Sensible Writing Exercises

Ah, the senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. How do these things relate at all to writing exercises?

We delight in the pleasures of the senses, but infusing writing with sensory stimulation is not an easy task. It takes a daft and creative writer to forge written images that trigger a reader’s senses.

So, why bother? Why attempt writing exercises that involve sensual triggers?

Well, when you engage the senses of your readers, your work becomes more compelling and more memorable. Some scientists say that smell is the strongest of the senses in terms of memorability. So, if you get your readers to experience scents, you’ll have them hooked.

These writing exercises are designed to help you write with more sense. This is a series of smaller writing exercises that culminate with creating a written piece that is peppered with sensory stimuli:

Prepare

• Start with a sheet of paper divided into five columns. If you prefer to do writing exercises like this on your computer, you can use Excel or Word, or some other program.
• Label the columns: eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and nose.
• Spend a few minutes populating the columns with words and phrases that reflect the correlating senses. For example, in the smell column, you might write chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, a blooming rose, or the cat’s litter box. Be as descriptive as possible.

Review

• Review your list carefully, testing each item on your list to see how it affects you. When you read something like throbbing base coming from the car in the next lane, can you feel the boom?
• As you go through your list, cross out anything that doesn’t engage your senses.
• Highlight those items that really affect you – when you can feel the soft slick fabric of silk or hear the sound of a quiet breeze rustling dried and fallen leaves, you’re being affected.

The Writing Exercises

• Try writing one sentence for each of the five senses. Make sure it’s a complete sentence, and try to generate a sentence that evokes a scene. In other words “The roses smell nice,” won’t cut it. Try for something like: “She bent down slowly, beckoned by the rose’s sweet perfume and dazzling red hue.”
• Next, try to do what I did in the sample sentence above. Combine two or more senses in a single sentence. When you read it back, does your nose tingle? Do you see bright colors in your mind? Can you hear the sound that you tried to evoke?
• Finally, write a brief essay, poem, or short story in 500 words or less, and be sure to stimulate each of the five senses in the piece. As a bonus, you can work in the sixth sense as well.

Tips

• Need some ideas? Start by choosing a setting, such as an event, where it’s likely all fives senses would be stimulated. For example, at a wedding, there will be the scent of fresh flowers, the taste of a wedding cake, and the sound of “Here Comes the Bride.” Other likely events include concerts, parties, meetings, vacations, and – try this one – cleaning day.
• If you get stuck, refer to your brainstorm list or practice sentences and use that material for inspiration.
• Try not to make it too obvious. A reader shouldn’t be able to notice that you’re triggering all their senses, so be sure it flows naturally.

The purpose of writing exercises is to have fun while challenging yourself. If you try these, feel free to post what you’ve written in the comments.

If you have any favorite writing exercises of your own, feel free to share them in the comments.

And keep on writing sensibly!

Poetry Writing Exercises for Groups and Partners

Today’s poetry writing exercises encourage you to try co-authoring by working with other writers. If you haven’t written poetry with a group or with a partner, then you’re missing out.

Writing is usually a solitary, and sometimes lonely, endeavor. But by working with other writers, you can dodge the loneliness that so many writers must endure.

Co-authoring has plenty of other benefits, too. You can observe other writers at work, use your skills as a team player, and you can share inspiration with other creative people and let some of their inspiration rub off on you.

These poetry writing exercises are a great way to get started.

3 Poetry Writing Exercises

Try one of these poetry writing exercises or try them all. Try them with a group or with just one other writer. Then, come back here and post your poems in the comments or just share how the exercises worked for you.

Exercise #1: Simple Pass

This is the simplest and most straightforward way to co-author a poem. The first person writes a line and then passes it to the second person, who adds another line. In a group setting, the poem would then go to the third person in the circle. In a two-person setting, the poem goes back to the first person.

• Groups can continue passing the poem until everyone in the group has added a line.
• Partners and groups can determine the length of the exercises by establishing a predetermined number of lines until the poem is completed.
• Tweak this exercises by having each person write two lines instead of one, or on the first pass write one line, on the second pass write two lines, on the third pass write three, and so on.

