Finding a Writing Idea
Review!
You can develop a writing idea in various ways. You can keep “seeds,” or interesting items, in a journal; visualize images using all five senses; or check your “neighborhoods,” or areas of experience.
Examples:
1. Source: unusual event in your life
Seed: the time I saw an eclipse
Idea: a boy sees several stray cats on the street during an eclipse and takes a gentle one home
2. Source: something you know a lot about
Neighborhood: woodland ecosystems
Idea: in a year when spraying kills all the mosquitoes, the red-tailed hawks disappear from an area
3. Sensory Language Diagram
Sight Image: In the woods, a deer runs by very quickly.
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SIGHT
|
SOUND
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SMELL
|
|
deer running very fast
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wolf howling,
twigs snapping |
smoke |
4. Story Idea
As a boy walks in the woods, he is trapped by a forest fire that stands between him and his home. As night falls, he hears wolves howling nearby. He must spend the night in the woods. The next morning a helicopter search party finds him and airlifts him to safety.
5. Seed: A police car goes whizzing by with its siren blaring.
Idea: Men wearing cartoon animal masks rob a bank. They are caught when their car breaks down and a wily local farmer helps them fix it, then tricks them into capture.
6. Neighborhood: Your mom or dad wakes you up for school.
Idea: A mom dressed in a space suit wakes a boy. She tells him to get ready for a space trip. On a strange planet they have a picnic on blue sand and watch red cats play with a ball. The boy wakes from a dream to his mother telling him to get up for school.
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Writing