This paper provides a creative approach to developing literary understanding and writing ability in students in a college introduction to literature course. Eight assignments are described which pair literary works having some feature in common. A sample suggestion from the first group of exercises, concerned with characterization, is as follows: Write a scene for two or more secondary characters in "Hamlet," taking your cue from dialogue or stage directions suggesting some action or conversation that takes place offstage. A typical assignment from the next group, dealing with "Paradise Lost" and "Frankenstein," suggests discussion about monsters in "Paradise Lost" and how they came to be monsters and also about paradises in "Frankenstein" and how they are lost. The next two sections address more complex themes, such as pairing "The Stranger" with "Dubliners" and rewriting a complete work in another genre, for example: Imagine that one of "The Canterbury Tales" has been made into a first-rate movie, and write a review of it. The following section requires that the student impose what is known about one writer upon another. A sample assignment is to make believe that either Joyce or Kafka is a self-absorbed magazine editor and that the other author has submitted a short story for publication. In this way the student--a beginning writer--learns to write from being "between writers," i.e., "between" two significant, experienced writers. The final section shows how the student might expand these approaches to develop a research paper. (NKA)