Five more writing exercises to get you started

Following on from my first five writing exercises, here are five more to kick-start your creativity.

Exercise 1: The first lines test

We’re always told that the first line is the hardest one to write, so let’s get some practice in. To grab a reader’s attention, your first line needs to be impactful in some way – that doesn’t mean there has to be a car chase or a gun fight, it just has to hook the reader.

Try writing a series of first lines, as many as you feel you can within ten minutes. Really try to think about their structure, pacing and wording, and where the hook is. You never know, you might be so taken with one or more of them that you build a story from there.

Exercise 2: The ‘why?’ game

If you’ve been working on a novel or short story and you’re stuck, try asking your characters ‘why?’ Think of this as taking them out the pages of your manuscript, sitting them down and interrogating them. Ask them a why question relating to the plot or their character, and then ask another why, and another based on their answers.

Why did you fall out with your best friend? Because we had a row and stopped speaking. Why did you have a row? Because I challenged him on his drinking. And so on. This exercise gets you to dig a little deeper into your character’s psyche and might help you clarify things in a scene that isn’t working for you.

Exercise 3: The point of view experiment

Look around the room and describe it from the point of view of one of the characters in your story. What would they notice or not notice? How would they react to certain things? How would their emotions colour their descriptions?

By taking your character out of the context of the story they’re in, you’re exploring their voice in a little more detail. It’s a good way to find out how they speak and how they see the world, without the pressure of driving an actual story forward.

Exercise 4: The tree description

Find a picture of a tree and pick an emotion – happy, sad, angry, anxious, disgusted, whatever you like. Now describe that tree using language informed by that emotion, but without actually naming that emotion.

This exercise is a nice way to expand your powers of description as it forces you to think about your adjective choices and tone of voice.

Exercise 5: The restaurant scenario

Imagine one of your characters is in a restaurant. Their meal is brought to them but the waiter has got the order wrong. How does you character react? If they’re quite mild-mannered and quiet, they might say nothing and eat the meal so as not to cause a scene. If they’re the belligerent type, they might angrily send the meal back and insult the waiter.

 How someone reacts to another person’s mistake tells us a lot about their personality. This exercise is a good way to delve a little deeper into your character’s mind and see how humane or otherwise they really are.

Treat these exercises as a starting point, particularly if you’re struggling to come up with any ideas and need a seed of imagination to get you started. Maybe just try one a day and see where they lead you.

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