Exercise #2: Move and Repeat

In this exercise, the first person write a four-line stanza. The second person will take the second line of that stanza and use it as the first line of the second four-line stanza and write three new lines for it. Each person will continue taking the second line of the previous stanza and using it as the first line in a new four-line stanza.

The repetition of lines often creates interesting rhythm and also keeps the poem consistent.

• Change the line count – use five- or six-line stanzas instead.
• Move the pattern – instead of moving the second line to the first line, move the third line to the second line or the fourth line to the first line.
• As the poem gets passed, only show the next person the line that is to be repeated. Piece the poem together once the exercise is completed (interesting to see if the writers were thinking along the same lines).

Exercise #3: Clip and Swap

Take an existing poem and jumble the words up so that they make no sense. Each writer in the group will take the jumbled words and use them to compose a brand new poem. Then, compare the poems among the members of the writing group.

• Rule: The writers can add their own words to the jumble, but must use every single word provided.
• You can print out the original poem and cut it up manually or use a word processing program to jumble using the cut and paste feature.
• Add co-authoring by including an extra step: the writers swap completed poems and then rewrite or revise their partners’ exercise.

Group Poetry Writing Online

You can easily adapt these poetry writing exercises so that you can do them online. Pass the poem using an email list or use a forum. Try composing poetry using social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. You’re not locked in to working through these exercises in a live, in-person setting.

Most importantly, have fun and keep on writing!

Have you written in a group or with a partner? What was your experience like? Do you have any poetry writing exercises that you’d like to share? Leave a comment.

Poetry Writing Exercises: Freewriting and Poem Building

Today’s poetry writing exercises will show you how to build a poem from the ground up.

We begin by using freewriting to create a supply of raw material. Then, we’ll sift through the material, using bits and pieces to put together a solid foundation for our poem to stand on.

Next, we add structure – beams, walls, and a roof, giving our poem its form. Finally, we put on the finishing touches, adding fixtures and hanging curtains, polishing our poem to completion.

You’ll find that building a poem isn’t much different from building a house or putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Of course, this is just one technique for making poems, and if you like it or find it useful, then you can use it again and again.

Poetry Writing Exercises

I’m especially excited about these writing exercises because freewriting is one of my favorite writing practices, especially for poetry writing. However, once you’ve worked through the process, you will see how these exercises can be modified and applied to prose.

Poetry writing exercises are meant to be fun but also challenging. You should enjoy yourself but you should also be stretching your literary prowess as you work through the steps, making your way toward a completed poem.

These exercises follow a very particular process with some suggestions for variations and alternative applications that you can use to customize the process to better suit your own writing preferences.

Step One: Gather Your Materials

Your first task is to complete a freewriting session. Sit down in a comfortable place, either with a pen and notebook or with your computer. For a little creativity enhancement, you might play some inspirational music in the background.

Start writing. Write whatever comes to your mind, however ridiculous or obscure. In fact, the more ridiculous or obscure, the better.

Keep the session going for at least ten minutes. Twenty or thirty minutes is even better. Don’t stop writing at any point during the session. You should be scrambling frantically to get all the thoughts and images out of your mind and onto the page.

For more details, check out my article on freewriting.

Step Two: Pick and Choose

Now, step away from your freewrite. Try to let it sit overnight or for a few days. At the very least, let it sit for a few hours.

When you’re ready, come back to your freewrite with a pen and a highlighter (you can use the strikethrough and highlighting features in your word processing software if you’re working on a computer).

Go through the piece using your highlighter to call out words and phrases that stand out. Look for excerpts that use interesting language. Highlight anything that paints a vivid image, evokes emotion, or tickles the senses.

Next, use your pen to cross out words and phrases that are unappealing. Strike anything that sounds flat or boring. Eliminate sections that are overly repetitive, that ramble incoherently, or are simply uninteresting.

Step Three: Create a Foundation

Now you have your raw material. The sections you’ve highlighted are your building blocks. You can type these in a new document, or write them on a piece of paper or on a set of note cards.

The purpose of this step is to pull all of the usable words and phrases from your freewrite and separate them so that you can use them to build the structure of your poem. You might set aside a folder or box and place all your usable material in it, then revisit it from time to time and use that material to make poems.

