Write Up Your Alley: Writing Workshop, Lesson 1

Lesson 1: Introduction

"Write Up Your Alley" is adapted from a set of handouts used in my writing workshops geared mostly towards young and beginning writers. It is an 8-week, 8-lesson series, but since it is all now posted on this blog, you can follow at whatever pace you feel comfortable. Remember, it's still recommended to take some time between lessons to write and practice before starting a new lesson.

With all that being said, let's start off with a writing prompt to warm you up. Take a few minutes and write as little or as much as you would like to adequately address it:

A major storm has passed through a small town. Write a paragraph describing the damage.



Now that you've written a little bit and gotten your feet wet, choose what you think is your most descriptive sentence from your passage and highlight it or underline it. Here's a sample sentence from another student:

"The ground was damp, wet, and covered in pieces of broken glass from all the broken windows, so if you didn't watch your step, you'd probably lose a toe."

This sentence is off to a good start, because it paints a picture of the scene for the reader. Now the question is, what tools does this sentence use to paint that picture? Here are some examples.

• Adjectives: Words like "damp", "wet", and "broken" are adjectives, which are words that describe a quality or quantity of something. These are the most basic tools in a writer's toolbox when it comes to writing descriptions. You'll learn in a later lesson that there are many other tools.
• Tone: The tone of the piece is very casual, and it is almost humorous, the way the writer decides say of the broken glass, "...if you didn't watch your step, you'd probably lose a toe." Later on, we'll also cover that tone and word choice play a big part in your description. Depending on the emotions you want a reader to feel, instead of broken, maybe you'll use "shattered", "smashed", or "crushed".

See if you can find some of the tools that you use in your own sentence. Make sure you hold onto the passage that you have written, because this is your starting point. Leave it the way it is when you first wrote it.

Between now and the next lesson, try to create a list of the tools you use throughout the passage you wrote. Do you use a lot of adjectives and adverbs? Did you create backstory? Did you use simile and metaphor? Do you use a first-person or a third-person perspective? If you don't know what all of these things are, that's okay! Just do your best. Start to build awareness of the quality of your writing, and what makes you unique as a writer.