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Writing Exercises

Brain work for writers. Writer's block?

Writing exercises from Sherry French and Margie. For the list of their exercises: Click here

Writing exercises from C. Zackey (Sage). Please remember ALL of the MW Weekly exercises that are posted are of her own creation and are copyrighted to her. She shares them with Momwriters in order to return to you some of the benefits that she has received as a list member.
For a partial list of exercises: Click here

Sherry & Margie

All writing exercises are copyright 2000 to the authors and, as such, are not to be re-distributed in any form without express written permission.

Writing Exercise 1
Find a "must sell" ad in the classified section of your newspaper. Imagine the situation fueling the sale's urgency and write about it in 100 words.
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Writing Exercise 2
This writing exercise, taken from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg:

Write about your kitchen as if you were a detective. What has just taken place? Look for clues and contradictions. What lurks in the kitchen? Is it friend or foe? How does your kitchen reflect you?
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Writing Exercise 3
This exercise centers on characterization:

On a sheet of paper, make four columns. At the top of each column, write the name of a good friend of yours. Under each name, make a list of the character traits that each of these friends embodies, traits that you admire. Now, go across your page and circle the traits that seem to be common between at least 2 or 3 of the friends you listed. Using these circled traits, write a short sketch (200 words or less) of a character that embodies the OPPOSITE traits than the ones you've circled on your list.

(Note...the first time I did this, I came up with a character so awful that I had to just kill her off! LOL :)
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Writing Exercise 4
Since we all share that "mommy bond" (either in being one, having/had one or both!) I thought this would be an appropriate exercise...enjoy!

This writing exercise, taken from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg:

This week, in some way, write about your views of motherhood. Pick a well- known figure like Mae West or Marie Curie and describe what it might be like to be her child. Use first person to describe your impressions, or narrate a particular anecdote in third person. Or, write about your own mother.
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Writing Exercise 5
In honor of Valentine's Day this weekend, let's focus on that. Write a short description (500-600 words) of a Valentine's Day memory that you have...it can be your best Valentine's Day, your worst, the funniest thing that happened to you on Valentine's Day, the strangest way you ever celebrated Valentine's Day, the strangest person you ever spent Valentine's Day with, etc.
Be creative!
Be descriptive!
Be concise!
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Writing Exercise 6
from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg

Today write about the first time words profoundly affected you. Describe the situation, what led up to it, the moment of the encounter, your physical reaction, and something else that was taking place in the same setting but had nothing to do with your experience. Feel free to allow your imagination to supply whichever of these elements you can't recall.
You might try this as a poem.
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Writing Exercise 7
from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg

Today write about the first time words profoundly affected you. Describe the situation, what led up to it, the moment of the encounter, your physical reaction, and something else that was taking place in the same setting but had nothing to do with your experience. Feel free to allow your imagination to supply whichever of these elements you can't recall. You might try this as a poem.
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Writing Exercise 8
From "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg

Write several if/then statements. Start with simple ones, such as "If I do the laundry, then I will have clean socks," and spin out is whatever direction beckons. Notice how thinking and writing this way for a awhile sharpens or
changes the way you make connections.
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Writing Exercise 9
From "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg

Today write about food. If this is too general a subject, begin by describing your most memorable breakfast, lunch or dinner. Notice whether you spend more time describing the food, the atmosphere, or the company. Or, write the word food at the top of the page and go wherever it takes you. Write at least three pages. Or, describe one of your characters eating or thinking about food."
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Writing Exercise 10
Learning to see what is not immediately obvious to the eye is a valuable skill for the writer. This week let's practice with anagrams. An anagram, as you know, is the rearranging of letters to create something new.

"Do not let great ambition overshadow small success."

Taking the above fortune cookie saying, see how many anagrams you can come up with. Let your eye look for things you don't see right away. Let's see if anyone can build an anagram using ALL of the letters of this sentence! Good luck!
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Writing Exercise 11
Here is this week's exercise, taken from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg.

