This article posting is the chapter two title page and the first section of chapter two, "Focus on a Theme", for the "Creative Writing Laboratory" book. To print it, I'd suggest waiting till the entire book is completed, at which time it will be available via Suite101.
I will continue posting the chapters and their sections as they're finalized. The end result will be rather large, but the interest shown in this book has already made the work very well worth it!
Please enjoy, and don't hesitate to offer your comments and suggestions!
Teachers Using Technology
Editor, Phebe A. Durand
The Creative Writer’s Laboratory Book: Chapter Two
Warm-Up and Pre-Writing
Artwork contained in this book are copyrighted to Bob Kelly.
Focus on a Theme
Start with a Topic...
When we first started this book, we began with ways to just get started writing. One of the ways we decided would work is to discover a topic to write on.
Before you can start writing, you need to know what you're going to write about. The thing you want to write about is your topic. In school, the topic is often given to you. Other times, your purpose for writing gives you a topic. For example, when you need to write a note to your child's teacher about the child missing school, your topic is already decided. You are writing about your child missing school - that is your topic.
Creative writing is a whole different bucket of worms. When we write creatively, we're very rarely given a topic to write about. Once in a while, we're given a sort of "theme" to work with. For example, if I wanted to write a poem for someone else's magazine, I would read their guidelines. In the guidelines is this sentence, "Original essays, poems, and short stories are currently being accepted for a high-quality book of photographs and writings that will explore inner beauty of women."
Crazy as it may seem, I already have my starting point. From the end of the sentence, I can see that the theme this book is after "explores" the inner beauty of women. So, my topic is "the inner beauty of women". From there, all I have to do is decide what I have to say about the inner beauty
