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    Learning Creative Writing
    Learning Creative Writing
    Learning Creative Writing
    Ebook140 pages1 hour

    Learning Creative Writing

    By Valerie Hockert, PhD

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    About this ebook

    Eliminate writers’ block and creatively express one’s thoughts through creative writing

    Do you need some great writing exercises to get your creative juices flowing? Then this book is for you, as it is very complete and is designed to be learned over 16 weeks. It can, of course, be learned in a smaller timeframe, by combining some of the lessons into one week.

    The book includes many creative writing exercises to get the creative juices flowing, and is a more understandable and comprehensible textbook than those of its competitors. Various types of paragraph development and stories to rewrite are all designed to get your creative juices flowing, and have proved to be quite beneficial to writers of various writing levels.

    NOTE that this can be used as the Student Edition to Teaching Creative Writing, or can be used as an independent learning book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJustice Gray
    Release dateFeb 28, 2016
    ISBN9781311478399
    Learning Creative Writing
    Author

    Valerie Hockert, PhD

    Valerie Hockert, was born in the Midwest where she has lived all her adult life. She has had much life experience through her various entrepreneurial life. She has a Master's Degree in Liberal Studies, and a PhD in Literary Studies. Dr. Hockert has been teaching at a college level for many years. She was the first publisher of the Writers' Journal and Today's Family, two national publications. She is also a certified personal trainer, great chef, and the Publisher of an e-magazine: www.realitytodayforum.com.

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      Book preview

      Learning Creative Writing - Valerie Hockert, PhD

      Learning Creative Writing

      Plus an Abundance of Writing Ideas

      by

      Valerie Hockert, PhD

      Valerie Hockert

      realitytodayforum@gmail.com

      Copyright: © 2015 by Reality Today Forum, Inc. All rights reserved

      No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of author.

      About the Author

      Valerie Hockert, PhD has written over 50 published books, over 150 articles, and has worked as a publisher and editor. She is also is a college professor, teaching English, composition, writing, journalism, literature, and humanities.

      Introduction

      I realize that many of you are interested in writing, but don't know how to get started or how to get your creative juices flowing. While teaching creative writing courses in a local college, I experimented with various methods and obtained some interesting results. I designed the class to help the student get his/her creative juices flowing.

      I presented to the students many sources for ideas, exercises to get them started, rewriting exercises, and how to avoid writer’s block. I designed various creative writing exercises, including different types of paragraph development, and stories to rewrite, all designed to get their creative juices flowing.

      The members of the classes I taught represented various age levels--from 18 to 60--and were of various writing levels. Since this was the case, I found that the exercises I used (included in this book) had various results, but nevertheless were beneficial to most students.

      This book is designed to cover a 16-week course plan, although the instructor might combine lessons to fit a shorter time frame.

      Table of Contents

      About the Author

      Introduction

      Lesson One: Basic Exercises

      Lesson Two: Where and How to Get Ideas

      Lesson Three: Getting Many Writing Ideas from One Trip

      Lesson Four: Writing Stories from Dreams

      Lesson Five: Producing Ideas through Questions

      Lesson Six: Various Ways of Developing a Paragraph

      Lesson Seven: Rewriting a Story

      Lesson Eight: Story Rewrite

      Lesson Nine: Making Your Writing Stand Out From the Crowd

      Lesson Ten: Proper Formatting & Redundancy

      Lesson Eleven: Avoiding Common Errors

      Lesson Twelve: Using Starter Sentences

      Lesson Thirteen: Good Writing

      Lesson Fourteen: Creative Writing Exercises

      Lesson Fifteen: More Writing Exercises

      Lesson Sixteen: Current Events

      365 Writing Ideas

      Conclusion

      Lesson One

      Basic Exercises

      First Basic Exercise: Choose a chair in the room to write about. Use your imagination and write about anything connected with the chair. For example: how it got there, the chair as an antique, or the chair as a childhood favorite. Write a paragraph of at least five sentences; giving yourself 15 minutes to complete the assignment.

