Exercises

Introduction

Here I will keep a list of all of the exercises that accompany my posts for those who want a quick reference, or who just want something for their writing practice. I do want to give a brief overview of what these exercises are, what they aren’t, and how to use them.

These exercises are just that–exercises. Similar to etudes in music, or sketching in art, I don’t think someone can become a good writer unless they practice writing. However, many of the exercises I see don’t actually focus on building helpful writing skills. That’s why I tailor these exercises to emphasize skill building.

What these exercises are not, are “prompts” to “inspire” you. There won’t be any first lines, lists of objects, or any of the other kinds of prompts you can find at hundreds of other websites. These exercises are not meant to give you something to write about, but give you new ways of writing, for the sake of practice. If you want prompts, go to google, type in “writing prompts”, and you’ll have what you’re looking for.

Many of these exercises are meant to be used in the process of revising pieces you have already written, in order to better understand your writing, your style, and what you need to work on. Many of them can be modified to work with new writing, and work equally well for that purpose. Lastly, it should be fairly obvious what each exercise is focusing on. If you don’t understand terms in the exercises, then I will refer you to the page titled “glossary” for basic definitions. If that still does not clarify it for you, search for posts that talk about the term. If you still don’t understand it, move on to the next prompt; there is nothing else I can do to help you. Lastly, these exercises can, and should, be done multiple times. Every time you do one, you get better, in the same way a musician gets better every time he practices, and how the artist can sketch the same thing multiple times, and still never quite get it right. Often, the first attempt will be poor. Don’t be discouraged, writing isn’t easy. Just practice, practice, practice.

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List of Exercises

1.  Go through the last story you wrote and find all of your sequels. Which parts did you emphasize, and which ones didn’t you? Pick one, and rewrite it, choosing different aspects of the sequel to emphasize. How are each of these pictures of the same actions different?

2.  Devise an outlandish goal for a character. Think of possible ways that character might pursue that goal in the real world, or in a world of your own creation.  Pick the means which seems most interesting to you, and write a story around the character’s motivation to pursue that means towards her goal.

3. Take a piece you wrote in the third person, choose a scene and sequel in it, and rewrite them, changing the perspective to either third person, but focused on another character, or first person of the character you are focusing on most. Does either of these perspectives reveal aspects of your story you hadn’t thought about before?

4. Take a piece you wrote, go through it, and try to identify definite points between scenes and sequels. Then see whether your character’s goals line up, from sequel to scene. Are the character’s goals clear? Do the actions the characters take in pursuit of that goal seem reasonable?

5. Take a story you wrote and construct a timeline of the events which occur in it. Which parts of the timeline are the most crucial? Are there any events that don’t seem relevant to your story as a whole?

6. Take a setting in a story you wrote, and make a list of all the details you use to establish that setting. Are all of those details relevant? Now make a list of other details that might be relevant to the story in some way. Rewrite a scene using those details instead. How does your revision differ from your first draft?

7. Pick a story you have written, and keep track of all of the pressures on your characters. Do your characters switch from active to passive, or vice versa? Are those switches logical, and do they enhance your story?

8. Take a character you know well. Now choose three social contexts (e.g. when they are alone, at work, and at a socialite dinner party) and have them emotionally react to a single revelation in all of these contexts. This will be most helpful if it is a revelation you can pull from the character’s story. How do your character’s emotional reactions shift? What does this tell you about how they should react in the actual scene?

9. Write out the two sentence story for one of you pieces before you revise it. Is it interesting? is it clear? How could it be improved?

10. Start with a bland, over generalized two sentence story, and then refine all of the aspects to create a clear, interesting story. If you like it, try writing it.

11. Make a timeline for your story. Note all of those events which are not connected to the rest temporally, and figure out how to connect them together with plot. Are there any connections which aren’t plausible? How might you resolve them differently, in order to make the plot smoother?

12. Go through a piece of your writing that has lots of dialogue and cross out all of the places where you summarize the action taking place. Then, asking yourself the two questions above, improve the flow so that the missing phrases are no longer necessary.