Today write about home. Describe your home or a character's home. Or, list attributes of home. Notice what category of details your most often return to: place, people, experience, or something else; whichever category comes up the most is where you feel at home writing. Where else are you at home in your writing?
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Writing Exercise 12
Close your eyes (after you read the exercise!) and imagine that you, a momwriter, have been invited to be a guest on "Oprah" along with several of your momwriter friends, none of whom you have ever met in person before.
Because Donna Boetig learned of momwriters and thought this was just the most awesome group of women encouraging and motivating one another in their quest to fulfill their dreams, Oprah couldn't resist doing a show on them and bringing them all together, with Donna (at Oprah's expense, of course!) So here you are, in Oprah's studio...write a description of the experience. Use all of your senses and live it then write it!
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Writing Exercise 13
Go to two of those free internet-email-address-mailbox places and signed up. They allowed use of nicknames so pick two nicknames, and write a small description of what each character is to be. Over time, add or change the description as the characters evolved. And, like the chess game, just 'take turns' developing responses from each side as you send an email from one character to the other, and reply in kind......"
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Writing Exercise 14
This week's writing exercise comes compliments of Valery:

Find a friend to do this one with through e-mail (in real life will work too, though e-mail will work faster)

Engage in a form of interactive story writing (dreaming). Write back and forth, building a story between the two of you. Build off of each other's ideas. Stretch your imaginations and free up your creative energies!

Have fun, and thanks again, Valery!
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Writing Exercise 15
This week's exercise is from the book, Room to Write, by Bonni Goldberg:

Consider what you value and know, from experience, to be true. Make a list. Now, make another list of what you once valued and believed to be true, but that no longer reflects your current understanding. Develop a character sketch from each of these lists, or begin a dialogue in the voice of the speaker of each list. Either way, focus on bringing out the personalities of the speakers instead of their beliefs.
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Writing Exercise 16
Here is an exercise for you all from Tristine Rainer's book "Your Life as Story":

Make a list of gestures and indicative behaviors as if you were writing a how-to guide for the impersonation of the character you wish to describe.

Example:

How to Be (Hamy)

Wave arms when talking
Cock an eyebrow when confused
Talk under breath to self
Trip over things
Purse lips tightly when upset
Rub eyes a lot
Push glasses back on nose frequently
Wag foot back and forth while falling asleep
Fix the bedcovers perfectly before getting into bed
Never remember a joke

Now, do yourself, then a friend, or do the exercise on your fictional characters!

Have fun!
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Writing Exercise 17
For this week's writing exercise... Choose a favorite novel. As you think about the story, identify 10 separate places in the story where something could have happened differently and thus would have completely changed the way the novel ended. Now, pick one of those changes and write a new, one page ending to the story as you think it would have happened due to the change in plot.
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Writing Exercise 18
This week's exercise comes from "Room to Write" by Bonni Goldberg:

Today write from the point of view of one of your brothers or sisters, real or imagined. Notice how this shift in point of view changes the language, rhythm, and perspective of your words. Or, write about one of your brothers and sisters, or what you imagine it is like to be your brother or sister.

(My own input...feel free to substitute a friend or other relative or even an acquaintance for this exercise. The idea here is to write from different points of view than your own. Stretch yourself a little, and this exercise will help you
to develop your characters so that you don't risk having them all be little clones of you!)
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Writing Exercise 19
This week's writing exercise will help us focus as well as pay attention to detail. Tracy has mentioned this exercise with regard to the novel challenge, but I'm repeating it here because I feel it is excellent. No matter what we are writing...a novel, an article, a personal essay, or even a grocery list for that matter...if we do not focus and pay attention to detail, the job will not get done correctly.

This exercise is drawn from Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird" and is casually referred to as the "One Inch Picture Frame" concept.

Here is an excerpt from the book introducing this concept...

"Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel about your childhood ...or a history of--oh, say--say women. But this is like trying to scale a glacier. It's hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up...What I do at this point, as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating as I realize that the well has run dry and that my future is behind me and I am going to have to get a job only I'm completely unemployable, is to stop.... [I] breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put of my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame.This is all I have to bite off for the time being."

So....choose a topic, either something you are currently working on, or something else for the sake of this exercise. Once you have your topic, choose a part of it about which to write in the context of a one-inch picture frame. Focus in on that one very small part of the whole and get everything out about it that needs to be gotten out. Describe the details in that part. Get the mood, the tone, all of it. Get it down. Don't worry about using too many words right now, you can get rid of them later if need be. Just focus in on that one-inch picture frame of that topic.

