As this Saturday draws closer, I can’t help but get excited for the next creative writing class I’ll be teaching. While the first session covered basics like the different forms of creative writing, genres and subgenres, how to stay inspired, and character building, the second session will go into more detail about the actual writing process.

I will be walking the teens through the plot and story development process, and how to work all their ideas into a constructive plot outline. The challenge for me is to whittle the vast amount of writing knowledge out there in the world down to a three hour session! The best I can do is hit the highlights enough to give them a jump start on a great novel plot. After that, I will touch on the importance of point of view, reviewing examples of first person and third person writing. Then, using the characters they created during session one, they will practice writing dialogue.

What these teen girls are really excited about, though, is the final stage of the second session: using their outlines and characters to begin writing a brand new story. As I mentioned in my last post, not one of the teens (ages 12-18 yrs.) looked at their phone during session one. These girls are so excited about writing, they went a solid three hours without checking their phones! My hope is that I can help foster their continued enthusiasm for writing during session two.