Every young writer is looking for an outlet. Some will choose to write stories. Others will try poetry. Some will even have a go at fanfiction, short stories, blogging, script writing or something else entirely. But each of them will have their own unique ideas and writing voice that they’re developing; you only need to look at the number of teens that publish their writing in online communities like Wattpad and Archive of Our Own to show that there are countless teenagers out there with overflowing imaginations and the urge to connect with others through the art of storytelling. Of course, online communities have their pitfalls as well as their benefits. So what about writing as a group, sitting together face to face with other like-minded aspiring writers? Trying out new writing styles, building friendships, sharing story ideas – sounds great, right? But what sort of writing activities work best for getting teens to write together in a group? If you know some friends that love writing and you want to try it together with them, here are three ideas to get you started. Thinking on your feet Prompts drawn at random from a hat are a surefire way to generate great ideas for one key reason; they give writers direction. Every writer out there knows the horrible feeling of staring at a blank piece of paper with no idea what to write. Prompts from a hat avoid that problem by providing a rough outline, but simultaneously the freedom to explore it in your own way and tell a story unique to you. Random prompts also encourage writers to adapt quickly and put aside any preconceived notions they have about the topic, with the random selection having the potential to lead into some fantastic discussions with other group members as everyone shares their prompt and their initial ideas. For example, if you were doing a creative writing group session on dystopian stories, you could come up with a series of prompts for everyone to draw that focus on an element of society that the dystopia is centred around (eg one prompt could be something along the lines of, ‘Society becomes obsessed with physical appearance – plastic surgery is seen as not just normal but a necessity to ‘fix’ people, with even the slightest physical blemish or deformity looked down on as being horrifying and disgusting…’ whilst another could be something like, ‘Conformity is so deeply engrained into the social norm that everyone acts almost identical and follows a strict regime – even wearing bright colours is enough to make you an outcast in your community…’). The prompts don’t need to be long – a sentence opener, a title, even a collection of random words will do fine – but whatever writing style or genre you’re focusing on they can plant the seeds perfectly for young writers to flourish. Writing and Gaming – when worlds collide… Ever heard of a concept called ‘gamification’? It sounds complicated, but basically it means applying typical elements of games (eg point scoring and rules of play) to other activities. It’s an idea that fits perfectly with writing activities – rather than just getting everyone in a group to sit quietly and write to the same theme or prompt, get them to engage through roleplaying and similar styles of performance based games. Fantasy is a genre that is perfect for gamification – imagine that everyone in the group was all given the same task of writing about a magical quest, but each had to write about a different path? For instance, say your quest was to collect ingredients for a potion – each person in the group could write about collecting a different ingredient and have a different magical spell or weapon to help them on their quest. It’s like Dungeons and Dragons come to life! Making it silly? Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it… Making a writing task deliberately silly and nonsensical might sound counter-productive, but there’s method to the madness. For a start, it’s a great way to make the writing activity interactive – laughter is a great method to break down those barriers of social awkwardness, shyness, uncertainty and so on to get everyone in the group feeling easygoing and friendly. And it can help with the actual writing too. For example, a horror writing session could focus on having everyone come up with a silly title to a cheesy, low-budget horror movie – inevitably everyone would come up with corny, laugh out loud titles like ‘Curse of the Evil Lawnmower’ or ‘Attack of the Undead Pandas’! When everyone comes up with their title, they would then have to share it with the person next to them, who would be tasked with writing a horror story based on their ridiculous title. But even though the title would be silly, the regular ‘rules’ of horror, such as building suspense and creating frightening scenarios would still be in play – just think of all the creative ways in which lawnmowers or pandas could be written to make them genuinely creepy or threatening! Those are just a handful of ideas on how to make writing in a group both entertaining and inspirational. Got any suggestions of your own? Get in touch to share your ideas. Find out more about Igniting Writing here. Plus, check them out on social media: Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Teaching Children
Writing Activity: working with dialogue
The most remarkable part of Lena’s story as a demonstration of the power of dialogue is the last quarter, where four characters respond to a traumatic event. This section, beginning with the “No!” spoken by the narrator and continuing to the end, depends heavily on dialogue. It could almost be a play. Notice that, although the lines spoken by Sandy, Carrie, Mom, the narrator, and Mrs. Hall are often very short, we get a clear sense of how each character differs from the others and how they relate to each other as family, friends, and neighbors. This is accomplished through the narrative that accompanies the dialogue.
Juvenilia: an introduction via Jane Austen, the Brontës and others
Juvenilia is the name given to creative work produced by recognized authors and artists when they were children and young adults. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was a fruitful time for juvenilia, especially that of writers. Jane Austen, the Brontë family, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, amongst others, among others, wrote extensively when they were young. Many of their manuscripts have survived, and a few are available on the Internet. The childhood and adolescent creative work of authors who became famous provides interesting comparison with the work of children and students we know in our lives. As editors of Stone Soup we have published extraordinary work by young writers, work that compares favorably with the best juvenilia. What makes writers, though, is not what they write as children and teenagers, but that they keep on telling stories throughout their lives. The juvenilia you will find on the Internet, in your local libraries and in the creative work publish in the pages of Stone Soup will provide entertainment for yourself, for your children, and for your students. And remember, after getting lost in the world of Jane Austen and the Brontë family, come back to us for the latest and most wonderful work by young people, being written today! To get you started on your journey through juvenilia, we have pulled together some links for you below. If you are interested in the original manuscripts, many of them tiny, handmade and handwritten books belonging to the authors, the British Library web pages have some excellent images and short articles of and about them. Jane Austen (1775-1817) Love and Freindship [sic], circa 1786, age 11 (see also our post on the 2016 movie by Whit Stillman with the same name, but actually based on a later novel, Lady Susan) Frederick and Elfrida, circa 1788, age 12-14 The Three Sisters, circa 1790, age 15-16 You can read more about Jane Austen’s juvenilia, and see images of some of her original hand-written notebooks, at the British Library website. Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), Emily Brontë (1818-1848), Ann Brontë (1820-1849), (and Bramwell Brontë, 1817-1848) The young sisters and their brother created entire imaginary worlds–such as Emily’s Gondal and Bramwell’s Angria– which they wrote about prolifically in their youth, and produced tiny handwritten newspapers and magazines for themselves. The Brontë Sisters Web by Mitsuharu Matsuoka More links from Great Britain about the Brontës There are notes about and images of the Brontës’ notebooks, and an interesting video of a discussion about the Brontës’ juvenilia (in which experts handle the tiny original materials), at the British Library website. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Poems written around 1843, age 14-15
