Patchwork Stories: A Creative Outlet for Writers

At UWG there are many programs for students to minor in, including Creative Writing. Creative Writing allows students to write fictional stories, poetry and so much more. Many times students are given creative projects to further embark in their creative writing to which Patchwork Stories came about.

Based on the idea of popcorn writing, Patchwork Stories is an online Google Drive document where students can write part of the story following the prompt that is already provided and then the next person can write. The story continues and anyone is able to write more of the story to their liking.

            “Right now we have a young adult romance story going as well as a crime and horror story going,” said Karlee Demmer, a music major with a minor in Creative Writing. “Whoever is interested can go in and continue the story by adding in their own paragraph and you can add on to as many as you want to.”

The idea of making Patchwork Stories came to Demmer and her team through their Creative Writing class. In their class they were assigned a literary citizenship project where they were able to celebrate writing with the community during the pandemic.

            “The one that is off to a good start is the young adult romance as it already has around three or four paragraphs, which is pretty cool,” said Deemer.

Creative writing is an outlet for people to express themselves through their writing. Patchwork Stories allows students to input their own thoughts and opinions in the stories.

“My favorite part of Patchwork Stories is how interested people are in it,” said Demmer. “We came up with this idea for a project, and we didn’t expect it to go anywhere but there are people who are liking it.

“For me when I was in grade school, I was a part of a similar community and by doing Patchwork Stories everything is just very nostalgic,” continued Demmer. It is exciting to see people wanting to add on to the same thing in a positive way.”

            Patchwork Stories has only been around for this semester but Demmer and her team hope to keep the project alive in the coming semesters.

            “As far as keeping the project afloat we are not really sure what might happen but I would kind of like to keep it going,” said Demmer. “If people are interested we don’t want to cut a story off halfway through, so we will see what happens.”