Invention Strategies

The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. 9th EditionChapter 11

(Axelrod & Cooper 2010)

What do you mean I have to invent stuff?

in·vent (verb)

4. (archaic) to come upon; find

3. to make up or fabricate (something fictitious or false): to invent excuses

2. to produce or create with the imagination: to invent a story

1. to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity, experimentation, or contrivance

Invention Strategies

Clustering

Listing

Outlining

Cubing

Dialoguing

Dramatizing

Journaling

Looping

Questioning

Quick Drafting

Clustering

Listing

Outlining

Cubing

DescribingComparingAssociatingAnalyzingApplyingArguing

Dialoguing

Dramatizing

Action: What?Motive: Why?

Setting: When & Where? Actor: Who?

Method: How?

JournalingLists of words and concepts

Responses to news and the world around you

Questions

Observations / Overheard conversations

Descriptions of places/people

Keeping a Log

Looping

Area of interest

Write for 10 minutes non-stop

Identify the focus

Summarize in one

sentence

Begin with this summaryWrite for 10 more minutes non-stop

Begin with this summaryWrite for 10

more minutes non-

stop

Identify the focus

Summarize in one

sentence

QuestioningWrite and Answer a list of Questions:

What is your subject?

What parts or features does your subject have?

How are those parts related?

How is your subject similar or different to other subjects?

How much can your subject change?

How much can your subject stay the same?

Where does your subject fit in the world?

“Authors with a mortgage never get

writer's block.”

- MAVIS CHEEK