The writing community is fairly split on the matter of writing exercises. Some folks swear by them while others swear at them. Why the strong division? Well, there are some great benefits you can get from writers’ exercises, but there are also some real problems inherent in how they get used. So here’s a brief analysis of the pros and cons of these exercises, as well as some tips for making sure you use them to enhance your work–rather than allowing them to use you.

Pros:

• Well-crafted writers’ exercises, such as those from Brian Kiteley’s The 3 A.M. Epiphany, can teach you elements of style in a way that’s easier to internalize and remember than simple dry instruction.

• Free-writing can teach you to let go of the judgmental part of yourself that can prevent your most imaginative and creative ideas from coming out.
• Writing in response to unusual prompts can spur you to come up with ideas you might never think of otherwise.
• An exercise can serve as an excellent warm-up first thing in the morning when you’re having trouble getting yourself to set pen to paper.
• If you haven’t yet figured out what you want to work on, exercises can help you pour out your thoughts onto paper, giving you a chance to find out what’s percolating in your mind and how you might turn it into something interesting through writing.
• Exercises aimed at journaling rather than fiction-writing can help you to work through problems and issues you’re having in your life, while at the same time giving you potential material to create lifelike and interesting characters for stories, or for memoir-writing.

Technorati Tags: journaling, free-writing, write, writers, writing

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According to Wikipedia, a mondegreen “is the mishearing (usually accidental) of a phrase in such a way that it acquires a new meaning.” This is so common in the case of songs that there are entire books of mondegreens available. You can also find out about some common mondegreens at the following pages:

• Mondegreens Ripped My Flesh

• mondegreen central
• The Misheard Lyrics Hall of Fame
• Brain Candy mondegreens
• A Collection of Humorous Mondegreens

Using a mondegreen of your own, or one from a page linked to above, do one of the following:

• Write the rest of the song that would go around this misheard lyric, or turn it into a poem.

• Use it as a free-association jumping off point and just start writing to see what odd and unusual ideas you come up with.
• Use it as a story-starter.

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

Twice recently I’ve linked to inspirational images that I’ve described as “mysterious,” and that got me thinking. Today, look around you (your house, outside your house, on your way to work, at work, at the deli when you go to lunch, etc.) and note down at least ten things you could view as mysterious. How did that little hole in your floor get there? Why is there a dead patch of grass in the middle of your yard? Whatever happened to the old lady who used to sit out on her porch every day but hasn’t been out for two weeks?

At the end of the day, brainstorm three plots or plot hooks involving each mysterious circumstance or object.

If you look around, you can find mysteries and questions in the most ordinary of anomalies and objects. Use that. Learn to question everything!

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Technorati Tags: journaling, mystery, plots, prompts, write, writers, writing

Since I’ve done a handful of image exercises lately I was going to try to do something else today–and then I came across this haunting image of a mysterious door in the side of a building (link found on FARK). I couldn’t resist. Set a timer for 30 minutes and free write on one or more of the following topics:

• How long has this door been here, and who has noticed it? What do they think of it?

• Who was the last person to walk through this door, why, and what has happened to them?
• What lies beyond this door?
• What horrifying (or wondrous, or bizarre) thing has happened behind this door?
• What secrets does this door hide?

Messy Genius Tile Box

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

Once a week, Friday’s Feast presents a buffet of “thought-provoking, mind-stimulating questions” in five “enticing courses”. Use one of these feasts to create your own five-course meal when you need a prompt of a slightly different kind. These would make particularly good journal prompts. I’m rather fond of the dessert from feast 110.

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

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I’m continually amazed by the contents of FARK photoshop threads (those things where someone presents an original image and challenges folks to come up with amazing, clever, or funny photoshopped adaptations of it). The better ones provide a world of material for writers’ exercises. In particular, the images generated using this pointy structure made my jaw drop. Each of these images, with a few exceptions, could act as inspiration for an entire fictional world, or could act as a unique story starter.

Today, check out the photos in that thread. Try to look through the entire thread before settling on an image if you can–it’s tough because there are some amazing early entries, but you don’t want to miss out on the later ones. Pick one image and do one of two things with it:

• Use it as a story starter.

• Set a timer for 30 minutes and free-write about a fictional world inspired by that image.

Myself, I may use some of them as inspiration for a Rifts campaign I’m thinking of starting. Feel free to go back later and do the same thing all over again with other images; I can’t imagine wasting such beautiful inspirational material!

Technorati Tags: fark, graphics, journaling, photographs, photoshop, prompts, story starters, world building, write, writers, writing

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It’s time for another edition of… the Spam Game! That’s right boys and girls, this is the game where you check out your junk email folder and look for the weirdest, most off-the-wall randomly-generated spam subject line you can find. Then you imagine that this subject line represents an actual product (or service) that someone is trying to sell you, and start writing about that product. Write a sales pitch for it, describe it, write about its arrival on your doorstep after you order it, or work it into a story. If you don’t want to go trolling through your junk mail folder, here are some spam subject lines I recently received:

• brawl curriculum

• re: dreamsmile
• Hi, pardon bowl
• masseur decentralization
• missile parish
• priest seal
• bullet thrilled
• motorboat noticeably
• antiseptic culmination
• Better life, winter-proof
• eviction intently
• glorified friar
• Best life… nebular
• hopelessly emergent
• matrimonial satiny
• traumatize school
• hundred pelican
• antithesis aggression
• artificial respiration washable
• bankrupt glowworm
• Better Success, white-acre
• spa thimble
• stack probe
• trailer park racetrack
• unholy intravenous
• work-study frigate
• sarcastically chicken pox

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

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I think we’re all at least vaguely familiar with the zodiac and its traditional symbols at this point: Pisces (the fish), Capricorn (the goat), Cancer (the crab), Leo (the lion), and so on. What if the zodiac was something totally different, however? What if it consisted of 12 totally different symbols and meanings?

Today, make up your own zodiac. Come up with 12 symbols, give them each a basic association, and draw up a quick-and-dirty personality profile you’d associate with each symbol. Take into account the typical things astrologers tend to address–motivation, work habits, love life, and so on.

If you’re a fantasy or sci-fi writer who likes to write fiction set in an alternate reality, create your zodiac to fit one of your worlds.

Technorati Tags: astrology, journaling, prompts, what if, write, writers, writing, zodiac

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If you ever need a random bit of inspiration, consider wandering over to the Vox Question of the Day. Use the day’s question as the start of a journal entry, a story starter, or a free-write exercise. If you’re a fiction-writer, ask the question of one of your characters. Just for fun, try The Audience Goes Wild today.

Technorati Tags: characterization, characters, journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

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Song lyrics can be an incredible source of inspiration. Because they’re so compressed, and (the good ones, at least) designed to create or accompany intense emotion, they often hint at much greater things. A single phrase from a song can spark an entire story or world. Today, use the following as a story starter:

“In the garden I committed no crime.”

This particular line is from Tori Amos’ song “Raspberry Swirl,” from her album “from the choirgirl hotel”. As soon as I heard/read it, it made me shiver with the possibilities inherent in those seven words.

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, Tori Amos, write, writers, writing