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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Anne's second suggestion about writing dialogue?
(a) Your characters should always speak in dialect.
(b) Your characters should be identifiable by what they say.
(c) Your characters should never speak in dialect.
(d) Dialogue is not a needed break from all the writing.

2. How does knowledge of your characters emerge, according to Anne?
(a) Like a sunrise, full of beauty and splendor.
(b) Like a Polaroid, it takes time to know them.
(c) Quickly and easily.
(d) Characters come after you finish a good outline.

3. Anne's editor loved the characters in her book, but what was the problem with the book?
(a) She had not brought them all together.
(b) The garden was not believable.
(c) The dialect was all wrong.
(d) She had false starts all over the place.

4. What is Anne's first useful concept about?
(a) Sharp pencils.
(b) Ergonomic keyboards.
(c) Short assignments.
(d) Having lots of wine and chocolate around.

5. In Anne's experience, and the experience of other writer's she knows, how easily does plot structure come?
(a) Easy as pie.
(b) It tends to come like the development of a Polaroid.
(c) It is like a Gulf stream going through a straw.
(d) Not easily at all.

6. When will you know your characters, according to Anne?
(a) Weeks or months after you started working with them.
(b) After teatime.
(c) When you first sit down and start to write about them.
(d) When your editor tells you who they are.

7. How does Anne describe the Polaroid?
(a) You point and shoot at what you think you want, but it does not always turn out as expected.
(b) Quick and easy, just like writing.
(c) Anybody can take a Polariod picture, as long as there is film in the camera.
(d) You are not supposed to know what the picture looks like until it finishes developing.

8. What is Anne's father's occupation?
(a) Real Estate Agent.
(b) Librarian.
(c) Writer.
(d) Hippie.

9. When you start think there is one more thing you could do, what should you remind yourself?
(a) Dr. Suess refuses to eat the broccoli.
(b) The octopus is snoring, time to move on.
(c) Your characters have evolved, time to move on.
(d) Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

10. What does Anne warn about doing with your characters?
(a) Placing them in an improper set.
(b) Giving them only one page of description.
(c) Getting them to do something because it is convenient to the plot.
(d) Letting them speak in dialect.

11. What did Anne's father tell his students to read?
(a) All the great books and plays they could get their hands on.
(b) Only Thurber.
(c) A few poems and hardback books.
(d) Shakespeare.

12. What can yield strange characters lurking in the shadows, according to Anne?
(a) Working on a good plot line.
(b) Meditating.
(c) Eating school lunches.
(d) Taking a short assignment and writing a bad first draft.

13. What is the basic formula for drama?
(a) Setup, switch, sendoff.
(b) There is no formula, drama naturally occurs.
(c) Setup, buildup, payoff.
(d) Buildup, payoff, setup.

14. When writing towards a scene, why may you find it is all wrong when you finish it?
(a) Because your editor said it was wrong.
(b) Because your subject matter expert finally called you back to talk about set design.
(c) Because the wind is blowing from the west now.
(d) Because of what you have learned about your characters along the way.

15. What advice does Anne's hypnotist give her about the negative voices?
(a) Imagine they are mice, pick them up, and drop them in a mason jar with a lid.
(b) Pretend you are on a TV talkshow.
(c) Listen to the voices and do exactly what each one says.
(d) Imagine they are dogs snarling at you and yell at them.

Short Answer Questions

1. Aside from talking to people, what are other ways to gather ideas for set design?

2. What does Alice Adams' ABDCE formula stand for, in writing a short story?

3. What was the image from a medieval monk, Brother Lawerence, that helped Anne come to terms with the residents in the nursing home?

4. When Anne showed up at the Special Olympics to write an article, did she know what she was going to write?

5. How else does Anne say you might you know you are done?

(see the answer keys)

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