You can work through these early steps as often as you like, generating freewrites and then filtering through them with your highlighter. The more you do this, the more raw material you’ll have at your disposal. Over the course of a few months, you might practice freewriting every day, but only use your freewrites to make poems a couple of times a month.

Step Four: Build the Structure

Now that you have your raw material in hand, start arranging it on the page. If you’re working on the computer, you can use cut and paste. If you’ve used note cards, you can spread them out on a table, trying different arrangements. Or, you can simply use a pen or pencil to write them in your notebook and make notations about placement.

As you work through this process, you may find that fresh images, words, or phrases pop into your head. Add these to the mix.

This is the most creative step in these poetry writing exercises. You might collect tens or hundreds of freewrites, or you might create a big box full of note cards that contain words and phrases for poetry building. You can revisit the structure-building step time and time again using the raw materials that you’ve created and collected over time.

Be adventurous and take risks. Try combining words in new and unexpected ways. Be on the lookout for language that sounds cliche, and look for alternative wording. Continually ask yourself if your lines paint a picture (or a series of pictures), if they appeal to a reader’s emotions, or if they trigger the senses, evoking a physical reaction in the reader’s mind.

Give yourself plenty of workspace and creative wiggle room. The materials you are using are much like puzzle pieces, and you’ll need to sit and try to fit them together in a coherent way. In the end, you should have your clippings arranged in some order that makes sense. You’ve got lines, the rough draft of your poem.

Step Five: Finishing Touches

Once you’ve got a basic structure for you poem, type it up (or write it down) in completion. This is another good time to take a break. Step away from the piece for a length of time.

When you return, read the poem aloud. If you’ve taken time away from the poem, you’ll be able to read it with a fresh perspective. Look for areas where the poem loses continuity. Scan for repetition. Read and listen to make sure the poem’s rhythm is intact.

As you do this, make notes. You might jot down something like “this word doesn’t fit with the voice,” “this line breaks the rhythm,” or “this image is cliche.”

When you’ve gone through the entire poem a few times, go back and edit, making changes to fix whatever you thought was broken. Polish, edit, then repeat.

You will find that in most cases, you’ll repeat this step several times over. You read the poem, make some notes, apply the changes. Then, when you read it back the second time, you find new areas that need improvement or sections that you missed in your previous review.

Some writers say that a piece is never truly finished. That means that if you keep reviewing the same piece over and over, you’ll keep finding things that you want to change. At some point, it’s time to declare your poem finished, so that you can move on to your next project. Try not to get tangled up and caught in a vicious cycle of editing.

Variations

As with all poetry writing exercises, you should allow yourself to play around with the process so that it suits your personal writing style. Here are a few ideas for variations:

• Practice freewriting every day to build a huge storehouse of raw material.
• Go through your freewrites with a highlighter regularly and capture the highlighted portions on note cards. Store these somewhere and use them randomly to make poems.
• Try working through these steps with prose. This is especially useful in literary writing. If you have a short story with a solid plot and compelling characters, but are struggling with language, any poetry writing exercises, including this one, will help you develop better wording and phrasing for your prose pieces.

As always, have fun with these poetry writing exercises. And keep on writing!

Do you have any poetry writing exercises to share? Have you tried this one? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Journal Prompts to Tickle Your Funny Bone

Have you ever tried to write comedy? It’s not easy.

Artists are often regarded as a tortured bunch. From drug-addled rock stars to alcohol-infused writers, we’re all known for madness and melancholy.

But comics are among the ranks of some of the most talented artists in the world. The gift of laughter is a rich one and writing funny material can enrich your work.

After all, art must reflect life and life is a balance of highs and lows. So for today’s journal prompts, we’re going to work on humor.

Journal Prompts

Use these journal prompts to stretch your imagination and bring a smile to your own journal. Who knows? One of them might result in an entirely funny scene for your next short story.

• Write about your favorite comedy film or TV show. Who’s the funniest character? Is the comedy physical, emotional, or intellectual? Why does it appeal to your personal sense of humor?
• Think about someone in your life who always gets a giggle out of you. Can you remember some of the funny things that person has said or done, which made you laugh? Write them down.
• Off the wall comedy is silly and ridiculous. How do you feel about slapstick?
• Think back on some embarrassing moments that you’ve experienced, especially ones that invoked laughter. Now, wrote those moments as scenes and infuse them with humor.
• Many dramas use comedic relief to add balance and realism. Write about how this is done successfully and the positive impact it has on readers.

