Writing Exercises
21-Nov-03
At the NaNoWriMo forums, I posted a thread last month for warmup writing exercises. Here some of them are:
STEP ONE (5 minutes):
Write down the names of five objects or people related to your story– leave lots of space around each of the names. They could be things that are important to the story, or things that somehow represent something in the story. They can be people who play a role in the story, or job titles that serve a function– you might want to avoid listing your main character at this point. If you’re in the “I have no idea” stage, they can be things or people or job titles that you personally think are neat, even if you don’t want to write about them.
STEP TWO (25 minutes):
Write a series of verbs and adjectives related to each of the five people or things, in a kind of cluster around the things or people. Spend five minutes on each person or object.
STEP THREE (10 minutes):
Draw lines connecting the things and people to get a sense of how your novel interconnects. Does the ninja have an obscure relationship to the possessed teapot?
FINAL STEP:
Don’t feel pressed to explicitly write those relationships into your novel, come November– you’re already aware of them, so they’ll appear whether you try to put them in or not. Inevitably, there will be something that doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of the other things. Don’t decide immediately to discard it– it may be just the thing to add variety and a counter-tension to your novel. It may also be just the thing you’ll end up cutting later– but it gives you something to cut when editing.
From …
When I’m feeling stuck or disconnected from my writing, I set the story I’m working on in my head and hit ‘random’ on my MP3 player. As each song comes up, I try to associate it FAST with some kind of scene that might happen “off camera” in the story, and then I try to get as much of that scene on paper as I can before the end of the song. Because songs are short, I have to go fast. Usually, I list what song I was listening to next to whatever I wrote, just in case I have a desire to go back and review.
Describe, in detail, someone that your main character despises, using his or her viewpoint as your “lens.”
Step One: Start with the role this person plays in your character’s life. What relationship do they have? Come up with a phrase of no more than 3 words that describes the relationship (usually, one word will suffice, like “parent” or “rival” or “assailant”). Write this word at the top of a sheet of paper.
Step Two: Start with basic, non-judgemental descriptive words for physical appearance– hair color, eye color, build, height, gender, etc.
Step Three: Write down the person’s name– or at least the name your character calls them by privately [ex: I have a friend who calls his sister's boyfriend "Bumblefuck" when writing about him in his journal].
Step Four: Write down all the awful vices that your character attributes to this person. Everything from them eating with their mouth open to the way they passive-aggressively manipulate others. Circle the traits and vices that the object of your despise actually possesses.
Step Five: Write down the feelings you had while writing the traits in Step Four. Anger? Jealousy? Hatred? Longing? What did you feel– what images do you have while you’re feeling those things? What do you want to do about it?
When you write your story, this object of so much pain and hatred will probably show up at least once. At the very least, you’ll now have a part of their “dark side” to work with, something to explore when you need to touch into their human spirit and show them for who they really are, flawed and jealous and very human in every way.