Lesson:Writer's Workshop Story Starter

Starter resource to help L1 or L2 learners develop their creativity in writing.

Prep
Frequently, learners who attend writing workshops have difficulty starting a creative piece of writing, often struggling with conceiving a creative idea and then failing to write it down.

Time and time again, I've watched people struggle with their first paragraph to the point of frittering away the time available within the workshop.

In other words, the participant is struggling with ideas generation at a point in a workshop where they should be working on plot development, character development, expanding a theme, or developing a sense of interest and atmosphere.

By providing a story starter, we are better able to circumvent the, 'thousand yard stare' of a writer blocked by a blank piece of paper. Participants are then able to better direct their creative energies towards the specific writing skill being targeted at the time.

Prerequisite

 * interest in creative writing
 * upper-intermediate to advanced writing

Material

 * Lesson:Writer's Workshop Story Starter/Prompts -- print out -- needs lots of paper because each prompt prints on its own piece of paper with room for the student to continue the story.

Variation
 * print one prompt at the top of an A4 page for individual work
 * print one prompt at the top of an A3 page for circular story work

Circular Stories
A circular story is a great way to 'break the ice' and stimulate groups of people begin being involved in creative writing. It is a good way for allowing participants to loosen their fear of revealing their 'inner selves' in front of others, and fears of appearing dumb or foolish.

Style 1: Intra-group collaboration
Break participants up in even groups of 4 to 7 people, depending on the size of the workshop. Allow each group to select one A3 page story starter. Have the group collaboratively write a followup paragraph that extends the current action or moves the story forward.

Explain exactly what you want them to do. You may have to illustrate what you mean with worked examples prior to the groups tackling the task.

When each group has finished writing their paragraph, pass the page onto the next group and so on until the stories return to their originating groups.

Have the groups review the story and share the story by reading out loud with the workshop. Select two examples (best and worst) for exploring story advancement ideas. the best one for showing how its done, the worst for everyone to analyze and comment on; reflecting on how it might be improved. Pin, or tape, the stories up on the wall for the workshop to read and review at their leisure.

Style 2: Inter-group collaboration
Same as Style 1 but instead of whole-group collaboration, each person in the group selects a story and writes their own paragraph. The stories then circulate within the group and are then evaluated to select the best one for the group. This is then shared on a workshop wide basis.

Individual stories
Each person in the workshop is allowed to select one A4 story starter that has particular appeal to him. It is useful to have one or two additional copies of each paragraph, in case more than one person likes a particular starter.

Allow each participant sufficient time to extend the story up to three additional paragraphs. The starters can be used to draw attention to various points in plot development, or as seed material to develop an individual character.

Factors to consider
Most people are aware that stories have a beginning, middle and end, and that is where it is usually left. For lower to intermediate L1 or L2 writers, developing this cycle is of principle importance as it helps to develop an awareness of the basic elements of story writing.

One of the key focus points of a creative writing workshop is to get beyond the simplistic view of story development and look at each phase of the story as having it own introduction, exposition and sub-climax. Focus on such points is the domain of skilled writers.

Character development. At various stages within the story, aspects of each character unfold to reveal more about them and make them believable in the reader's eyes. Pace character development for a consistent process of progressive revelation that fits systematically into the overall pace and development of the story.

Other points, external to the characters and the action, also need to be progressively revealed in order to set the tone, pace or scene, and provide a believable environmental context for the action to take place within.

All of these have their own life cycle within a piece of creative writing and need to be put forth to the reader in an appropriately linked way.

For participants just starting out, developing a basic awareness of these element with illustrative methods of how to do them in a simple way is all that is needed. These story starers help move elementary writers forward towards greater creative writing awareness.

For more advanced participants, the focus on evaluation and critiquing work provides valuable insight to the writing process and greater understanding of what genuinely works, and why some particular piece does not.