Skip to content
the grown-up commonsPlay togetherBack to room

← A Grown-Up's Writing Desk

A Grown-Up's Writing Desk

Four short lessons for your own writing, the same moves the apps teach: write it six times, keep a toast short and specific, write within a limit, and read it aloud to catch what the eye misses.

Spark & Whetstone · sparkwhetstone.org/learn/a-grown-ups-writing-desk · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Answers are at the end, so you can try each question first.

Lesson 1. Write it six times

Revision is not fixing commas. It is making the thing again. Write a short piece, put it down, and write it again from the start, keeping what worked.

Ask someone for one note that starts "I notice" or "I wonder", and let that note shape the next draft. Six short drafts teach more than one long one.

SixDrafts runs this with a child and a partner. It works for grown-ups writing a card, a speech or a letter.

Question. What makes the second draft a real revision?

  1. You wrote it again from scratch, keeping what worked.
  2. You went through it and fixed every spelling and comma.
  3. You made it longer, with more detail in every part.

Say it back. In your own words: what is the difference between revising and editing?

Lesson 2. A short, specific toast

A good toast is short and about one real moment. "Twelve years ago she taught me to change a tyre in the rain" is worth more than a page of "kind" and "wonderful".

Write it, read it aloud, and time it. Most good toasts fit in a minute. End by raising a glass to the person, by name.

The same move — one particular moment instead of praise words — makes any writing come alive.

Question. Which line belongs in a toast?

  1. She is the kindest, most generous person I have ever known.
  2. Last winter she drove two hours to bring me soup.
  3. Everyone here tonight loves her very, very much indeed.

Say it back. In your own words: why does one real moment beat a list of good words?

Lesson 3. Write within a limit

A limit helps. Tell a story in seven words. Describe your street in one sentence. A limit makes you choose, and choosing is most of writing.

Try it with a teenager: both write a seven-word story about the same picture, then read them aloud. Different choices from the same picture are the interesting part.

CastDojo uses the same idea for a teenager writing for a younger reader: the limit is the reader's age.

Question. Why does a seven-word limit help a writer?

  1. A short piece is much quicker to mark and to share.
  2. With fewer words, there are fewer spelling mistakes.
  3. It makes you choose what matters.

Say it back. In your own words: how does a limit help you write?

Lesson 4. The copyeditor's table

Your eye reads what you meant, not what you wrote. Reading aloud slows you down enough to hear a missing word, a repeated one, or a sentence that runs out of breath.

Edit in passes, one thing at a time: first the missing words, then the repeats, then the spelling. One pass for one thing catches more than one pass for everything.

Print it if you can. A page on a table looks different from a screen, and the change helps you see it fresh.

Question. You keep missing the same typo on screen. What helps most?

  1. Changing the font to a bigger size on the screen.
  2. Reading it aloud, or on paper.
  3. Reading it again faster, so you see the whole page.

Say it back. In your own words: why edit in passes, one thing at a time?

At the table: Seven words each

Players: two writers, one of them a teenager. You'll need: one picture, two slips of paper and two pencils.

  1. Look at the picture together for one minute.
  2. Each writes a story in exactly seven words.
  3. Read them aloud, one after the other.
  4. Say one word in the other's story you would not have chosen.

Answers

  1. You wrote it again from scratch, keeping what worked. — Revising is making it again. Spelling fixes are editing, and length is not the goal.
  2. Last winter she drove two hours to bring me soup. — The soup is a real moment that shows kindness without saying the word. The other two are praise anyone could say about anyone.
  3. It makes you choose what matters. — A tight limit means choosing, which is the heart of writing. Marking and spelling have nothing to do with it.
  4. Reading it aloud, or on paper. — Reading aloud slows you and makes you hear each word; paper makes the page look new. Speed works against you.