Tag: creative writing tips

Unexpected Twists and Conflicts

Add depth to your character exchanges

Fun Exercises for Creative Writers

New prompts for creative writers to help get you writing.

Select an object, place it on a table in front of you and write for a few minutes from that perspective. Get up and move to another place at the table. That allows you to see the object from a different perspective and write a few minutes from that perspective. I particularly like puzzles when doing this exercise and moving around the table so every side of the puzzle can have a few minutes written from that perspective. This also helps you put a puzzle together when it seems you are not able to spot where the pieces belong. Seeing the puzzle from one of the other views will help you begin to work on puzzle placement again.

Observation on an object. This one you can begin by doing on a small object and work your way up in size. Take any object from your room: your bedroom, your living room, your dining room, your bathroom. Place it on a table or a chair or a stool in front of you sit in front of it and observe this object. As you observe the object write about the object. For some people this will work as a straightforward description of it as an object. Then describe it as what your mom would say, or your dad, or one of your other family members. You will find everyone will have a different observation because they bring their own psychology, their own philosophy, their own inward feelings, their own outlook, and they project this onto this object. This can give you an insight into your own self, but it also gives you an insight into the environment and what this item can mean to different people. Now work your way up to a bigger object. Try it with different objects, take it out onto the street and observe a building.

Pretend you are serving in an apprenticeship: ex: there are many apprenticeships, plumbing, carpentry, sculpting, painting. Ask yourself what might be the things you would learn from each of these apprenticeships. Use those descriptions in your writing.

  • Make a list of 10 people, occupations, jobs. You can have banker, baker, carpenter, electrician, dentist, artist, football player. You get the picture.
  • Second list is a place. So 10 places. Like a restaurant or cafe, being in bed, book shop, bank, airplane, an airport, a ship.
  • Next is a list of things. Objects, noise, a baseball bat, a mobile phone, a candle, a hammer, a guitar, a balloon, a packet of gum, again you get the idea.
    The next part of the exercise is: take your ten people, cut the list up, put each name into a hat and you draw out 1 person. Then cut up your list of places, put them all in a hat and draw out 1 place. Cut up your list of things, put them in the hat and draw out 1 thing.
  • You then have a person, in a place doing one thing. Write about that. Keep going until you have the ten of them as a start to little adventures, little stories, little short projects. It could develop into an idea that sparks off a whole story or book for you. Great for you to practice creating your skills for stories about person, place, thing.

Next is called I am this. What you do is your version. Must contain metaphors. Ten lines with metaphors that tell us who you are. EX: Detroit you know what you are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ who you are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Remember use metaphors. This is a good exercise for getting you into knowing how to use figurative language. Try different cities, events and situations.

Next exercise is the sounds of your neighborhood, or your childhood, or the place where you grew up. You can, of course, use it for the place where you live now and what you do there. This will help you in describing places and what is important about them.

Sound is a thing that is often underused or overlooked in creative writing. Think of the sounds of your childhood, of the place where you grew up, of your mother’s voice, of your father’s belching, of your grandmother’s laugh. Sounds that may no longer be around, kids games that are no longer played, music that you heard growing up.

Next is called the difference of place. You go to a place let’s say a restaurant or a museum and you write down (bring a notepad or your iPad or your phone or whatever you use) a description of this place. When you describe the place don’t just give a straightforward description of the architecture, for instance. Give us the sounds, give us the colors, give us the details, give us the textures of the place, give us the atmosphere of the place, the energy of the place. Places have a feeling, places have a life of themselves so go to this place, this museum, describe it in detail, in immense detail as much as you can write down.

Read it to yourself, go through it, edit it down, rewrite it, and put it in your descriptions file. Then as you go next week to another place, a place that is very different than the museum or the cafe. It could be a park, it could be a church, a church that’s empty or a church that’s full you could do both of those one after the other and what’s the difference between a full and empty.

Have a look you have these two different descriptions and you’ll see the difference that different places have. What is the setting of your novel, what is the setting of your book, your character may emerge from this, a story may emerge from this, a whole book may emerge from this.

What Creative Writing Classes Can Teach You

What creative writing classes taught me that helped me to become a better writer.

1) Keep a journal. Sit down and spend time playing with your writing. A great exercise is to begin writing and don’t stop writing even if you don’t know what to write and your mind draws a blank. Something that can help is to just repeat the same word over and over and over on the page until you are able to move on to something else.

