Denver Botanic Gardens (picture by Anne Mazer)

We’ve been doing a lot of writing workshops for kids this summer. When we give a writing exercise – an “I Dare You”- we try to make it as much fun as possible. Here’s one that we often use  (with variations), which Ellen Potter created for our Spilling Ink website:  “Write a scene in which your character opens a forbidden closet door.”

Every time I hear this, my fingers start to quiver, and my eyes dart around in search of the nearest pen and paper or computer keyboard. It’s instructive to watch the kids’ responses. Some of them have a similar reaction to mine. Their eyes light up, and they lean over their notebooks, writing as if someone is chasing their pen across the paper. Others think for a while before writing; still others consult with their friends. And some raise their hands with questions about the assignment:

“Can it be a bedroom door?”

“Yes.”

“Can it be a front door?”

“Yes.”

“Can I put a ghost in it?”

“Yes.”

“Can it be set in another universe?”

“Yes.”

“Is it okay if I don’t name my characters?”

“Yes.”

“My ideas are all messed up in my head. Can I write them that way?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have any ideas about closet doors. Can I work on my own story instead?”

“Yes.”

After giving several workshops in a row, I realized that every single question they asked us was actually the same one: “Is it okay to write the story my way?” They were looking to Ellen and me, as the story authorities (so to speak), to give them permission to follow their instincts. Since the purpose of our writing workshops is to, well, um… write, we wanted to encourage anything that would help them dive deeper into their stories. And dive they did. Kids are natural storytellers. Ellen and I were astonished at the pieces they read, which were alive with humor, suspense, snappy dialogue and vivid characters.  

Writing teachers often talk about “getting out of your own way.” I’ve never quite understood this concept: does it mean that YOU are the problem? But learning to write is all about finding out who you are. How can you do that if you’re always getting out of the way? (Yes, that’s a future blog post rant.) On the other hand, getting out of the way of young writers makes perfect sense to me. As their workshop leader or writing teacher, I want to clear all the obstacles, false ideas, worries, fears, and misconceptions about writing from their heads, so they can feel free to explore, wander, experiment, and discover. Who cares if they alter our writing prompts beyond recognition or ignore them altogether? The point is to write, not to write it our way. So we tell them not to worry. They can narrate the story any way they want. “Just write,” we tell them over and over.