When you’re writing, don’t forget about humor. Hopefully these journal prompts will help you keep humor in mind, even if you’re writing a dramatic piece or if humor isn’t your specialty.

And always remember, laughter is good medicine! Keep on writing.

Did you find these journal prompts helpful? If you use any of these, share your experience by leaving a comment.

Getting Into Character: Fiction Writing Exercises

Writers are not actors, but sometimes we need to get into character.

To truly understand the nature of a character, a writer must step into that character’s shoes. All the character sketches and descriptions that you develop will be two dimensional until you can get into your character’s head and understand what makes him tick.

This is not an easy thing to do. Your first impulse might be to act like a puppet master, pulling your character’s strings and controlling his actions. But what you really need to do is scoot over and get in the passenger’s seat. Let your character do the driving and ride along as an observer. And that’s exactly what fiction writing exercises can help you do.

Tips for Getting Into Character

Many artists and creative people talk about entering “the zone.” This is a state of mind in which you’re running on automatic pilot. Your right (creative) brain is fully engaged and your left (logical) brain is snoozing with one eye open. It is in this state that people often get lost in an activity, lose track of time, and produce some of their best creative work.

When you’re getting into character, it’s best to be in the zone. Approach these fiction writing exercises when you’re calm and relaxed, and willing to let your imagination override your logical thinking.

How do you do this? Before sitting down to tackle these exercises, try exercising. Take a walk, do some yoga, or go for a swim. You can also meditate, or simply take a few minutes to lie down and relax and clear your mind of all the clutter. Listening to classical music or jazz is another effective way for getting into the zone. Once your mind is calmed, you’ll be ready to get into character and try the fiction writing exercises below.

Fiction Writing Exercises for Getting Into Character

Exercise #1: Chat

Launch your word processing software and start up a conversation with your character. Most of us have engaged in online chat or instant messaging. This is the same idea. If chat is not a comfortable medium for you, then try composing emails back and forth between you and your character.

Before you start, you might want to come up with a list of questions to ask your character. Also, this is a great exercise to use when you get stuck in a story that doesn’t want to move forward. Simply chat with your character to try and find out what’s holding him back from taking the next step.

Your chat might look something like this:

ME: So, you’re hearing voices in your head and you’re not sure whether you’ve gone crazy or are telepathic.

CHARACTER: Obviously, I’m telepathic. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in telepathy. I know you do.

ME: How could you possibly know something like that?

CHARACTER: Because I am reading your mind right now.

Exercise #2: Stand-in Situation

Put your character in a situation and see how he handles it. If you’re already working on a story, then try removing your character from it and placing him a completely different setting. Think of riveting scenes from books you’ve read or movies that you’ve seen, or use scenes from your own life.

A few quick ideas for scenes that will reveal how your character handles a situation:

• Your character is standing on the corner trying to hail a taxi when there’s a sudden distraction. This could be an accident in the street, a beautiful woman walking by, or an emergency phone call from a desperate friend or family member. Does your character hop in the cab and go about his day?
• Your character’s arch-enemy is is grave peril and the only person around who can save him is your character. Does he let his enemy die or save his life?
• Your character has been grossly betrayed by a close friend or family member. Is your character able to forgive? Does he seek revenge? Will he go on with his life, simply removing the betrayer from it?

Notice that all these scenarios test the character’s integrity. This is a great way to get a handle on what kinds of choices your character makes. Keep in mind as you work through this exercise that people are not perfect and characters needn’t be either. The most interesting characters are easy to relate to, and that means they are flawed in some way.

Exercise #3: Monologue

Monologues are a great way to get inside your character’s head, especially if the story you’re writing will be in third person. This is your chance to let your character’s voice be heard.