Do not focus on sentence structure, word choice or if what you are writing makes any sense. The point is to just keep writing and keep pumping out that stream of thoughts. You never know what you’re going to find if you really open up your mind. Do not let yourself get distracted. Some of your favorite ideas or random paragraphs of thought dumps might come from doing this.

2) Rules were made to be broken. Common sense coupled with a basic understanding of how writing and literature has changed throughout the years brings the understanding that unless an individual steps forward, brakes the confines of the popular and preferred writing style of the day and introduces something new, we would not have grown at all. We’d also be writing the same way, hundreds of thousands of words would not exist, and all plot lines would follow the same basic structure.

When we see certain trends going in and out of style and publishers catering to those trends it’s easy to get discouraged or stressed about not specifically following a three-act structure or hesitant to play around with voice intents because it’s unfamiliar to readers.

From the time we’re born to the time we die we are taught that this is the society you live in, this is what is expected of you, and this is how you’re going to live your life. Every once in a while we get somebody who doesn’t fit into the norm, someone to introduce us to something new, and changes our ways of thinking. Do not be afraid to break the rules of writing that you do not like. Creative writing is a great outlet in which to do so.

3) Do not be afraid. Break out of your comfort zone. Challenge yourself to tap into different styles of writing. What you learn from this can even help influence your writing style. You will come out more experienced. Taking creative writing classes can help you learn the technical aspects of writing and its history and gain critical thinking skills. In the end, there is no manual or set plan for creative writing and getting better at it, just like there’s no right and wrong way to better yourself with your skill as a writer. It’s up to you to do it.

Fun Creative Writing Exercises

If you feel like you have a lot of pent-up creative energy in you, here are some tips. If you don’t do anything creative for a while you might tend to get kind of artistically frustrated. If you have a bigger project, occasionally sit down and do short creative writing activities just to release some of the pent up energy. Put something on a page practice, then go back to your bigger project.

For ideas look at random pictures, look at a Wikipedia page about the subject you are writing about. On the left there is a link called random article. You can click on it then write for five minutes about the article. You might use that short writing project to rewrite an important scene in your book from a different characters point of view. You can also write each chapter in multiple perspectives to choose the one that fits best for telling the story. you get to know each character a lot better and it makes the story more complex and deeper. Those different ideas just might shine through at different moments.

This next activity is really fun. It’s kind of like found treasure. Pick two different things you can print out like two different newspaper or magazine articles. Cut both of the articles in half and put the halves together. See what you can add or subtract to come up with a story you like. Just have fun.

Description overload can be a problem. Using too many adjectives doesn’t mean you are a good writer or a creative writer. Come up with a very bare-bones description. Look at it to see what might need to be added to have the story more clear to your reader.

Make your writing more exciting using the five senses. Describe what your characters smell, what they felt or, what they heard. How can you describe things in a way that’s interesting and makes the reader feel like they’re actually there. That seems like a very simple thing to do and a very like obvious thing, but it can be interesting. Taking a second to stop and think about what all of your senses are feeling. Take your main character and think about everything that he or she is experiencing in that moment.

Have someone give you three numbers. Go to one of your bookshelves. For the first number, count off how many books. For the second number use it for the page. for the third number find the sentence. Time yourself for five to ten minutes and use that sentence as the first sentence in your writing exercise. Keep writing from that point.

These are great creative writing exercises. You might find you are writing for a lot longer than you originally planned. Sometimes it even ends up being a short story and that is really exciting when that happens.

Creative writing lessons: Creative Writing tips, advice and lessons

One method for starting a story is to tell yourself the story while relaxing or before going to sleep. Another way is to keep a notebook with your characters and plot ideas. Write as well as you possibly can so you have enough of the idea to remember it later when you are starting to write.

Outlining your story is a good tool to use so you can see how the details will let you move smoothly through the storyline as you are writing. You have to follow the story where it leads. The last thing that you want to do is to spoil your book with plot twists that do not lead to supporting your storyline. Be more interested in your characters in the situations you are putting them in.

See what ideas you can come up with to help you have more fun writing. Keep a list of those items close so you can refer to them when you begin to write. It will help you get past the blank page frustration and begin easily.

There are no rights or wrongs so be encouraged that you can express yourself and enjoy the process. If others enjoy your writing that is a big plus for you.

