Favorite Writing Exercises

I've been taking writing workshops for nearly 20 years now. As you can imagine, I've come across quite a few good writing exercises.

Why do writing exercises? Creativity is like a muscle; frequent use keeps it in good shape. You'll be amazed at how easily the words start flowing when you get into a writing "workout routine". Other times, writing exercises can help you work through a tricky bit, when you can't quite figure out the problem but you don't like a sentence, word, line of poetry etc.

"Yeah, yeah," you're saying. "We've all heard the recommendation to write at least 15 minutes a day, but even when I can find the time, it's hard to get into it." The problem could be that you're trying to be too focused. Muzzle your inner editor, and just let the words flow without worrying about getting them right. You'll be amazed what great stuff comes out.

DISCLAIMER: I am a total hypocrite. I don't write every day, unless you count email and work. But writing every day remains the goal.

Some days, you may want to write in a line completely different than your current work in progress, just to keep your brain from stagnating over the subject.

Every exercise has a thousand variations. This is just a general road map.

Writing Exercises

When (character) woke up this morning, little did he know...
...destiny was about to bring him:
...he was about to make the most amazing realization:
...his worst nightmare was about to come true:
...his lifelong dream was about to come true:
...during the night, his pet had:
...his (family member) was about to arrive on his doorstep:
...he would meet his future spouse that day:
...his significant other had already left him:


Describe in detail (character)'s...
...favorite chair
...kitchen table
...closet
...bedroom
...yard/garden
...hometown
...first/current car
...first/current pet
...first time drunk/high
...first/current crush
...first kiss
...first sex
...first breakup
...most embarrassing moment
...greatest triumph
...recurring dream
...very good or very bad day
...favorite or most hated chore
...favorite or most hated teacher
...favorite or most hated food
...favorite or most hated holiday
...favorite outfit
...sunglasses
...treasured piece of jewelry
...favorite shoes
...favorite alcoholic beverage/drug
...favorite work of art
...favorite book

Describe the first time your character's best friend met his significant other.

Describe a parent-teacher conference between your character's parent and his favorite or most hated teacher.

Describe where your character dreams of traveling. What would he do when he got there?

If your work-in-progress has a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph etc that just doesn't feel quite right, but you can't identify why, use this exercise from phenomenal poet Suzanne Gardinier, from whom I took an amazing workshop in college. Take that item (a line of poetry, in my case), start a new document or get a fresh piece of paper, and write an entire page (or poem) just about that item. Expound to your heart's content, then take the best parts of the result and work them back into the original document.

The Never-Ending Story?

Ever have a story that just won't go away? It could've lain dormant for months, you've nearly kissed it good-bye, and all of a sudden, WHAM! A character pops into your head and says something pithy that sends you on a desperate hunt for scratch paper, regardless of where you are and what you're doing.

Those darn characters. No consideration at all, I tell ya. The worst is in the shower; writing with soap works so much better on cars than it does on bathroom tiles. Especially if you use liquid soap.

I've been working on a story for, oh, a couple of years now. (In ink - much more permanent than liquid soap.) I like the story, and I'm absolutely devoted to the main character. He can be a tease sometimes, hanging around on my mind without particularly offering any great insights or the abovementioned pithy comments, but I keep researching the times and settings of his life and kept plugging away at the writing. I thought I'd made a pretty good draft of Part I, and then the new Thomas Pynchon book, "Against the Day", came out. Reading it, I just wanted to shred my Part I into a million tiny pieces.

What a fool I was for pursuing such a linear plotline! What was I thinking, using omniscient third-person narrative so restrictively?! And on, and on, and on. Dammit, Pynchon, you're a genius, but that long shadow of yours sure can be a bitch when it falls directly on my feeble attempts at literature.

Eventually, I got over it, remembering that every story has its own best plotline and narration. Whew! What a relief. Beware comparing yourself to the writers you love; you really are your own worst critic.

But I think self-criticism is something that happens to writers when our brains aren't occupied enough with the actual work of writing. I probaby wouldn't have been nearly so self-flagellant if I'd actually written anything for my story within the few months previous to reading "Against the Day". But I hadn't, so I was already feeling somewhat unworthy, research aside.

The trick here is to celebrate the daily victories. I mean really, when you work a forty-hour-plus job, and with all the other demands on people's time, just be happy that you even have the energy to think about writing. Pat yourself on the back for doing some research. Reward yourself with chocolate for doing a ten-minute writing exercise. Did you actually write some of the story? Good lord, go out and get laid!

Okay, so I'm exaggerating for comedic effect. But the point remains. I'm not going to berate myself anymore for not having the Great American Novel written and published by the time I'm 30. I'm just glad that I'm working on a story at all. Let it take years, if it has to; this character rocks!

At the Very Beginning, There Was Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut gets credit for this entire blog, little though he'd want it, were he still alive. Am I the only one still mourning Vonnegut's death? Surely not. I bet John Irving's still pacing his halls, if no one else.

When I heard the news, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. I focused on finishing the new Pynchon book as fast as possible, so I could start 'tribute reading' all the Vonnegut books I had. (Neither easy tasks, by the way. Have you seen the new Pynchon? It could stop a bullet! Likewise, tribute reading a prolific writer like Vonnegut is not a task for the faint of heart.)

So now, a week or so and a Cat's Cradle, Deadeye Dick, Player Piano and introduction to Breakfast of Champions later (with many more books yet to go), I am forcibly struck by the absence of the love letter I never wrote to Kurt Vonnegut. It was the force of this realization that drove me to start a blog, so I could tell the online world how much Vonnegut meant to me, since I never told him while he was alive.

Vonnegut is probably doing triple axels in his grave right now, assuming they buried him wearing ice skates and he's somehow magically online reading this post. I can just imagine him: "Good Lord! Why are you cluttering up the collective consciousness with odes to an absurd, deceased writer?" Maybe he'd quote a relevant Bokonon poem, or maybe he'd just say, "Hi-ho."

Regardless, here it is:

O Greatest of Kurts,

This letter's been a long time coming. Half my life ago, my hands cracked open the cover of "Breakfast of Champions", and when I closed the book again, I was changed forever. I suppose part of my love for you will always be the fourteen year old who was so astonished to find that somebody else out there found the world as funny and pathetic and hopeful and sad as I did.

I think that's where your greatness lies - and don't scoff, because you truly are a great writer. Your books are incredible, the way you interweave humor and pathos, effortlessly, naturally, with a brutal harshness and a sweet poignancy.

It is remarkable. It is, in fact, purely Vonnegut.

Maybe that's what I admire the most - that your style can't be imitated, and you imitate none other. Maybe it's the honesty that shines through your work, even as you protest that everything you say is untrue. Maybe it's the kinship I feel reading your mockery of mankind's pretense that we're better than human, and your celebration of the fact that we are, after all, only imperfect, blundering, frail, self-delusional humans.

Really, that's all we need to be. Thank you for pointing it out, again and again and again. Thanks for all the laughs, the sorrow, the catharsis. Thanks for being you. I can't imagine a world without you, but thank god you wrote all you did, because even after your death, you are still in the world with us.

I love you, Kurt Vonnegut. You are greatly missed.