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Writing Exercises
1. Write a scene in which something normal is utterly terrifying, a lamp, a sleeping dog, a simple apple tree in autumn. Then reverse it, write a scene in which something normally frightening is somehow comforting or appealing.
2. Write about a war in which both sides have it wrong.
3. Write the cover copy of a book that doesn't yet exist. Your book? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not the boss of you.
4. Write about first contact; not the time humanity first meets aliens, but the first time aliens meet humanity, meaning, from the alien POV. Or, hell, make it whatever you want: werewolves, subterranean goblin-folk, an army of rampaging Snookis sent to pilfer the world of it Red Bull and tanning cream.
5. Sit down and write during a part of the day that doesn't usually see you write; if you write at night, write in the morning.
6. Find physical and mental discomfort and write from that. Write out in the cold. Or, if you don't like to write long-hand, do that. Try to write in the middle of distractions.
7. Step into the shoes of a character you despise with the sole exercise of making him readable and compelling, but without losing his loathsome qualities.
8. Write about a place that you find boring, I mean, we're talking dull as white wallpaper, and make it interesting.
9. Go to Home Depot. Or Lowe's, or some kind of hardware store. (You can visit the online version if you like, but the real deal will be much better.) Find in there one truly creative murder weapon you don't recall anybody using in their fiction, and then write a murder scene with that weapon in play.
10. Recall the most painful moment of your life, whether that pain is physical, emotional, or some surly combo pack containing the two, and write about it. Don't shirk the details. Explore the pain.
11. Now write #10 as if it's happening to a character, someone who is very different from you. Discover how they handle the pain.
12. Transcribe an interview with a mythic figure, the Devil, an archangel, Hephaestus, your decease parent, the Burger King, whoever tickles your pineal gland.
13. A character is crossing the road. Something bad happens. Describe it. No, don’t let it just be a car striking them. Too easy. Dig deeper. Once you find the conflict, add another. And another. Each conflict must be worse than the last. Escalate, escalate, escalate.
14. Capture the moment of redemption for a truly terrible villain. Why and how does it come?
15. Describe the freedom of being pantsless. Preferably written sans pants. For authenticity's sake. C'mon.
16. Find a random picture. Then write about it.
17. Get into the head of someone with whom you violently disagree, whether it's an old ex or someone on the opposite side of the political fence. Write from their perspective and, drum roll please, try to make them sympathetic. Then, if it makes you feel better, have them get hit by a train or violated by an angry golem.
18. Write the unsexiest sex scene you can write. Maybe it's awkward. Maybe both parties are totally into it, but the reader won't be. Maybe it involves some kind of mind-boggling fetish like people who get erotically charged by Mylar balloons or who dress up like giant teddy bears and try to bang parked cars.
19. Invent a memory from your childhood, and then write it.
20. Pick five random words from a random word generator and incorporate all of them into writing exercise.
21. Go out into the world and do a little people-watching. Pick a person, preferably one who looks nothing like you, and write three brief scenes from their life. One of those scenes must be that person's death.
22. Transcribe the strangest and most troubling wrong number phone call you can think of.
23. Don’t write for fifteen minutes, talk for fifteen minutes. Into a recorder (most phones come with them nowadays). Don't just rabble; endeavor to tell a story. It can be a story you already know or one you invent on the spot.
24. Create tension by writing a scene where a character you adore does something you hate.
25. Write about the worst mistake a character has ever made, the kind of mistake that resonates throughout the character's life. The kind where the snake can never be put back into the can. Now re-write it like the mistake is ten best thing that ever happened to the character.
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