Creative writing lessons: Creative Writing tips

It has been suggested that that the first thing you do with a book is write the last line of that book. Some feel that is kind of like spoiling the fun. Ideas come from different places. The goal is to start with something and just go with it. Try it both ways and see which you like.

The thing is you learn little by little, so sample different genres to see where you enjoy writing. If you want to be a writer, you really only have to do two things you have to read a lot and you have to write a lot, and you have to continue to get excited by what you are doing. Remember writing is subjective, sometimes you get bad advice on good work and sometimes you get good feedback on bad work. The thing that makes it worthwhile is that people take writing seriously. Dreams are free and that is a good, so write, have fun and continue to be creative with your words.

Five Creative Writing Exercises I Love

I like to sit down and do creative writing activities just to release some creative energy and to put something on the page. That is something that was and is always a lot of fun.

I like to look at random image generators or just look at random pictures. Sometimes you can go on photo and image sites that are free like pixabay.com

Say you decide you are going to write for five minutes about a picture. Click a few times to get a picture that kind of sparks something for you to start writing about. I would probably pick that one I know that would lead to a pretty good five minutes of writing.

This next one is something that I love to use in workshops.? It’s rewriting an important scene in a book from a different characters point of view. This is often what many writers do. They also write each chapter with multiple perspectives and choose the one that fits best for telling the story.

That is a ton of work but it’s also really cool because you get to know each character a lot better and it makes the story more complex and deeper.? It changes the perspective of how you see the story.

This next activity is really fun it’s kind of like found poetry. I first did this activity in a creative writing class.? Here’s how you do this activity: pick two different things you can draw from. People standing in a line at the airport. I started going a little crazy I was always a happy kid but the air mixes with fuel and burns to make hot gases, suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Learning to be a person again from inside the airport, we can see our plane take off again to fly to another destination.? People do all sorts of things on a plane when you’re five you feel like you love people you don’t even know. Can you see them? There’s a life jacket under every seat and once you do get through your airport experience you go on with life. With this activity sometimes you can? add things on. When you read it you might find how amazing the writing is that? came out of that. What ideas and what different interpretations you came? up with. I really like that activity.

I call description overload a problem. I saw with my students they thought using a lot of adjectives means they’re a good writer or a creative writer. I would suggest? a very bare-bones? scene like you walk up to an abandoned building, you stand and look at it. You walk in the front door, you turn to the right and see a locked door. You find a key on the floor and open it. What’s inside the room? What they would have to do is make their writing more exciting using the five senses.? I’d ask them to describe what they smelled, what they felt, what they heard, just anything you can think of regarding the scene. What I liked about this is how different each student’s scene ended up. It was interesting to see what kind of building they thought it was and what they thought it looked like. I still think about that when I’m writing. Instead of just using adjectives, how can I describe things in a way that’s interesting and makes the reader feel like they’re actually there. That seems like a very simple thing to do and a very obvious thing, but it can be interesting.

Taking a second to stop and think about what all of your senses are feeling.? Take your main character and think about everything that he or she’s experiencing in that moment.

My final one I know is on different creative writing activity lists, but I like having someone give me three numbers and then I go to a bookshelf at a library or a bookstore. Go to a library or bookstore and go to one of the isles. For the first number I count off how many books. If they give me a number like a twenty,? find that number book. Then the second number I use for the page and then the third number I use for the sentence. I generally like them to use one through twenty for the first and the third number and that’s pretty helpful or I could just do it myself and write down without thinking about the books, three numbers. Then I timed myself for like five to ten minutes and just use that sentence as my first sentence and then keep writing from that point so I’m going do that now. Ready? I’m going to go with 7, 47, 5.? Pick a shelf of books, count down to book 7. Turn to page 47 and count to sentence 5. Take that sentence and make it the start of whatever I was writing.? Then I would to write.? I like this activity again for the random aspect of it. Sometimes when you sit down to write, coming up with the beginning to get started is the hardest part. If you start with something like a sentence it’s generally easier to get going.

I hope you took something from this article. I just wanted to share some of my favorite creative writing exercises and generally what I do if I just want to sit down and do something quick without really working on a bigger project. In the past these activities have led me to write for a lot longer than I was originally planning.? Sometimes it even ends up being a short story and it is really exciting when that happens