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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does Anne say that there is ecstasy in?
(a) Compassionate detachment.
(b) Ripples in the water.
(c) Paying attention.
(d) Wine and chocolate.

3. When a character takes on a characteristic that you have no good experience in, what should you do?
(a) Contact someone who has this life experience.
(b) Google the characteristic, everything online is true.
(c) Wing it, the readers will not know.
(d) Look at your plot, it will tell you what to write.

4. 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.

5. What is Anne's third suggestion about putting together good dialogue?
(a) Put two people, who would never want to be together, in a close situation. They will have lots to say.
(b) Put two people who have lots in common together for teatime.
(c) Dialogue emerges entirely from the plot. Listen to the plot.
(d) Insert clever dialogue whenever possible.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Anne's second suggestion about writing dialogue?

2. What are great language tools that explain the unknown in terms of the known to the reader?

3. What do readers want to know about characters besides their superficial values?

4. What two qualities are needed to communicate effectively according to Anne?

5. After a half hour of writing, how much material was generated from the school lunch assignment?

Short Essay Questions

1. Another of Anne's stories stems from the movie Stripes. The line is "Hey, lighten up Francis." How is this story helpful to her students?

2. With every work there will always be more that you could have done. What does Anne warn us against with this thought?

3. What does Anne suggest doing with the feeling of paranoia?

4. How does Anne state dialogue affects a reader?

5. How did Anne accomplish a very believable gardener in her novel, when she cannot even keep a houseplant alive?

6. When Anne's students tell her they do not know where to start, she tells them to start with their childhood. How is this helpful?

7. According to Anne, how are we able to see the underlying essence of a person?

8. Plot is the main part of your story. How does the plot best grow organically, according to Anne?

9. How does Anne suggest we can free ourselves from perfectionism?

10. According to Anne, how does knowledge of a character develop?

(see the answer keys)

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