WriterInside.com Blog

It’s hard to believe that two days ago was the one year birthday for my first “Exercises” post on WriterInside.com. With that in mind, let’s do a little time traveling for today’s exercise!

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Find or imagine an object or idea that is peculiar to our time, and then write a couple paragraphs describing this object to someone from a different time and place. Be specific about who you’re describing it to, because this can change the way you describe it. For example, try describing an ATM machine to a medieval peasant or explaining a weblog (or the Internet in general, for that matter) to an Egyptian Pharoah. Be sure to describe it in terms that they would understand.

What exactly does it mean to see the unseen? Try this exercise to broaden your descriptive skills.

In today’s exercise, I want you to find a common household item–or any item for that matter–and I want you to describe that item from the perspective of a blind man. Pick the item up. Hold it in your hands. Turn it over and run your fingers over the surface, looking for imperfections. Feel its weight, its texture, its overall “personality”. Also note its smell, if it has any.

Try to look for aspects of the object that you might not notice upon casual observation. Take note of these observations and write a paragraph or two describing this object in detail. Make the object come alive in your prose.

Repeat this exercise with multiple objects. ENJOY!!

If you’re having trouble with writer’s block, maybe you need to get out of the office and go somewhere public. Try this exercise for a little inspiration.

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Writing fiction is little more than making stuff up, is it not? So, if you’re having trouble creating brand new characters with interesting lives from scratch, why not give your story a head start by writing about real people?

“Wait a second,” you might say. “I thought it was a bad idea to write about real people. What about lawsuits and angry cousins?”

Don’t worry, I’m not telling you to write about people you KNOW! What I want you to do is to go some place public, order a tall cup of coffee, pull out your journal and your trusty pen, and keep your eyes open for interesting patrons.

If you sit there long enough, eventually someone will walk in who is eccentric enough to spark your interest. But even if the restaurant (coffee shop, whatever) is full of regular Joes (no coffee-related pun intended), this exercise can still be useful–not to mention extremely fun!

Once you’ve selected a patron, observe them. Try not to be too obvious about it, but take note of the way they walk, their facial expressions. Are they rude to the employees, or are they overly friendly. Look for weird mannerisms, like shifty eyes, or maybe restless hands that won’t stop picking at imaginary lint. Try to notice every little detail, and then make up a biography about them.

Once you’ve written a short biography, outlining their life and their personality, drop them in an interesting situation, and try to figure out how they would react to it. You never know . . . by the time this exercise is over, you might have yourself an idea for your next (or your first) big novel!

ENJOY!!

When you’re writing your Great American Novel, you’ll invariably come across a character who is absolutely despicable. Perhaps he’s a serial killer or a terrorist. Perhaps he’s a bad father who beats his wife and kids. Or maybe he’s just the guy in the other cubicle who is always picking his nose and wiping it on the wall. Either way, it’s up to you, the writer, to make this character as believable as possible. Very few people are despicable simply because they choose to be despicable. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m going to be a total jerk today! Let’s get started!” If there’s anything that most despicable people have in common, it’s that they justify their actions. They have a REASON for acting the way they do. As an author, you must examine that reasoning. If you don’t, then you’ll end up with flat, 2-dimensional villains that nobody really cares to read about. You need to learn to see through the eyes of the despicable. This exercise will help you do that.

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Select a topic you feel very passionately about. Something that either really upsets you or really makes you ecstatic. In order for this exercise to be effective, this has to be a topic that you’re very emotionally invested in. This should be a topic that you feel SO RIGHT about that you can’t even IMAGINE how anybody else could rationally feel any different.

Now I want you to write as much as you can about that topic from the point of view of someone who vehemently disagrees with you. And the real challenge here is to make your argument sound reasonable. People who disagree with you don’t do so just because they like being jerks. They have reasons for it, and in this exercise you’re going to explore those reasons. As you’re writing, strive to make them sound like logical, reasonable people. Try to convince the reader (even though there won’t be a reader this time around) that this opposing point of view is the way to go. It will be tempting just to make this opposing view seem ignorant and poorly thought out, but resist that temptation.

Only when you’ve put yourself in the place of each of your characters will you create characters that are interesting, 3-dimensional, and believable.

ENJOY!!

One of the most common questions asked of writers is where their ideas come from, and the answer is usually pretty consistent. Generally, writers DON’T KNOW where they get their ideas. Every now and then an author will tell you they overheard a conversation that sparked an idea, or maybe they saw something weird happen at a supermarket that prompted them to write their first novel, but many of the ideas for stories just seem to come from nowhere. They coalesce from the darkest corners of a writer’s twisted mind and find their way onto paper. But what if nothing is “coalescing” for you? What if you sit there, staring at an empty page for hours and not a single good idea emerges from the dusty cobwebs in the proverbial corner of your mind? Is there a solution? OF COURSE there is! One of the best ways to come up with ideas is just to START WRITING! Today’s exercise is premised upon a concept upon which many great stories are based. And the concept is this–many good stories are made up of two ideas that really don’t seem like they should go together. Take Indiana Jones, for example. You take an archaeologist/professor and pit him against the Nazis! What a ridiculous idea, right? Well, apparently it wasn’t TOO ridiculous, because they made three great movies out of it . . . although, to my recollection, the second one had very little to do with Nazis.

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Think of two people who are polar opposites of one another. They can be real people, or you can pull them right out of your head. (But be careful when using real people. If you plan to publish your story, you could get sued for slander . . . or is it libel? I can’t remember!) Anyways, try to think of two people who are so incredibly different that it would be weird to see them in a room together. Like maybe Genghis Khan and a punk skater kid.

Once you have your characters, write a short biography about each character. What is he/she passionate about? What does he/she detest more than anything?

Then use these biographies and put your characters in a car. Where are they going? What brought them together? How do their passions and hatreds set them at odds with one another?

Write a short story idea based on this exercise. Will the two characters find a way to live in peace with each other? Or will they drive each other insane? More importantly, whether or not they learn to accept each other, what do they LEARN in the process of their interaction.

ENJOY!!