Creative Writing at Uni

Today we've got two things on the agenda: 1) Get your solidified piece (or excerpt) to where you feel good about sharing it with the class. I'll have a page next time for you to share a link to it. 2) In the comments of this page, suggest some writing prompts that you might consider going forward to keep your writing momentum active during the summer. You've all written a lot of really good stuff; keep going! 

Check out Rudyard Kipling’s very popular poem "If." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if--- The word "if" is fraught with uncertainty much of time. It suggests what could happen without any guarantees. Kipling's "If" charges the word with hope and possibility; it becomes a challenge, even a rallying cry, to the listener. This poem was enormously popular for a long time, and while it has somewhat fallen by the wayside in the U.S., it still makes lists of "favorite poems" in the U.K. Consider writing an "updated," perhaps more personalized version of "If." Think of it as "If" for 2022, perhaps. OR, consider writing a poem or prose piece with your favorite coordinating or subordinating conjunction starting each sentence. (Yes, grammar can be fun! Sort of.) Consider how you can shape the nature of the word (the way Kipling does with the word "if"). For example, words like "before," ...

We've assumed that the writing we do will be disseminated in conventional ways: on a website or in a book. Now consider some unconventional ways. Write a story or poem, whatever you want to call it, with a pen or pencil on paper. Then imagine (or actually do this, if you like!) crumpling up the paper and leaving it somewhere. Knowing that you're going to do this, what do you write? In the novel This is How You Lose the Time War , two characters, Red and Blue, send letters to each other using increasingly fantastical means. One of them trains bees to spell out words in flight; another manages to get the lava flow of an active volcano to do so; and so on. Imagine a character writing a letter to someone and having them receive that letter in an unusual way that is relevant to the content of the letter. Is the letter baked into a cake? Why? Is it tapped out in Morse code by a dripping faucet? Again, why? Get as fantastical as you like -- or make it more realistic, if you prefer. Se...

As you have almost certainly discovered by this point, anything can serve as a writing prompt. Anything. Even ideas that may seem "silly" or "gimmicky" can prompt creativity.  Here's an example: there are not one but two famous novels that were written without using the letter "e." It's the most commonly used letter in the English language, so this would be quite a challenge (just think of how you'd get around "the" and all the "-ed" past tense verbs, as well as the pronouns "we," "they," "she," and "he"). Check out the details here: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/84280/you-wont-find-letter-e-either-these-two-novels Why DO this? Well, why not? Today's writing prompts, accordingly, are about things that are missing. Both were suggested by students. Prompt one: What is the worst key to be broken on a keyboard and why? Now: Write a story or poem without using that key, and make t...

A great first line can stick in a reader's mind forever. So can a terrible first line. Ultimately, a story or poem or essay is far more than just the opening sentence, of course, but just for fun we're going to look at bad beginnings today. First, check out this satiric article by McSweeny's. (McSweeny's publishes a lot of humor writing, so if that's something you want to read or to write, check 'em out.) https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/first-drafts-of-the-greatest-opening-sentences-in-literature?fbclid=IwAR1tydvOzbosZwJCqAa8D4UH6AdXoh9NvoaNw2aneLUz-36IuV4LJdnTiaU Next, check out the Bulwer-Lytton contest. This is a contest named after a famously bad novelist (he was good at many other things, just not so much at writing) who was the actual originator of "It was a dark and stormy night." This isn't that bad an opening sentence, honestly, but maybe that was the pinnacle of his career. In any case, this contest is for terrible opening sentences. ...

One of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, was interviewed by The Guardian about his life with books. You can read the interview here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/29/neil-gaiman-whatever-i-loved-about-enid-blyton-isnt-there-when-i-go-back-as-an-adult?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1mDINK7dGT2N25lQtNkT6fKZgKKZcYBqz4u0EqHSibdDFGRxtdqesvk3Q#Echobox=1651228980 After reading Gaiman's answers, consider the interview questions and choose a few that you'd like to answer yourself. Put question and answer in the comments to this page. We'll discuss these questions and I encourage you to share your answers verbally as well. What is your earliest reading memory? What was your favorite book growing up? What book changed you as a teenager? What writer changed your mind on something? What book made you want to be a writer? What book have you reread? What book do you think you could never read again (not necessarily because you hated it ...