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I have a book called "Naming the World" Edited by Bret Anthony Johnston. Recommended to me by one of my favorite teachers it has an amazing handful of writing exercises for people who just need to get the juices flowing.

I wanted to create a forum where people could share their favorite writing exercises.

Here is one of mine:

Go to one of your favorite books and pick out a sentence that stands out to you.
Then start a whole new story with that sentence.

I like the 10 minute challenge
you have ten minutes to write a story. based on a random sentence.
we did it every day in creative writing class.

With a friend, write a story together, one word at a time, alternating turns choosing the next word.

I like the writing prompts I have found on different computer writing sites. Sometimes the prompts give me ideas for where to go with the stories I'm trying to write if I get stuck or they give me ideas for new things to add to my stories.

I once gave my friend a random "first sentence" and a random "final sentence" that she had to use to start and end her story. I never read the story, but I can only imagine that it was pretty insane. I should remind her of that, actually.

Well, this isn't exciting, but it'll have to do for 3:00 in the morning. I just send someone an email about my day and narrate it with dialogue and scandal ("committed another hit and run!") and intrigue ("No, you can't wear sandals with clubbed feet.") and irrelevance ("so, how are we distantly related again? Does that mean I'm not entitled to your kidney?") and absurdity ("Yeah, they caught me two blocks later.") and seriousness ("No, you're not my only call. I get another one.") and levity ("Can you make bail for me?") and emotional support ("It's OK, Mother. I already have an arrest record.") and salutations ("Up yours.").

Feel free to use that--just remove what I put in quotes and fill it in your own way.

The zoom in/out is my favorite. But that's because I love to write in excessive detail and that helps to get it out of my system LOL

I like to review a book I read or re-watch a movie and think of an alternate storyline or ending. For example in Divergent what if Tris joined Erudite with her brother or at the end of The Hunger Games Katniss shoves the berries into Peta's mouth at the last second.

KS Crooks wrote:I like to review a book I read or re-watch a movie and think of an alternate storyline or ending. For example in Divergent what if Tris joined Erudite with her brother or at the end of The Hunger Games Katniss shoves the berries into Peta's mouth at the last second.

I'd probably think that you're completely brilliant... but I'm actually unfamiliar with both story lines. The thing about the berries sounds great, though!

Never read Hunger Games either -- I don't read YA stuff.

Long ago while taking creative writing classes I'd have various exercises tossed at me during class assignments. But in the real world, they seem artificial. Authors need to be able to write straight ahead on their subject and charge forward with the actual real novel or essay or whatever.

Want a great writing exercise? Try what I did: Having your newspaper editor assign you a dull as dust story to write and you better darn have it ready by the time that the paper goes to bed, too! By "go to bed" I don't mean the actual starting of the newspaper presses -- the article or interview or whatever you wrote is long since digested by the big machines in the basement. I mean the submission deadline when your editor comes over and says "Got that city council meeting done?" And the answer better be yes.

Or be on assignment and phone in a sports story w. accurate results (this was before PCs and email) and know that your story and game / race / event results will be read the next morning by a few thousand sleepy sports fans. The paper won't wait for you, either. That story has to be ready to dictate or fas before deadline.

After those experiences, I never had to subject myself to another artificial exercise. The real writing had taken over for sure.

From John Gardner the great creative writing professor: describe a barn as seen by a man whose just lost his son in a war. You cannot say anything about war or death; the audience will not know what happened, or even if anything happened. Just describe through someone else's eyes. SO HARD.

Excellent comment, teach.

teacher_jane1 wrote:From John Gardner the great creative writing professor: describe a barn as seen by a man whose just lost his son in a war. You cannot say anything about war or death; the audience will not know what happened, or even if anything happened. Just describe through someone else's eyes. SO HARD.

Ooh, ooh, I'll play:

My barn, with its flaking paint, its rusty doors that screech when you open or close them, and its hayloft... I never cared for the silly hayloft, it was never more to me than a place to dump hay, but... My wife wants me to rent it out, you know, for storage. The whole barn. She says it's wasted space. I bet she'd be even happier if I just torched it to collect the insurance money. I threatened to do that once and she just gave me a look.

I gaze up at the hayloft. No one's there, but I can barely hear laughter, a giggle, a squeal, and then silence. So empty. But the sun is shining into it, and motes of dust are trapped in its beam. Trapped, as if they're caught between parallel universes and are unsure if they want to join ours or drift back into another one. Always trapped. Each dust mote uncommitted to being here or there. Where is there? Where?

I shake my head and wipe the lost expression off my face. Just wasted space. Wasted space, wasted efforts, wasted everything.

Damn barn.

I have been known to look at crosswords or codewords I've solved (I'm addicted to both) and try to weave a story or at least a piece of writing from the random words it throws up.

I haven't done many Creative Writing exercises (something I hope changes when I take a fiction class) but there is one that I like. I like when you have to write a story based off a, sometimes random, picture.