Be yourself
Write just 500 words to help you discover your inner writer. Author and lecturer James McCreet introduces a practical exercise and considers why it works
As part of my MA Novel course, I often ask the students to do a short writing exercise that always has interesting results. It’s quite simple. All they have to do is write 500 words about a book from the wider-reading list, explaining why they love it as a piece of writing.
I am clear on one very important point: this shouldn’t be a review. I don’t want to read a summary of the story. I don’t want to enter into value judgements or star ratings. The piece is intended for an audience of one – me – and has no other purpose than to show me how the reader has engaged with the book as a piece of writing. I don’t want to know about the author or the book’s history or the reputation of the title. I just want to know how the reader felt and why. No mark is given. It counts not a jot towards the final degree.
I first gave this exercise to check that my students were in fact reading some of the books on the wider-reading list (some don’t!) and to gauge the level of their reading engagement. Such things help me to understand the class and set a teaching level. But the results surprised me and probably taught me more than it taught the students.
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