Write a piece in first person, from your character’s perspective. Choose a general theme for the monologue and start writing in the character’s voice. Some ideas for themes:

• Character is relating a significant event from his past – loss of a loved one, major life transition, or one of those everyday moments that change everything or stay with you forever.
• Character is faced with a serious challenge or decision and is discussing his options and what the effects of either choice might be.
• Character is in the middle of an emotional crisis and is overcome by grief, rage, envy, or some other intense feelings.

In a monologue, you can include action cues, but try to write them into the dialog. For instance, if the characters starts crying, make that evident in the writing. If you’re feeling really brave (or if you’re an actor at heart), try recording yourself reading and playing out the monologue. That will add another dimension and allow your character’s speech, intonation, and inflection to come through.

How to Use These Exercises

Once you’ve completed the exercise, you can revisit the material you’ve written to gain a better understanding of your character.

Try to pinpoint any areas where you’ve stepped in and taken over. Maybe your character said something that you normally or frequently say. Or perhaps he did something that is just – well – out of character. You can edit and revise until you feel that your piece has truly captured your character’s behavior and essence.

Later, when you’re working on your story, you can pull out these exercises to see if there are any clues about your character that you want to expose. You may also use these exercises as you’re writing a story to help you get a better grasp on your character or learn his secrets.

As always, the most important thing when working through creative writing exercises is to have fun.

And keep on writing.

If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.

Top Secret Fiction Writing Exercises

“Ssh, don’t tell anyone. Put it in the vault!”

Most of us have had those very words whispered into our ear. In fact, most of us have probably whispered those words into someone else’s ear.

They say everyone has a secret. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that secrets sure pique people’s curiosity.

And if you can capture a reader’s curiosity, you’ll have them hooked.

That’s the essence of today’s fiction writing exercises.

The Power of Secrets

Don’t your ears perk up just a little bit when you hear the word secret? And don’t you just get all quiet and attentive when someone says, “I have a secret to tell you?” Secrets are powerful. They imply mystery and drama, they evoke suspense and build tension, and they capture people’s attention. Most importantly, they keep readers turning the pages.

Characters with Secrets

Secrets can be integral to a plot, but usually the secrets belong exclusively to the characters. In fact, sometimes a secret will shape a character’s personality. How would keeping a secret for decades impact a person’s behavior? What kind of secret would weigh on someone’s conscience? How do the other characters view someone who can’t keep a secret?

There are big secrets and little secrets, important ones and silly ones. Some secrets are cliché (she had a baby and gave it up for adoption!) and others are funny (one time, at band camp…).

The best secrets are surprising. I’m not talking about the sitcom variety of the overheard misunderstanding, where one character overhears another and gets the wrong idea. Think about the secrets in books like The Da Vinci Code or in films like The Usual Suspects — secrets that make you drop your jaw or think about the world in new ways.

Then, try to come up with some interesting secrets for your fiction. You can use the fiction writing exercises below to write a scene, a whole story, or maybe you’ll just come up with some really great character traits or plot twists.

Here are ten fiction writing exercises built entirely around secrecy:

Ten Secret Fiction Writing Exercises

1. A character is harboring a secret that is preventing him from fulfilling his true desire.
2. Two characters share a secret but it’s not what everyone thinks it is.
3. It’s an old family secret and there’s only person alive who knows about it. Will she take it to the grave?
4. There’s a secret and everyone knows about it except one particular character and it happens to affect that character the most.
5. There is a small group of people who meet in secret at regular intervals.
6. A character has a secret and if anyone found out, it would destroy his life.
7. One character discovers another character’s shocking, sad, or terrible secret.
8. A character thinks she has a very private secret, but actually, most of the people close to her know about it.
9. A character knows a secret that would destroy one person’s life but save the life of another person.
10. There is a secret that would affect everyone on the planet but only a small, elite group of characters know the secret.

Secret Tips

Writing secrets into your story can make it a lot more exciting, and you can conjure up secrets whenever a character seems flat or the plot is thinning out. But you have to be careful with secrets. Here are a few final secret tips:

• Avoid common or stereotypical secrets unless you can give them a really intriguing twist. Examples: sordid affairs, the family member you never knew you had, the person who went to prison didn’t commit the crime, etc.
• Usually, the audience gets in on the secret before the key character does, but don’t let it out too early. If you can, reveal the secret over time and make it a guessing game for the reader to figure out.
• If you build a lot of tension, you better have a secret that delivers. There’s nothing worse than a lot of big build-up for something like “I’m the one who broke your favorite snow globe in second grade.” Try to come up with a real doozie.

