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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Paying attention is a powerful antidote for what?
(a) A hangover.
(b) The rational mind.
(c) Paranoia.
(d) Sleepless nights.

2. What is Anne's response when her students ask her for the best writing advice?
(a) She picks up a piece of paper and pantomimes writing on it.
(b) She tells them to meditate.
(c) She quotes a Buddhist disciple.
(d) She twirls a flower in the air.

3. What does Anne say you have to get over, or you will not go far in your writing?
(a) Perfectionism.
(b) Paranoia.
(c) Hypochondria.
(d) Jealousy.

4. What is at least half the battle Anne faces in her daily writing?
(a) All the characters talking at one time.
(b) Writing a bad first draft.
(c) Quieting the critical voices.
(d) Having enough paper in the printer.

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

6. When a student is having difficulty writing, what does Anne ask them about?
(a) About the wire thingy on champagne bottles.
(b) The current time and temperature.
(c) Their school lunches.
(d) How messy they were as a child.

7. 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) Set design never turns out like you think it will.
(d) When you start writing too soon, without doing your research.

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

9. Where did Anne's father teach his class?
(a) Elementary school to children.
(b) San Quentin to the prisoners.
(c) On the street to hippies.
(d) The local community college to kids.

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

11. Instead of writing towards a plot, what does Anne suggest?
(a) Writing towards a scene.
(b) Writing about birds.
(c) Taking a break.
(d) Writing about set design.

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

13. What are great language tools that explain the unknown in terms of the known to the reader?
(a) Metaphors.
(b) A garden and river.
(c) Plots.
(d) Similes.

14. What does the one-inch picture frame remind her of?
(a) All she has to do is write as much as she can see through the one-inch picture frame.
(b) How she is too old for orthodontia.
(c) That she only has to write one inch of words that day.
(d) How big her mole is getting.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. When Anne is participating in the school lunch writing assignment, what does she say about hers?

2. Ten days before Pammy died, she went shopping with Anne. On this excursion Anne figured out what Pammy's essence was. What was it?

3. The school lunches writing assignment combines which two pieces of writing advice from Anne?

4. What movie line does Anne suggest as a good one to tape to the wall of your office?

5. How did Anne feel after the basketball game?

(see the answer keys)

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