writing exercise 11/16

• Try to identify your earliest childhood memory. Write down everything you can remember about it. Rewrite it as a scene. You may choose to do this from your current perspective or from the perspective you had at that age.

• Remember an old argument you had with another person. Write about the argument from the point of view of the other person. Remember that the idea is to see the argument from their perspective, not your own. This is an exercise in voice, not in proving yourself right or wrong.

Choose one of the above and write everything you can. Then decide whether you want to turn it into an essay or a fictional story, based on the stylistic characteristics for each genre. Transform the piece from a memory into a dynamic piece of writing.