Tell Me Your Secrets

If you have any secrets (real or made up), feel free to leave them in the comments. Or, if you want to have some fun, post a secret from a novel or a film that you thought was especially clever.

Have fun with these exercises (how could you not?), have a wonderful weekend, and keep on writing!

If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.

Flash Your Fiction: Writing Exercises

These fiction writing exercises are designed to help fiction writers shave away the fluff and reveal the bare bones of a piece. We’ll start with one exercise that is best for helping writers assess the core structure of a story and then explore a few bonus flash fiction writing exercises that are good for developing concise writing skills.

What is Flash Fiction?

Flash fiction is a short story that is extremely brief. There is no official word limit, but generally, stories with less than 1000-2000 words would fall under the flash category.

Fiction Writing Exercises and Flash Fiction

Many writers have a habit of using gratuitous words and phrases in order to meet a word count, make a piece sound more rhythmic, or to enhance descriptive passages. Often, such words hinder a story because they leave less to the reader’s imagination. Other times, there is so much description that the plot gets lost in the fray.

Fiction writing exercises like this one will help you pinpoint areas where excessive wording is creating a problem. In addition, it will peel away the layers of your story, revealing its core. Plus, it’s a very simple exercise and can be completed rather quickly if you’re using word processing software such as Microsoft Word.

Flash Your Fiction

Select a short story that you’ve written and is either completed or near completion. Try to choose one that is about ten pages long. Of course, you can do this exercise with an entire manuscript, or with a story that is just a couple of pages long, but ten pages is good to start with.

First, I suggest you save the file with a new name so that you don’t lose your original work. Go through the piece removing every single adjective and adverb. Next, remove words, phrases, and sentences that do not move the action of the story forward, especially if they are solely there for description.

Finally, go through the story one last time removing as much as you can without making the piece unintelligible. A traditional example is:

Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy wins girl back.

Of course, this is an oversimplified example, but it certainly gives you an idea of just how much a story can be broken down into its basic movements.

More Flash Fiction Writing Exercises

If you don’t have any pieces that you feel are appropriate for this exercise, or if you want to try something a little different, or if you just want to do more flash fiction writing exercises, here are a few more projects you can tackle:

• Write a piece of flash fiction from scratch and try to keep it under 1000 words. If you really want to push yourself, aim for less than 500 words. It’s harder than it sounds!
• Instead of rewriting an entire piece, turn a scene or a chapter into a flash fiction story.
• Turn movies, novels, and other story sources into flash fiction writing exercises. Take the plot from a movie or book that you like and try to write it as a piece of flash fiction.

This exercise can be a lot of fun and it’s extremely eye-opening when you start to realize just how many unnecessary words we pack into our writing. It’s also interesting to see the raw skeleton of a story after stripping away its excess.

Are You Up For It?

If you decide to try this exercise, feel free to post your story in the comments (as long as it’s not too long) or if you publish the exercise on your own blog, go ahead and post a link.

Have a great weekend and keep on writing!

If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.

Fiction Writing Exercises for the Holiday Season

Looking for creative writing ideas or fiction writing exercises this holiday season? You’re in luck, because I have a wacky one for you.

Before we start, a quick disclaimer: this is a fiction writing exercise in holiday customs rather than the holidays themselves, so this writing exercise is suitable no matter which holiday you celebrate, or even if you don’t celebrate any at all.

Before I reveal the challenge, let’s take a look at a few interesting holiday customs and traditions.

Holiday History

The Christmas Tree

We go outside, chop down a pine tree, then bring it into our home, where we set it up in our living room and attach colorful, twinkling lights all over it. Then, we hang an assortment of decorative items from the boughs. Finally, we top it off with a star or an angel and place a heap of gifts underneath. Then, for a few weeks, we look at the pretty lights, maybe sing a few songs or sit by the tree drinking eggnog until finally we get to open all those gifts. Once we do that, we undecorate the tree and dispose of it.