      Second Basic Exercise: Write a paragraph describing where you'd like to live happily ever after. For example: someplace where the weather is nice, a favorite vacation spot, at home, or even in outer space. Read it aloud.

      Lesson Two

      Where and How to Get Ideas

      Where and how to get ideas is important for a writer's success, because without new and interesting ideas, it's difficult to spark a reader’s interest.

      Here are some places to look for fresh ideas:

      Yourself. A special job, a unique personal experience you've had, special interests, hobbies or places you've been, are all good sources for ideas.

      Other People. Their special skills, hobbies, how problems can be solved, or an outstanding achievement, can be great topics to write on.

      Family. Your family may be a great source for ideas. Many of you may have families that you could write soap operas on. Articles on alternative lifestyles, coping with additions, young people’s sense of entitlement, teaching children to be independent, blended families, suicide within the family--these are all great topics to write on.

      TV. Soap operas, series shows, and sitcoms are a great source for ideas and characterizations. Just watching one episode can help; shows such as: Dallas, Mike & Molly, The Big Bang Theory. You can learn what subjects are of great social concern, and how people really do handle these difficult situations, as well as actual related dialogue.

      Movies. Movies can be a great source, too. Even though many movies are fiction, watching movies can give one ideas that can help portray a fantasy world.

      Work. Many people have work situations, or work with people who have great accomplishments and successes, or work with very unusual people. These people can also be great sources for stories, articles, and books.

      Newspapers. There are many ideas that can surface by reading news stories. A follow-up could be written, or perhaps you could present the other side of the issue.

      Many times when reading through a newspaper, you may think that the writer or reporter didn't say anything about___________. You could probably present that side of the issue. You could also write follow-ups to many stories. For example: a house fire. We always hear about the fire, but what happens to the occupants six months later? How do they piece their lives back together? A follow-up could be written on that, and would be a great human interest story.

      There have been stories in the news where someone was shot, claiming it was self-defense, and have created quite a debatable opinion. These various opinions could be explored with examples to support them.

      Magazines. After reading an article, you may want to write a different viewpoint on the topic. Or write about the topic with a different slant for another market. When you read various articles, you may think that the article could be presented in a different way. You could write that.

      Just reading through other magazines of course, can give one ideas for other writing.

      Advertisements. Signs, billboards, television, radio, and printed ads may inspire an idea for a story. Perhaps the background of the business or item being advertised could be a good story.

      Signs. Check out those flashing signs with the flashing message that you see at shopping centers or banks. The ones at banks are of particular interest because many times they advertise interest rates for a loan or a money market, yet the message flashes by so fast that one is almost off the road turning one's neck to read the message. These messages seem to flash at a third-grade reading level. Yet, who with only a third-grade reading level would be interested in what interest rates one can get on the money market? This could make for an interesting piece, first doing some research to discover what speed these messages actually flash at, and then how the speed is determined. Another perspective could be from an advertising standpoint—are these signs a waste of money?

      Billboards. These can inspire ideas for different pieces of writing. You could write from an artistic viewpoint, a grammatical viewpoint, or any other viewpoint that you choose. An example is that there seems to be a trend to the two-color billboard from the multi-color one. An essay could be written from an artistic standpoint. Then there were the Kemps cows: remember all the different types of cows? That could inspire an idea for a children's story! Then there are billboards that don't make any sense (like one that says a revolutionary event is about to happen! What event?). Billboards with misspellings!--now there's an idea from a grammatical viewpoint. If you travel to Florida or southern Texas, you may see many billboards with misspelled words.

      Television Ad. Remember the Blue Cross ad with the man who was dancing and the slogan was move that body? There were some follow-up stories on that commercial and what was behind it. (If you remember, it gave the man in the commercial some publicity). You could select a particular commercial and write what's behind it. (You could begin with: my favorite commercial is ____________________).

      NOTE: There are a lot of interesting commercials--like those on the newest anti-wrinkle creams. What makes the viewer go out and purchase the product? What drives a consumer to purchase any product?

      Radio.

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