Looking to jump-start your writing? On this page, you will find some suggestions and prompts, grouped in broad categories, to help you get going.

A Few Exercises Focusing On Revision

Suggestions for Writing Based on Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

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You know you’re “supposed to” revise, but where to start? Revising is really a comprehensive process of coming back to work that has been drafted, and seeing it with new eyes. Many people make the automatic assumption that this will be a bad experience. The good news is that most, if not even all, of the time, it isn’t at all—or at least it doesn’t have to be. Most people are pleasantly surprised to find things they like, or that even surprise them, when they re-read something they wrote. Revision does not have to be seen as a chore, or as the kind of changing a word here or there or cleaning up typos that may have passed for revision at school. Rather, it is an opportunity to visit and sit with your ideas again. Approached in this spirit, revision can include some of the same excitement of discovery that accompanies newly-generated work.

Feeling the desire to revise a piece of writing but don’t know where to begin? Have the nagging feeling there’s something more you could do but you’re not sure what? Here are a few suggestions to try that might help to get you started:

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Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio is proud to be a partner of One Book, One Philadelphia, a collaborative initiative of the Office of Mayor John F. Street and the Free Library of Philadelphia that seeks to promote reading, literary and community by encouraging residents of the greater Philadelphia area to read and discuss a single book.

The book selected for 2005 is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a collection of interrelated short pieces based on the author's experience in the Vietnam War. As much of the book is concerned with the art and power of storytelling, and the sometimes porous boundaries between truth and fiction, it is highly recommended reading for those who seek to write.

In the story "Notes" from the book, O'Brien writes, "By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened . . . and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain."

Below are some prompts and suggestions to get your own stories started, based on some of the themes raised and stories told in the book. They can be used as a way of writing about things that may have happened to you, or that you may have witnessed or heard about, or that you have imagined, or a combination of both. I have used the phrases "from memory, imagination, or both" and "you, or a character whom you might want to write about" as a means of encouraging the widest possible response. Remember too that your response might take the form of poetry or drama as well as of prose.

• O'Brien titles the opening piece and the book itself The Things They Carried, using the literal objects the characters carry with them to launch his story. Think of someone you know (or can imagine) very well. What objects does or did she or he habitually carry, perhaps in a pocket, briefcase, wallet or purse? What do these objects reveal about the person? Do any stories emerge from them?
  
  
• There are many types of wars, battles, battlefields. Imagine yourself as a soldier in one such, and write a letter home.
  
  
• In "The Things They Carried," Jimmy Cross carries photograph of Martha, the woman he loves. From memory, your imagination or both, call up one photograph or snapshot of someone important to you. It may be someone who is in your life now, or someone who is no longer in your life. It may be a good idea to take the first one that comes to mind. When you have the picture, begin writing with these words, "In this one, you are . . ." so you are writing to the person in the picture.
  
  
• In "The Things They Carried, "O'Brien writes that the men "were too frightened to be cowards." Later on in the book, in "The Lives of the Dead," the character Tim says to Kiowa, "'It wasn't guts. I was scared'" and Kiowa responds, "'Same difference.'" From memory, imagination or both, write about something you, or a character whom you might want to write about, have done that has greatly frightened you or your character, but you or your character felt more frightened not to do.
  
  
• In "Spin," O'Brien writes, "the war was nakedly and aggressively boring. But it was a strange boredom. It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders." From memory, imagination or both, write about the boredom you, or a character whom you wish to write about, have experienced.
  
  
• In "Spin," O'Brien writes, "You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. . . . As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories." What do you think may be your "material"? What stories obsess you?
  
  
• Many of the stories in The Things They Carried are concerned with moments of bravery and cowardice. Sometimes it is suggested that what may seem like bravery is actually cowardice, and what might seem like cowardice actually bravery. In "Speaking of Courage," O'Brien writes "Sometimes . . . the difference between courage and cowardice was something small and stupid." From memory, imagination or both, write about a time of bravery, or cowardice, or both, in your life or the life of a character whom you wish to write about.
  
  
• In "On the Rainy River" O'Brien describes working the summer after college in a meat-packing plant. From memory, imagination or both, write about a job you, or a character whom you wish to write about, had for a short time, perhaps during a summer or some other transitional time in your life or the life of your character.
  
