Writing Exercises

Emotion Exercise Ideas:
Think about an experience you had that involved very strong emotions--whether they were sad, happy, angry, confused, conflicted, excited, ambitious. Think about that memory, and write what happened. Write what you were thinking. Write about the senses you experienced. Choose which details to include/exclude and which words to use to convey the emotions you felt at that time.

If you'd like to challenge yourself, when you're done rewrite the scene converying a different emotion.


Tone Exercise Ideas:

write a short scene.
write the same scene right after the character's mother died.
write the same scene right after she just got her first kiss.
write the same scene in wartime.
write the same scene right after getting his/her dream job.
**You'll notice you'll put in small details that express the overall attitude.**

Style Exercise Ideas:
Pick three authors who have very different styles. Read each for a few minutes, notice how they write stylistically. Then write a scene in the first author's style. Then read the second and write the scene in the second style, and then repeat with the third author. You'll notice what makes the scenes different this way.

Voice Exercise Ideas:
1. Here's what you do. Write down a journal entry for yourself. Try writing in first-person because it's easiest to notice voice that way. Pay attention to how you talk. Then write in another person that you are familiar with how they talk - your mom, dad, grandma, roommate, husband/wife, best friend, annoying neighbor, teacher, pastor, etc. Pick someone you're familiar with who they talk, and write a scene and pay attention to how they would sound. Try it with a tv or book character you know - perhaps Frodo, or "The Doctor".
2. The next step would be to incorporate details about things that they would notice, or think, or like, or dislike. For example, maybe your mom who is kindof OCD about tidiness, would notice small details like, his plate sitting on the floor by the couch where he probably fell asleep pigging out last night. What would the son notice in that situation? Maybe that he saw the movie out on top of the TV and was reminded that he was going to get the second one from Redbox.

Perspective Exercise Ideas:
1. Take a scene from a book or movie and write it from different people. I.e. in club we did the scene from Harry Potter where Harry is being sorted into which House at Hogwarts. Originally it was written from Harry Potter's view - the scene could be written from the point of view of the Sorting Hat itself, from Snape, from Dumbledore, from Ron, from Hermione, from Voldemort/Quirrel...Think about how that would be different from each of those.

Snowflake Exercise:
The idea of the snowflake exercise is to go from very small, and expand it into a more finished work. You might go from a sentence, to a paragraph, to a page, to a chapter... See our post on the Snowflake Method about how to do this exercise.

Brainstorming / Getting past Writer's Block Exercises:
If you have the game apples to apples, get it out. Pick three to five red cards and one green card. The green card will tell you what type of emotion or tone to write your scene in. Next look at your red cards and just think about how you could create a scene where those items/things/people/events/places come together. Doing this will get you thinking creatively, and that can help when you really can't think of anything. You might not use this for anything, but it will get you writing and thinking creatively.


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