If you have a hard time envisioning this as it relates to an abstract idea, try doing it literally. Find a photograph, cut a piece of paper the same size as the photo, then carefully cut out a one-inch block from somewhere in that piece of
paper. Lay the paper over top of the photo and focus on what you can see through the hole. Write about it...describe it in full detail. Focus.
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Writing Exercise 20
In the latest "Writer's Digest" magazine (July), there is an interview with Julia Cameron of "The Artist's Way" fame. In this interview, she states that we should be writing for our "ideal" reader, not the "common" reader. So, who *is* your ideal reader? This will probably vary depending upon what you are working on, thus, choose one item that you are working on (preferably not something technical that has a limited audience to begin with) and define for yourself who the ideal reader of this piece would be. Once you decide this, think about *how* you would write this piece if you were writing just for that ideal reader. What would you do differently than what you are doing now? Make a list of things that you would want to include, or points you would want to make, or techniques you would want to use if writing for that ideal reader. Now, using these things that you have just determined, write that piece for your ideal reader.

Cameron says in this interview, "Our safety as writers lies not in disguising our vulnerability, but in exposing it, because the reader then identifies and empathizes with the writer and becomes involved in their own inner process. And that tends to make them not only more receptive to you as a writer but more receptive to the ideas that you're trying to convey."

Think about this: You are more likely to be honest in your writing and to expose your own vulnerability when you are writing for an ideal reader, rather than if you are writing with the goal of pleasing the world. In writing for the ideal reader, you may reach fewer people, possibly, but you will make a greater impact on those people than you would on the vast majority of others who might read the piece if you wrote it to please everyone.
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Writing Exercise 21
How did that ever get published? M. Senechal and S. French

As writers, we've all done it. We have read a piece of writing and wondered to ourselves how it ever managed to make it into print. These thoughts can throw us into despair as we think of our own writing filed away with rejection letters. Who needs these thoughts?

Well, we'll not only exercise our writing muscles but also these "thought demons"!

Instructions:

1. Find a book or a passage in a book that you've read and thought, " How did that ever get published or past the editor?"

2. Rewrite it.

PLEASE REMEMBER: MomWriters asks that we limit our writing exercise posts to the list to 500 words. If you exceed this, please post a message on-list asking for others who would like to read it and email off-list.

Have fun :-)
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Writing Exercise 22
This writing exercise is:

START WITH A TITLE

Did you know that Richard Paul Evans began writing The Christmas Box and The Time Piece by simply starting with the title. He didn't know anything else about them, just the title.

Elton John likes to extract phrases from people's sentences and turn them into titles.

I know when I began my novel, I had the prologue and the title. And the title, Return To Yesterday's Sins, led me to the plot. The prologue ended up as chapter 20something.

So just sit down and brainstorm some titles. Maybe even develop one of them into a short story or something else.

If you want to, share the list with us...better yet, share the short story you develop with us...Anything under 500 words is listable!!!

So have it and happy writings....Margie

(exercise taken from The Observation Deck, a Toolkit for Writers by Naomi Epel)
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Writing Exercise 23
This week's exercise is about opening lines. As writers we all know the opening line is integral to the reader reading on. Study the opening lines to a few of your favorite books. Does it grab your attention? Why or why not? Does it set a mood? Transport you to another place or time?

Now, take one of those sentences and write your own version of the paragraphs that might follow. Write for fifteen minutes. Do not censor, just write. Do not worry about creating great literature.
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Writing Exercise 24
This week's is a similar exercise, take the first line of a fairy tale and write for fifteen minutes your own story that follows. These exercises are meant to be done anytime during the week.
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Writing Exercise 25
This weeks exercise, from The Observation Deck:

Do you write down sayings, titles, names that inspire you, that make you want to write something about them.. LATER just because you can't use them now, but maybe some day?

If you don't have random ideas already written down. Brainstorm for story ideas, interesting characters, things that drive you crazy. Because in this exercise we're going to use them. Drag them out and list them down.

Take a few of these ideas, characters, or titles and write for 15 minutes. Begin a new article, a new short story, a poem.

"List-making can be valuable at any stage in the creative process. If you are looking for a great idea and think you have none, it is probably because you have too many. You just need to get your thoughts lined up in a column, so they can pass through the bottleneck.

