During my senior year at NJCU, I took a course titled "Workshop: Writing the Memoir." Interested in non-fiction writing, I signed up for the course. Needless to say, I learned a lot from it and enjoyed myself immensely. One of the things, however, that I took from the class that is still with me, is the 100 word group.
100 groups are made up of seven people--one for each day of the week. Each day, someone writes 100 words based on a word, phrase, or idea present in the previous day's 100 words. The 100 words can be in the form of poetry or prose. Doesn't matter.
I find this activity helpful because it generates writing activity on a set schedule. Although you should be writing everyday, you probably don't. This ensures that at least one day a week, you're writing.
I am part of a 100 word group. I don't generate useful material a lot, but sometimes I do surprise myself. So get six friends together and start a 100 word group!
This is really interesting. I saw someone else do something like this, except, it used a single comic book page to progress the narrative, and was open-ended.
ReplyDeleteThe open-ended-ness probably led to its failure.
Well, activities like these are for practice only. I don't think it's very good for coming up with a large project. In the 100 word group, the narratives aren't continuous. I could post one thing, and the next day someone will post something entirely different. The only similarity has to be at least one word, theme, or idea. Given all the choices in 100 words, it's not likely to come out similar.
ReplyDeleteYou should post that activity on the blog btw.
Maybe when the semester is over. Too much going on right now.
ReplyDelete