Interactive writing provides cues
to increase the potential
of your words.
Group writing exercises employ a sense of interactive writing. You must work with other people to pen a story or other piece of work, and work together to make it read satisfactorily to all involved. Interactive writing activities do not just have to be about groups, though. The interaction does not have to solely be with people, but it can be with books, magazines, objects, or anything else at all. Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book Every day of our lives, we come into contact with countless people, items, places, etc. Many of these we take for granted, and that is because, in today's world, we are so rushed and so pushed to the limit much of the time, that life is passing us by quite rapidly. We must take the time to practice patience and find a place for it in our lives so that we can use all of these people, items, and places and find meaning within them for use in our writing endeavors. All types of genre-based writing, from mystery writing to writing historical romances, creative nonfiction, interviews, and so on, are based off of moments. Whether the moments that occur in these types of genre writing have happened to the authors in real life is debatable, but no matter whether they occurred or not, the author must be adept at portraying the ideas to his or her readers through interaction. We, the readers, must feel at one with the story. We must feel connected and we must, beyond a shadow of a doubt, have a stake in what the author is professing through his or her words. If we fail to be hooked by the storyline, then the interaction is not working appropriately.
When doing interactive writing, be sure you are pulling at the heartstrings of readers. Emotional writing has a powerful impact on readers as well, as they might not only feel sorrow or compassion for a character, but instead they may feel fear or a sense of accomplishment when someone does something in the story that elicits either of those emotions. Half of the fun of reading a book is feeling like you're in it. You're a wizard alongside Harry Potter or the consigliere to the Godfather, or a nurse attending to the wounded in one of Hemingway's great works. You may never have the chance to be any of these things in real life, so living them out vicariously through the characters that make them so real, so vivid, so exciting, can be fun and exhilarating! You feel like you're there with them, or even that you are them. That is what makes for the greatest form of interaction that there is in writing.
You may want to write your own adventure, which can incorporate a form of interactive writing, as through your writing, you give your readers choices of which way they want the story to go, and then you elaborate on each choice through continued writing of that particular storyline. You also might want to try reading only so much of a story - maybe a page or two - and writing down where you would go with it next before looking to see where the author chose to go. You may come up with something totally different and unique, and that will be the beginning of a wonderful plot for you to continue with as you pursue your writing. Interactive writing activities are there for you to experiment with on your writing journey. It is often said to not let something get the best of you. In this case, however, I implore you to let these writing activities get the best of you. Pour out the best and even the worst of what you want to share, and you will find that there is most likely a place for the majority of it in your writing. What you think is the worst idea may prove to be fruitful in some other way. Don't hesitate to let your writing get the best of you. You must aim for the best in order to achieve your writing goals!
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