Menorah (Hanukkah)

On the first night, we light one candle. On the second night, two candles. On the third night, three. We do this for eight nights in a row. Over the course of those eight nights (and days), we distribute gifts, eat chopped liver, and we take out little wooden blocks decorated with strange glyphs and spin them on the floor.

Winter Solstice & Saturnalia

Throughout history, winter solstice has been celebrated by cultures throughout the world with a huge spectrum of traditions. The most interesting, perhaps, is Saturnalia, an ancient Greek festival. During Saturnalia, slaves were except from punishment and were allowed to treat their masters disrespectfully. Masters and slaves would also reverse roles and for a day, the slaves would learn what it was like to be master and vice versa.

Santa Claus

Every Christmas, a fat man in a red suit climbs into a sleigh pulled by eight nine magical flying reindeer (the ninth one has a red nose that lights up), and he travels all over the world in a single night, stopping at every house that has children sleeping soundly inside. At these homes, he lands on the roof, climbs down the chimney, and then leaves toys that were made by elves under the trees (see Christmas Trees above) for good boys and girls.

The Easter Bunny

It happens around springtime. A special rabbit named The Easter Bunny visits every house with children (note: this sounds awfully familiar). Unlike with Santa, we don’t know how he travels or how he gets in and out of the houses, but he leaves baskets filled with treats and goodies, plus, he hides colorful hard-boiled eggs all around the home (inside and out) for the children to hunt and find the following morning.

So Many Ways to Celebrate

One of the things I love about holidays is that there are so many of them, and they are each rich in their own unique customs. Actually, I celebrate more than my fair share of holidays, especially at this time of year, because I’m sort of a holiday mutt and I like a little bit of this and little bit of that.

But sometimes, I find myself wondering about these crazy customs. Who thought of them? Where did they begin? And why?

When did people decide to bring trees in from outside and decorate them? What gave a rabbit reason to hide eggs from small children? And where on Earth did Santa find those reindeer? Seriously, I gotta get me some of those!

And these holidays are just a small sampling. Think about Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day (leprechauns!), or the dragons of the Chinese New Year. Sure, you can research all of these holidays and find out where the traditions for observing them originated (I strongly suggest doing this sometime – it’s absolutely fascinating) – OR -

you can write your own holiday.

Holiday Fiction Writing Exercises

That’s right, invent a holiday of your own. Give it roots, a raison d’être. How did it start? What historical event does it observe?

Then, start thinking of the wild ways that people will celebrate this event. Will there be a special festival? Costumes or dresswear? What foods will be prepared and consumed? Are there any magical characters that arrive for this holiday? Gifts? Songs? Rituals?

Saturnalia is pretty wild (I’ve been fascinated by it ever since I first learned about it in a Shakespeare class) – imagine if we did that today. Teachers could reverse roles with students, parents with their kids, husbands with wives (is that possible?), bosses with employees (yeah!).

I encourage you to be as wild and wacky as possible and have a good time with this fiction writing exercise. The fantasy and speculative fiction writers out there will probably love this one, but it’s great for all types of writers because it does that thing that makes us tingle – gets our imaginations all fired up and burning as brightly as a Yule log.

Wait, Before You Go

If you  know about any other interesting holiday traditions, please share them in the comments. It’s always riveting to learn about different customs and cultures, and also great fodder for fiction writing exercises!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Day!

Keep Writing!

If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.

Warm-up Poetry Writing Exercises

If you’re going to exercise, it’s a good idea to warm up first. That way, you’ll get your body geared up to do the heavy lifting, the hard running, and the strenuous workout.

Writing’s no different.

Poetry writing exercises are ideal for times when you’re feeling uninspired or lazy, or maybe your poetry is getting stale and you need to take it in a fresh direction. These exercises are good starters and don’t require you to actually write a poem, but they get you thinking about rhythm, language, and imagery.

Poetry Writing Exercises to Warm You Up

These poetry writing exercises are short and simple. You can probably get through them quickly and they will stretch and flex your writing muscles.

Alliteration and Assonance Exercise

Create a list of word pairs and phrases that are built around alliteration or assonance. Remember, alliteration is when words in close proximity start with the same consonant sound (as in pretty picture). Assonance is when words in close proximity echo vowel sounds (bent pen). Try to come up with at least ten of each. The more, the better.

