Creative Writing Exercises – 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts
By Deb
Story inspiration can come from many places, but there are days when it’s down-right impossible to find one good idea. In my case, I can always find FICTION ideas, but when it comes to this blog, I’ve been known to hit bedrock at the bottom of the idea well. That is, until today.
I received a review copy of Bryan Cohen’s “1,000 Creative Writing Prompts,” and I must admit I didn’t have very high expectations. If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you know I’m not a big fan of writing prompts. Most of them are Continue reading this post »
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Creative Writing Exercises – More Valuable Than You Think
By Deb
Today we hear, again, from the inimitable Dan Goodwin.
Creative Writing Exercises – Why They’re More Valuable to Your Writing Than You Think
Dan Goodwin
Many of us who write will turn our noses up at the thought of writing exercises. We feel either that we’re already a creative writer, so why would we need to do any exercises to learn how to be one. Or we associate exercises with bad memories of our school years, and being forced to do things we know we’re not good at, the pressure of sitting exams, and so on.
If you have either of these trains of thought, it’s completely understandable why you’re not jumping around with eager excitement at the thought of trying some new writing exercises.
But the fact is, you’re missing out. You’re depriving yourself of the chance to enrich and expand your writing repertoire into new areas you may not even know exist.
Another concern that’s often voiced is that by using the guidelines of someone else’s exercise or prompt, the writing will not be your own. Why would you want to spend your precious creative time writing something that you don’t feel you can claim as your own words at the end of it?
When you use a writing exercise, you’re simply giving yourself a starting point.
It’s like taking your car out on the road, pointing in a certain direction and saying: “I’m going to head for California (or Calgary, or Canberra or anywhere else specifically named) and I’m going to enjoy the sights along the way.”
As opposed to sitting in your car on your front drive thinking about all the wonderful places you COULD drive to, but not even starting the engine.
Creative writing exercises give you the starting point and the direction. Beyond that, the writing is all yours.
Where you go, and how you get there is entirely up to you. The exciting thing is, you don’t know where you’ll end up, and you don’t know how you’ll get there.
After all, isn’t that what writing is all about? Unfurling the adventures within you, that you didn’t even know you had within you?
Right now the possibilities of what you could write about are so limitless they’re overwhelming. But give yourself a little scenario or outline and notice how your creativity roars into life.
Imagine writing a letter to a male relative who left under emotional circumstances and you haven’t seen for 5 years. Why did they leave? What do you feel about seeing them again?
Just this few lines of premise will trigger your creative mind into thinking about the possibilities. It’s what it does best, you can’t switch it off!
There’s a girl in a red dress stood at the side of the road, clutching a doll with one arm and an tattered envelope. Why’s she there? Where are her parents? What’s in the envelope?
Notice again how your creative mind fills in the gaps and your curiosity kicks into action? Again, you’re engine started!
Now get out on the road and have a wonderful creative writing adventure!
And to get started with some creative writing exercises and ideas right away, get your FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com
From Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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Creative Writing Exercises – Character Sketches
By Deb
Here’s another creative writing exercises post related to character. When it comes to developing characters, some writing resources suggest creating detailed biographical sketches, including such minutiae as favorite colors, favorite foods, where they went to high school or their first jobs, to name a few. These traits can be helpful in getting a handle on our characters, but may not bring them to life.
Jennifer Jensen suggests asking thought-provoking questions that will reveal character, and then to write character sketches that put your people into action in order to reveal traits that wouldn’t otherwise manifest themselves. Below is a list of probing questions. Pick only two or three to answer and then write a scene to develop the characters in a richer, fuller way than creating a mere list can do.
- What is your character afraid of?
- What gives your character joy?
- How does your character show love?
- What makes your character angry?
- How competitive is your character?
- What does your character think about during downtime?
- What “unreachable” dream does your character have?
- What would your character have to give up to realize this dream?
Read Creating Characters That Live (Opens in new window)
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Creative Writing Exercises – Description and Character
By Deb
In the third of my series on creative writing exercises, I present another of Jennifer Jensen’s articles — this one on perfecting our descriptive abilities.
Creative Writing Exercise #1
- She suggests first writing a description of every tiny detail of a walk around the block. Use abundant adjectives, over-doing the descriptions. The sky isn’t just blue, it’s a glorious cerulean blue. The trees and grass aren’t just green, their verdant hues are lush, in variegated shades from emerald to puce to chartreuse to avocado.
- Write another description leaving out all descriptive modifiers. You want stark or bland prose here. You didn’t pass a bright blue door, you passed a door. You didn’t notice a rambling home built in the Craftsman mode, you noticed a house.
- Write a third version in a balanced description with what she calls a “comfortable number of adjectives.” (self-explanatory)
Creative Writing Exercise #2
- Take your balanced description and find stronger nouns that will allow you to omit adjectives. Exchange blue luxury car for blue Lexus.
- Use shorter descriptive phrases and be as specific as possible. Here’s her example:
How about changing “the wall was covered with spray-painted words” to “grafitti-covered wall.” Or make it more specific in its own sentence, such as “High schoolers had sprayed ’Cougars Rock’ and ‘Class of 2010’ in red across the brick.”
Creative Writing Exercise #3
- Let a character experience the walk through her/his own eyes. Add emotional reactions to what each detail evokes. You’ll need to keep in mind who the character is and make certain that his/her reactions are in line with who s/he is
- Choose only the details that would be important to your character and eliminate the rest. If your character is a big, tough, can’t-be-bothered-with-niceties boor, then those fluffy cloud animals in the cerulean sky will not be on his radar, so leave them out. He might notice the doggie doo-doo (and call it something nasty) that he just stepped in, however. Of course, not too many authors like writing from the viewpoint of a big, tough boor, but you probably get the idea.
- Custom-tailor the details to your character. This requires seeing out of your character’s eyes. Imagine that you are holding a video camera up to your eye. Only what the camera sees is what you can write about. Your character’s eyes are the camera. What does s/he see and how does s/he react?
- Edit details to fit your theme or to resonate within the story. Jennifer gives this example:
“At a conference, Jessica Page Morrell encouraged writers to look for details that resonate. She gave the example of a ginkgo tree, whose yellow autumn leaves fall very suddenly, all within a few days. This sort of description can echo a failing relationship, for example.”
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Creative Writing Exercises – Character Voice
By Deb
Most of the time on this blog I focus on the writing micro-niche of story ideas. Other days I write about creative writing exercises that help cure writer’s block or that inspire creativity. Today’s post is only a slight departure from that. From Suite101.com are writing exercises that help us to create a unique voice for our viewpoint characters.
“When using a first person or limited third-person point of view, the narration in fiction is limited to what that character knows or sees. But the narrative itself is in the viewpoint character’s own voice – his tone, his word choices, his attitude.
- Freewrite the internal thought of your viewpoint character. What does he or she think about when…
- Create a dialogue situation with a quiet friend, one who nods and unh-huhs instead of speaking a lot. Have your viewpoint character discuss…
- Send your viewpoint character to the mall with a quiet friend. Let him or her describe…
- Coop your character up in a room alone: a bedroom, a conference room, a doctor’s exam room. Is he or she …”
Visit Character Voice Writing Exercises (opens in new window)
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