Creative Writing Exercises
It is no secret that every writer has moments of crisis during his or her writing process. Sometimes finding time and inspiration to write becomes an uneasy task. The following tips give answers to how to turn your writing routine into a creative and productive process.
Exercises for Better Creative Writing
- Listen to people speaking in a café, bar, barber shop, or other public places and try to find individuals with accents. Capture the linguistic flavor and try to pass it on through words on paper.
- Write the first 300 words of a story in a single sentence. Check the sentence for grammatical and punctuation errors.
- Choose a number from 1 to 10. For example, choose the number 3. Pick the third book from bookshelf, open it on the third page, read the third sentence and begin your writing with it.
- Pick a dictionary and open on a random page, find the definition of a word you don’t know and try to define it in your imagination.
- What is your favorite dish or drink? Write a poem or short story about it.
- Describe a first experience – first bike ride, first day at school or first kiss.
- Make two columns on your paper. List ten nouns in one column and ten verbs in the other. Randomly make pairs and write a story using those words.
- Refresh a memory in your mind about a particular emotion and write a story about it. Carry on writing by picking different emotions and developing characters according to it.
- Pick your favorite book and choose the first sentence you like and try to develop it into your own story.
- Find a painting, photograph, or postcard and think about the story that could arise from it.
- Copy the plot and characters from your favorite book and write your own story. Professional artists often started by copying the masters.
- Read the news for interesting and unusual stories and use them to write fiction.
- Choose your favorite piece of story or poem and write a new ending using your own style.
- Write a piece of a story or a short story without using any adjectives.
- Try to describe a fight between two characters without dialogue. Make your reader understand what is going on.
- Participate in contests. Even if you are not a very competitive person, the possibility of winning something or just being chosen as the best writer can turn you into a super productive writer.
- Accept writing challenges. The Internet is full of “30-day” challenges, and among them you can find good ones designed specially for writers. The main purpose of such activities is to turn writing into a habit and explore some horizons which you have never tried before (e.g. writing a funny story, if you have been writing only sad stories up to this moment).
Situations for Exercises
- You wake up and find yourself in a new reality.
- A small boy is lost in a city center—how did he get there?
- A woman is tied to a railway track—what happens next?
- The exit from a house is blocked—how did this happen?
- A carpet on the floor and a lighted fireplace in the center of the room—continue the description.
- Sheilah read her husband’s diary and discovered—continue the idea.
- The trees were black and bare against the orange sky—continue the idea.
- The corners of his mouth turned down—what phrase changed his mood?
- A small village after a tornado—continue the idea.
- Someone has found a closed case—what is in it?
- Two people are embracing each other—who are they?
- Someone is sitting alone in the park frustrated—why?
- Your character opens his or her eyes lying in a hospital room. What happened before?
- Your character has some supernatural abilities. What are they and how did he or she obtain them?
- A letter is lying on a table. Why does no one want to open it?
Give rein to your imagination, find inspiration from ordinary things and practice a lot to achieve good results in creative writing. Get your creative juices flowing with our exercises!
