background (mountains, other buildings, etc.). At this point, you are just taking notes, not writing an actual story, so don’t worry about organizing your thoughts. Just write in a way that will be understandable to you later on. To see how observing details might result in a finished story, see Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants.
Option #4, Starting with non-fiction (250-500 words):

Sometimes, it is helpful to begin with non-fiction writing, which can later lead to short fiction. In this exercise, write a letter to your future husband, wife, child, etc., and tell him/her about your life before he/she came into it. If that person is already in your life, write from your past perspective. (Exercise from Writer’s Digest online)
__________________________________________

Links to Various Readings, Notes, Exercises, Handouts, Prompts, etc.

Search This Site

My Cloud

Academic Writing (40) American Literature (37) African-American Literature (36) LIT160 Introduction to Literature (33) Syllabus (31) Creative Writing (30) Spring 2008 (30) Prompts (14) Paraphrasing (11) Summarizing and Paraphrasing (11) 19th Century American Literature (10) The Piano Lesson (8) 20th Century American Literature (7) Academic Writing Assignments (7) Persuasive Essay (7) Argumentative Essay (6) August Wilson (5) Character Studies (5) Creative Non-fiction (5) Group Exercise (5) Summary (5) drama (5) Letters (4) Creative Writing--Peer Review (3) Critiquing (3) Outline or Summary (3) Summarizing (3) Worksheets (3) 19th Century Poetry (2) APA Reference List (2) APA documentation (2) APA in-text citations (2) APA internal citations (2) Academic Writing In-class Exercise Notes (2) Academic Writing Syllabus (2) American Literature Syllabus (2) Authority Creditibilty Objectivity Currency Reputation Coverage Relevance (2) Avery (2) Body Paragraphs (2) Brainstorming (2) Characterization (2) Creative Writing Syllabus (2) Creative Writing Terminology (2) Flash Fiction (2) Folksong (2) Langston Hughes (2) Lymon (2) Negro Spirituals (2) Notes (2) President Barack Obama (2) Story Structure (2) Topic selection (2) Topic sentences (2) Trifles (2) Website Evaluation (2) Writing Assignment (2) counterarguments (2) oral tradition (2) 19th Century English Literature (1) 20th Century Poetry (1) A Letter to His Master (1) Abverbs (1) Academic Desk (1) Academic Writing Syllabus Fall 2009 (1) Academic Writing Syllabus Spring 2010 (1) Academic Writing Tasks (1) AcademicDesk.org (1) Alice Walker (1) American Literature Syllabus Fall 2009 (1) American Literature Syllabus Fall 2010 (1) Announcements (1) Assignments (1) Atlanta Compromise (1) Barack Obama (1) Berniece (1) Blues (1) Booker T. Washington (1) Books on Reserve (1) Boy Willie (1) Children's Literature (1) Christmas (1) Code song (1) Comparison and Contrast (1) Conclusion (1) Contact Information (1) Controversial Literature (1) Creative Writing Syllabus Fall 2009 (1) Creative Writing Syllabus Spring 2010 (1) Creative Writing--Self Review (1) Determining Story Structure (1) Dialect (1) Dialogue (1) Dialogue Exercise (1) Dialogue Tags (1) Doaker (1) Elements of Non-fiction (1) Epilogues (1) Essay Structures (1) Explicating a Poem (1) F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. (1) FANBOYS (1) Fiction (1) Five-Paragraph Paper (1) Folk Tales (1) Formal Letter Format (1) Formal Letter Templates (1) Found Poem (1) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1) Frederick Douglass (1) Full Text of Nat Turner's Confession (1) Genesis (1) Grace (1) Great Speeches (1) Guide Questions (1) Helen Bannerman (1) Henry Highland Garnet (1) Historical Outline (1) How to Summarize and Paraphrase (1) Introduction (1) Jazz (1) Job Application Letter (1) Kate Chopin (1) Links (1) Little Black Sambo (1) Malcolm X (1) Maretha (1) Martin Luther King Jr. (1) Mary Robison (1) Merged Texts (1) My Bondage and My Freedom (1) Nat Turner (1) Nat Turner's Confession (1) New Christmas (1) New Name (1) New Year (1) Nymph Time (1) Old Christmas (1) Peer Review (1) Plagiarism (1) Poem (1) Point-of-View (1) Private vs Public Writing (1) Purple Prose (1) Questions (1) Questions for Analysis (1) Relevance of Sources (1) Reporting Verbs (1) Response Papers (1) Rough Drafts (1) Rules of Formal Letter Writing--British and American (1) Section I.A (1) Section I.B (1) Section I.C (1) Section I.D (1) Section I.E (1) Section II (1) Section II.A (1) Section II.B (1) Section II.C (1) Section II.D (1) Section II.E (1) Section II.F (1) Section II.G (1) Section II.H (1) Section II.I (1) Section II.J (1) Section II.K (1) Section II.L (1) Section II.M (1) Section II.N (1) Section II.O (1) Section II.P (1) Section III (1) Section III.A (1) Section III.B (1) Section III.C (1) Section III.D (1) Section III.E (1) Section III.F (1) Section IV (1) Self Review (1) Sequels (1) Short story (1) Six Paragraph Paper (1) Song (1) Sorrow Songs (1) Story Analysis (1) Summarizing and Paraphrasing Poems (1) Table of Links (1) The Bible (1) The Color Purple (1) The Killer Husband--Five Versions (1) The Owl at Purdue (1) The Research Challenge (1) The Weary Blues (1) Time Nymph (1) Transitions (1) Types of Characters (1) Types of Plagiarism (1) Types of Webpages (1) W. E. B. Du Bois (1) Walt Whitman (1) Wining Boy (1) Writing Assignments (1) Writing for Different Rhetorical Occasions (1) Yours (1) conjuration (1) coodinating conjunctions (1) email spam (1) hoodoo (1) writing journals (1)