#383 – Tech in the Writing Process: Pre-Writing, Clarifying Your Writing Task

Tech in the Writing Process: Pre-Writing, Clarifying Your Writing Task

In today’s episode, we’ll explore how technology can be integrated into the first part of the pre-writing process: clarifying your task and choosing a topic.

Deconstructing a Prompt

• Create a color-coded key for text markup:
  • Pink: purpose
  • Green: content requirements
  • Yellow: audience details
  • Blue: format specifications
• Use highlighters and text tools to mark up a writing prompt, aligning to the key:
  • Integrated highlighters
  • Highlight Tool add-on
  • Bold, italics, and underline formatting

• Add comments:
  • What questions do you have?
  • What initial ideas are you considering?

Finding a Topic

• Rely on the prescribed prompt.
• Use a topic generator for fiction:
  • Flippity Randomizer
  • The Story Shack’s Writing Prompt Generator
  • Visual Writing Prompts
  • PIC-LITS
  • DIY MFA’s Writer Igniter
• Use online sources for nonfiction:
  • Google
  • Wikipedia
  • Britannica’s ProCon
  • News organizations
  • Content-specific websites

Using AI

• Deconstruct a prompt.
• Brainstorm topics.
• Function as a random topic generator.
• Ask the chatbot what it needs.