Weekly Writing Prompt — January 25, 2017 Edition

Writers:

What a great first workshop to kick off 2017! A great way to Level Up Your Writing!

Lori A. May was a great guest speaker and gave us some new tips and reiterated things we already knew.  Lots of great resources. We also had a few moments to pass out homework, which I’ll include below for those that missed. Next week’s writing prompt will work off of this homework, too. So you have a few more days to get involved. Yes, it’s some serious work and you’ll need to dedicate time to getting it done. Anything worth having is worth working towards, busting out of your comfort level and growing. So come join us as we Level Up!

The Writers Cafes are a great time to do your Level Up Workshop homework, so maybe go out this evening to Little Si Cafe beginning at 6 p.m. or The Black Dog on Friday morning at 9:30 a.m.

The homework is below my signature line, so take a look. In the meantime, here’s your moment of Writing Zen:

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.
– Ernest Hemingway


What did you Write today?
~Casz

Casondra Brewster
Moderator/Founder
Sno Valley Writes!
Helping Writers Reach New Literary Peaks Since 2008
http://www.snovalleywrites.org
Check us out on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/SnoValleyWrites

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Sno Valley Writes!

January 21, 2017

Workshop – Level Up Your Writing (Class I)

 

Beginning the DeConstruction Process – Reading Like A Writer

 

  1. Pick out a book that is in your “favorites” list. It should be a book by an author whose prose makes you want to Level Up Your Writing. You should own this book because you will be using it for your homework the entire year.

 

  1. Begin with the jacket copy. This is what enticed you to pick up the book in the first place. When you go beyond your emotional reaction to the copy and look at it with your analytical brain, notice what jumps out at you and what excited you about the story and the characters. Take a few moments and answer these questions:
  2. What enticed you to pick up this book?
  3. If the book was recommended, what appeals to you about the cover?
  4. What part of the book’s jacket copy appeals to you. Are there specific words that pull you in? What devices does the author employ to pull you in via the jacket?
  5. Before reading the book, what part of the story piqued your interest the most within what’s included in the text of the book jacket.

 

  1. Now think about your own writing. If you have a particular body of work, say a novel, or a collection of poems, or even writings on one non-fiction subject, how would you do the same?
  2. How would you model the book copy to draw in your audience?
  3. What would your  jacket copy say?
  4. What kind of devices — metaphors, repetition, etc. would you employ to hook your readers?

 

 

  1. Take a few moments and write a short piece as your homework book as the focal point. Two friends arguing over it, or someone just finds the book along a trail, at a bus stop, a book sale, a gift, what have you. What impact does that book have on them.

 

  1. Now take a few moments and write a short piece on how your work (novel, poems, etc.) has impact on someone in another unusual surrounding (the mailman just drops it in a stranger’s mailbox one day, a jilted lover leaves it in her ex’s apartment).

 

  1. Bring both of those short pieces to the next workshop on Feb. 18.