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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the question Anne's students always ask?
(a) How do you know when you are done?
(b) How can I write like Dr. Suess?
(c) How can you put an octopus to bed?
(d) What happens when a character changes?

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

3. What does Anne say good writing is about?
(a) Telling the truth.
(b) Dialect.
(c) Outlines, plots, and themes.
(d) Spelling everything correctly.

4. What does Anne say perfectionism will block?
(a) Inventiveness, playfulness, and life force.
(b) The heart, mind, and spirit.
(c) Radio station KFKD and the distracting voices.
(d) Flow, form, and set design.

5. How does a writer end up with a good second draft or a terrific third draft?
(a) By writing a bad first draft.
(b) By getting a good agent.
(c) By drinking lots of wine.
(d) By hiring an excellent editor.

6. What do most of Anne's students assume about why well-respected writers's books turn out beautifully?
(a) They have outlined the plot.
(b) They are subject matter experts.
(c) They analyze each character.
(d) They drink wine.

7. Who are the two authors that Anne says have written well about plot?
(a) E. M. Forester and John Gardner.
(b) Rosemary Wells and Doreen Cornin.
(c) Flannery O'Conner and Faulkner.
(d) John Gardner and Faulkner.

8. Where does Anne tell her students to start with their writing?
(a) Poems.
(b) Childhood.
(c) A near-death experience.
(d) Third grade.

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

10. How did Anne feel after the basketball game?
(a) Depressed and hungry.
(b) Thankful for what she and her son had.
(c) Like she could write all day.
(d) Joyful.

11. When talking with a subject expert about kitchens, what are good questions to ask about the kitchen?
(a) What were the smells and stains like?
(b) What were the sights and sounds like?
(c) How best to keep stainless steel appliances clean.
(d) What were the sights, sounds, and smells like?

12. What does the title, False Starts, mean?
(a) You think you know about the character, but as you start writing, you can find out you were wrong.
(b) When you have to scrap your bad first draft.
(c) When you start writing too soon, without doing your research.
(d) Set design never turns out like you think it will.

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

14. What advice did E. L. Doctorow have about writing?
(a) "Writing a novel is like making dinner. If you do prep work, the cooking comes easy."
(b) "Writing makes me paranoid. I don't recommend it."
(c) "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
(d) "Writing a novel is like taking a horse to water, but then he does not drink."

15. Why does Anne write?
(a) Her father was a writer.
(b) She has read C. S. Lewis.
(c) She is a good typist.
(d) She wants to and she is good at it.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does knowledge of your characters emerge, according to Anne?

2. What is a recurring problem that Anne sees in her students?

3. What is Anne's father's occupation?

4. What does Anne say must first happen before we can recognize others for who they are?

5. When writing towards a scene, why may you find it is all wrong when you finish it?

(see the answer keys)

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