We've started up a Creative Writing Club at Southern Virginia University, and we held this style of workshop today.
It worked beautifully.
Question for Orson Scott Card (if he's willing to answer): What, in your experience, are the best ways to guide a brainstorming session like this? Some of the more creative students gave way more input, but altogether it turned out pretty well. Is there a way to make it more effective?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
A decent exercise is to start with a situation and then ask each other, what happens next? Don't sit and think about it, just blurt out whatever comes to mind. You'll get a lot of laughs out of it and maybe even a few good ideas.
You can do the same thing with your characters. Start with the question of, "are we making a male or a female?" Then, what do they look like? What is their job? And so on. After about five minutes you'll have some interesting characters.