Metaphor Exercise

Make a list of significant life events – birth, death, graduation, marriage, having children, starting your own business. Choose events that are life changing. Now, for each of these events, try to come up with metaphors. A well-known metaphor for life is that it’s a dance. Expand on this exercise by writing a poem about the life event using only the metaphor.

Lyrics and Musicality Exercise

Earlier I said none of these exercises require you write a poem, but this one does ask you to write a song. Actually, you’ll be rewriting a song. It’s simple – choose a catchy song that you enjoy and rewrite the lyrics. Try to go way off topic from what the original lyrics were about. You can play the song while you work the exercise, or search for the lyrics and use those as your baseline. The idea is to get your mind on rhythm and musicality, so rock on!

Poetry writing exercises are meant to be helpful and fun. If you used any of these exercises, feel free to post your results in the comments. And keep on writing!

Do you have any poetry writing exercises to share? Have any special requests for exercises that deal with specific areas of poetry writing? Leave a comment!

Fiction Writing Exercises: How to Write a Complex Villain

When it comes to writing fiction, we each have our own unique challenges. For some of us, it’s hard to write realistic dialog. For others, it’s a struggle coming up with names for our characters.

Maybe you’re like me, and find it difficult to write a really good villain. I mean – a really bad villain. Or even just a pretty bad nemesis.

The funny thing about our writing weaknesses is that sometimes all we have to do is identify them and suddenly we start coming up with tons of solutions.

That’s what happened to me about two years ago, when I realized that I was having trouble writing a nemesis for my main characters. Time and time again, it was one of the key elements that was missing from the stories I wrote.

Once I noticed this pattern, I started seeing villains all around me – as if merely noticing their absence from my writing made them suddenly appear in my everyday life.

Villains Are Everywhere

A friend would forget to call me back and she’d become a self-absorbed boss who neglected and overworked her employees. My housemate would leave the milk out and suddenly he was a freeloading couch-surfer taking advantage of all his friends and acquaintances.

I would notice someone’s flaws and think about what they’d be like if those flaws were embellished to outweigh good qualities and positive traits. Suddenly, my villains were born, one after another like a little herd of evil trolls.

I make up characters in my head all the time. Sometimes I write down my ideas, drafting a character sketch. Most of them never make it to a story, but the really compelling ones do. Now that I’ve found a surefire way to harvest villains from the world around me, the characters in my head and the pages of character sketches have really started to pile up.

Fiction Writing Exercises in Villain Embellishment

Those of us participating in NaNoWriMo are probably hitting that point in our novels when the villains start to emerge. For anyone who wants to write good fiction, you need a character in there somewhere who creates tension and who is at odds with the forces of good. Even for poets and nonfiction writers, the ability to write a complex villain will only improve your writing and help you better understand the subjects you write about (especially if some of them are dirty rotten scoundrels).

For this week’s fiction writing exercises, pay attention to the people around you. Nobody’s perfect. Even those you love most dearly have shortcomings that you can exaggerate to a fault. Take their flaws, quirks, and moments of moral lapses and exaggerate them into a character fraught with nasty traits.

A few tips:

• Some of the most compelling villains are not completely evil. The most interesting characters in a story are those who have some combination of good and bad qualities. It’s how you balance those qualities that puts them on the side of good or evil.
• We’ve all encountered people who aren’t very nice — a nasty coworker, gossipy family member, or verbally abusive customer. Most of those folks have a good side too. Use them as models for your villains.
• If you don’t want to use family and friends as models for your villains in this fiction writing exercise, then look to television, books, movies, and the news. To ensure that you don’t commit character theft, find good characters who are flawed and turn them evil, bad, or just plain mean.

Most importantly, have fun! That’s what fiction writing exercises are all about. Villains are the characters we love to hate because they often are the harbingers of obstacles and challenges through which the heroes of our stories prove themselves. Whether you write totalitarian bad guys like Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter fame or more subtle, complex nemeses like Catwoman from the Batman comics, give your villains plenty of color, character, and complications.

But don’t let them get too deep inside your head.

Have a great weekend writers! And keep on writing that fiction, and those villains.

If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post.

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