Most of the students at Meikai University who take my writing class have never attempted to write a fictitious story in their native Japanese, never mind in English.
One writing activity that has been successful in my native country of Scotland and in Japan, at both undergraduate and master’s levels, is collaborative genre fiction writing. The collaborative part takes the pressure off of the individual in a new class, and from this activity students become more comfortable expressing their ideas on paper and with their peers.
In the first writing class, at the start of a semester, the students are divided into groups of three and given simple instructions: write one sentence and pass the paper. So, the first student writes a sentence to begin the story and passes it to a partner, who continues the story in any direction and passes it on to the third student, who again writes whatever comes to mind. This loop continues until they have filled the page or the allotted time for the activity has elapsed. Ten to fifteen minutes is usually ample time to complete the task.
Another option is to follow the same format but give them a choice of three starter sentences, each positioned in a slightly different genre. For example:
- Azusa watched as the dragons landed on the beach. (Fantasy)
- Billy found a time machine under his bed. (Science Fiction)
- On her 80th birthday, Misty decided to rob a bank. (Crime)
In both instances, the students are told not to think too much about structure or forming a coherent story—the exercise is simply for them to try out ideas and see what comes out. What is exciting about these kinds of collaborative writing activities is that they are unpredictable; the stories can go in any direction, even running into a different genre entirely from where they started.
When their stories are complete, they read them out to the other groups in the class and answer questions about what they wrote. Each student reads their own lines so that everyone is involved. There is no critiquing from the other students—only questions about the story, which works well for getting them to think about things they might never have considered.
Later in the semester, when the focus is on editing, I return their collaborative stories. They then individually revise the story to fit the conventions of their favorite genre and develop it into a slightly longer piece of fiction. This stage also lets them see how far they have progressed from the first class.
No matter how experienced students are with writing fiction, they can gain something from this exercise, from generating details to considering genre labels to learning from their fellow students.
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John Gerard Fagan is a Scottish writer and an assistant professor of English who has worked at Meikai University, Heriot-Watt University, and the University of Edinburgh. He writes in both English and Scots. His debut novel, Fish Town, was published by Guts Publishing in 2021.