  
• In "On the Rainy River," O'Brien writes that Elroy Berdahl of the Tip Top Lodge "offered exactly what I needed, without questions, without any words at all. He took me in, he was there at a critical time—a silent, watchful presence." From memory, imagination or both, write about someone who has played such a role in your life, or in the life of a character whom you wish to write about. Or about someone whom you or your character might wish had played such a role.
  
  
• In "On the Rainy River," the power of embarrassment is painted very strongly. Write from memory, imagination or both about a time that you, or a character whom you wish to write about, did something or did not do something out of fear of embarrassment. Or a time that you or your character did something, or did not do something, despite the risk of embarrassment.
  
  
• In "Enemies and Friends," O'Brien tells the story of the relationship of Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen. From memory, imagination or both, write about someone who has been both friend and enemy in your life, or in the life of a character whom you wish to write about.
  
  
• O'Brien writes in "How to Tell a True War Story," that in a true war story "it is difficult to separate what happens from what seemed to happen." From memory, imagination or both, write about a time that you, or a character whom you wish to write about, experienced this to be the case.
  
  
• Tell a story that "makes the stomach believe."
  
  
• From memory, imagination or both, tell the story of the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you, or to a character whom you would like to write about.
  
  
• Tell "a true story that never happened."
  
  
• Superstitions are important to the men in The Things They Carried. Write from memory, imagination, or both about a superstition you, or a character you wish to write about, hold or have held, or about the strangest superstition you've heard of.
  
  
• In "Church," Henry Dobbins confesses to Kiowa that he has never liked church but has thought about becoming a minister. And Kiowa responds that he’s never thought of being a minister, but does like churches. From memory, imagination or both, write about a spiritual moment or feeling you, or a character whom you wish to write about, have experienced.
  
  
• In many places in The Things They Carried, O'Brien writes about the reluctance of those at home to hear the stories soldiers bring home with them. Do you, or a character whom you wish to write about, have stories that are alive and important to you that you know, or fear, that others do not want to hear?
  
  
• In "How to Tell a True War Story," O’Brien writes, “you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” He also writes, later on in that same story, "It wasn't a war story. It was a love story." How do you tell a true love story? How do you tell it from a true war story?
  
  
• In "Good Form," O’Brien's daughter, Kathleen, asks, "Daddy, tell the truth . . . did you ever kill anybody?" From memory, imagination or both, write about answering, or trying to answer, a question from a child that you, or a character whom you wish to write about, find uncomfortable or challenging.
  
  
• "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is a story Rat Kiley tells of a solider's girlfriend who joins him in war, becomes seduced by Vietnam and ultimately passes into a kind of legend. Is there a story that you, or a character whom you want to write about, and your or your character's friends or co-workers tell each other that has become a kind of legend?
  
  
• In "Spin,"O'Brien writes that "the war wasn't all terror and violence." From memory, imagination or both, write about moment of reprieve or peace that you, or a character whom you want to write about, might have encountered during times of violence or unpleasantness, or about moments of fear, disquiet or ugliness that you or your character might have encountered during times of relative contentment and peace.
  
  
• Write a story about someone who is dead, that brings that person to life.
  
  
• In "The Ghost Soldiers," O'Brien writes "When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world." From memory, imagination or both, write about a time you, or a character you want to write about, were intensely, profoundly afraid.
  
  
• In "Enemies," "Friends" and "The Ghost Soldiers," revenge, getting back at someone, is a theme. From memory, imagination or both, write about a time you, or a character you want to write about, wanted to or tried to or succeeded in getting back at someone for a perceived injury or slight. Or write about a time that someone wanted to or tried to or succeeded at getting back at you or your character.
  
  
• Many stories in The Things They Carried are repeated, told several times in several different ways. Choose a story from your experience or imagination (or both), and tell it more than once, in different ways.
  
  
• In The Things They Carried, O'Brien gives many examples of the ways in which the characters use humor to cope. In "The Lives of the Dead," he writes, "By slighting death, by acting, we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was." From memory, imagination or both, write about a time you or a character that you want to write about used or witnessing the use of humor.
  
  
• In "On the Rainy River," O'Brien writes about being pulled between two agonizing choices. From memory, imagination or both, write about a decision you or a character you want to write about made that has affected the course of your or your character's life.