Step 4: 

Free Write

Expected Time: 15 minutes


With a clear theme in hand, the next step is to free write. Just like the morning exercise you did earlier, you are going to relax and use all of your senses to accurately capture the events that apply to your theme.

There will be plenty of time to compose beautiful sentences later. Right now, just focus on getting as many details down as possible. What’s important is that you really focus on the “What Happened?” part of your theme and write down as many details as possible about your story. Think about: Who’s in your story? What’s the setting? Why were you there? What led up to this situation? What did you see, taste, smell, hear, feel, etc? Add as many specific details as possible. Plan to free-write for at least ten minutes. This isn’t formal writing so don’t think about creating an outline or a thesis statement. You can write in notes, incomplete sentences, fragments, etc. Just get all your juicy details down!

Next Steps: Go to the Essay Folder in CounselMore. Open Step 4: Free Write to complete this activity. When finished, check the “Done” assignment box in CounselMore and wait for my feedback.