Speak Quiz; Non-Linked Story Project

Please answer the test question on the novel Speak. When you have completed your answer, please retire to the lab to continue writing your draft(s) for your chosen object.

Your object should be relevant or important in each story. While the plot does not have to be strictly about the object, the object should play an important part in the meaning, theme, or setting of the story.

Work on one of your 3 different NON-LINKED stories in the lab.

Each story should be entertaining--and different from the others. Drafts of your 3 random word stories will be due Jan. 16 (at the end of the lab). We will work on the stories in the lab Tuesday when we return from Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but you want to make good use of the time given to you in the lab.

ADVICE IF YOU GET STUCK:

• Get silly. Have fun with the object you have drawn. Think of unconventional or different ways you can use the object in your story. Creative writing is called creative for a reason!
• Skip the boring stuff. Remember that good stories entertain. Skip the boring parts where characters are just randomly wandering around from room to room. Boring!
• Change up the genre or style. If you're bored, change the genre of your second or third story.
• Change the narrative style. Try writing a different narrative style if you get stuck: write part of the story as a film script, a play, a memoir, a poem, a newspaper or magazine article, as an interview, a series of texts, or a school report. Tell the story backward (start with the ending instead of your assumed beginning), or choose more than one character to tell the story in a different voice. Write your story in a series of imagistic metaphors or in long rambling sentences. Or short choppy ones. Fragments. Lists. Write the story as an advice column or top 10 list. Get creative and comfortable with the way in which you tell your story. Surprise and entertain us.
• Change the narrative voice. Tell the story from an unusual or distinct voice--or keep your voice familiar by basing the voice of your narration on you and your inner mind. Either way works.
• Remember that the story can also be non-fiction as well as fiction.
• Skip ahead. If you don't know what comes next, move the story forward with what you DO know. You can always come back (or not). 
• Persevere. Push on. Don't wallow in your failure. Write the draft, then worry how bad it sucks--you can always improve your writing by revising and editing.

HOMEWORK: None. Honor Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. Feel free to review the link and try your own answer in your journal. Journals are due next Thursday, Jan. 18.