If you are trying to solve a writing problem, make a list of ten or twenty possibilities rather than straining to find the perfect solution. Some can be mundane, some silly, some downright stupid, but in releasing those thoughts onto paper, you can free the two or three brilliant ones trapped behind the others."

This can work in fiction as well as non-fiction. If you're stymied for articles, list twenty questions you might want to explore or five magazines you could query.
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Writing Exercise 26
Pick up a toy, any sort of toy, set it on your desk and tell us a story about it. You can write a poem (which is what I did and will post following)...you can write a history, or simply write a fictional account...
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C. Zackey

All writing exercises are copyright 2001 to the author in her real name and, as such, are not to be re-distributed in any form without express written permission.

1) Dear Momwriters,
I don't want to write.
Oh, I don't mean that I don't want to write ANYTHING.
I just don't want to write one particular thing.
What is it, you ask, that is causing me this trouble?
(sigh...BIG sigh.....!)
I don't want to write to YOU....to tell you that you have exceeded the word limit on the Momwriters Weekly Writing Exercises.
I LOVE reading your responses, but I cringe every time I check your word counts (and yes, indeed, I do check every single writing exercise response) and find them to be over 500 words.
Very briefly, here are 3 excellent reasons for the 500-word limit:
1. Those on digest have to scroll through large entries. We try to be considerate of momwriters on digest.
2. Writing exercises are not just exercises for creativity, but for learning to follow guidelines. If you had submitted your over-the-word-limit story to me as an editor, I'd have rejected it immediately (no matter how good) because it demonstrates lack of respect for established guidelines.
3. The word limit is in place to help writers "tighten up" or fine-tune their ability to write concisely. Sometimes it takes more work to do this, but removing excess verbiage while maintaining the story line is also an important tool for writers to have in their 'kit'.
Thanks for helping me "not write"...by staying within the word limit for the writing exercises.
I'd much rather write other things. :)
Sage
Editor, Writers-Exchange
Momwriters Administrative Manager
Momwriters Weekly Writing Exercises
Moderator, MWRoundRobins
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2) As moms, we often find ourselves telling or reading small stories to our children in order to gently teach them much-needed lessons. Conveying a moral lesson via a lively or engaging story is one technique that writers can use to influence an audience of any age-group.

Your assignment this week (should you choose to accept it!) is to write a fable by continuing on from the beginning provided below. Webster's defines a fable as "a fictitious story meant to teach a moral lesson; the characters are usually animals". When you have finished telling your story, please be sure to include a one-line summary of the lesson that was being taught (i.e. "Working together increases outcome", "Kindness to mothers yields bigger desserts" etc.!)

=============== >@< ===============
Beginning:
One lovely spring day the Squirrel was busy in the strawberry bed. "I just _know_ I hid some fine acorns in here somewhere," she muttered to herself. Just then the Cardinal swooped down with a brilliant flash of feathers.......
=============== >@< ===============

As always, if you complete your assignment in 500 words or less, please feel free to post your work on the
Momwriters' list. After all, you never know who might be inspired by your writing!

Write well,
Sage
Moderator, MWRoundRobins
MW Weekly Exercises
~~~~~
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3) Last week we had some very good responses posted to the exercise on writing a fable. This week we will shift to a different genre and consider the realm of science fiction/fantasy.

Science fiction has been defined as "highly imaginative (....) stories centered about some projected, often fantastic, scientific development." (Webster's) Robots, ultra-sophisticated equipment and amazing scientific feats are often components of such stories.

Fantasy has been defined as "imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters" (Merriam-Webster's) Fairies, dragons and mystical feats are often components of such stories.

Often the two are blended. If you have never considered writing anything in this genre before, this week's
assignment will challenge you as well as allow you the opportunity to explore your writing ability in this arena.

Your assignment this week (should you choose to accept it!) is to write a short science fiction/fantasy continuation from the beginning given below.

==============================
Beginning:
The purple fronds brushed softly against her shoulder as she slid quietly down the thick orange vines. What a lucky thing for her, to be the Lookout last night! She was the first of the Space-born to have spotted the rare and lovely Hek-noph! Moving silently and cautiously as always, she was so absorbed in re-living her night-time triumph that she did not see what followed her.
==============================

For more of Sage's exercises watch for her upcoming book. More information will be available soon.
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