Fiction Writing Exercises: Step Out of Your Shoes
One of the most exciting and challenging aspects of being a writer is creating characters. It is an opportunity to step outside of your own reality and take on a completely different persona.
Unless you’re an actor, an undercover agent, or just plain crazy, you don’t get many chances in life to do that.
With fiction writing exercises that focus on character creation, you can start building skills that allow you get under your character’s skin and get inside his head. These types of fiction writing exercises will take you beyond writing character sketches and descriptions and will truly help you understand your characters and all their deep complexities.
Realistic Characters
For characters to truly resonate with readers, they must be vibrant and stir the audience’s emotions. Readers have to become attached to the characters, feel sympathy, compassion, even love (or hate) for them. It’s not easy to fabricate people (or other beings) that don’t really exist, have never existed, yet make them seem real. But it can be done.
So how do writers achieve this great feat?
Well, much credence has been given to the old adage write what you know. Base a character on a friend or family member or yourself. But what fun is that? If you’re an accountant by day, do you really want to play an accountant in your fantasy world too? Probably not. And when you create a character, that’s pretty much what you’re doing, playing a role. You have to get into the character’s mind, live the life, absorb the environment in which the character lives. You have to be your character.
Character Writing Exercises
So, here’s a challenge: write a character you know nothing about. If you grew up in the big city, write as a farm hand. If you grew up on a farm or small town all your life, write about an army brat who was raised living in dozens of towns, going to different schools each year. Are you a stay-at-home, married mom? Write as a single woman making it big in the big apple. If you’re a successful businessman, write as a prison inmate who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
The idea is to get outside your comfort zone, and explore a different life than the one you know. Even if this is not the type of character you’d normally create, fiction writing exercises like this one will help you when you have to come up with a secondary character who’s not from the world with which you’re familiar. It will also expand the types of characters you’ll feel comfortable bringing into your stories.
This is not a character sketch. It’s more like a monologue. Write a one-page essay in first person from the perspective of a character you’ve created who is totally outside your realm of reality. Think about your wildest dreams or the most incredible adventure you’d like to have, and be that character. Or, if you’re really brave, try something that intimidates you. If you have a fear of flying, write as an airline pilot. Fear of drowning? Write as a SCUBA diver. Does math make you squirm? Write as a mathematics professor at university.
Fiction Writing Exercises for Fun and Focus
It’s just one page and one character, so this shouldn’t take too long. If it sticks and you get really into it, write several pages, or try doing this exercise with different characters. You might unveil a new side of yourself that you didn’t know you had. You might find it completely uncomfortable and decide to go back to writing what you know, but at least you will have tried something new.
Remember, fiction writing exercises are supposed to be fun, but their purpose is to challenge you to try new things and think in new ways, so be sure to focus on your character and make a conscious effort to get inside the character’s head as you work your way through this exercise.
Feel free to post comments about your character, or post the whole page. Who or what will you become? What shoes are you going to step into when you step out of your own?
Good luck and have a great weekend! Keep on writing!
If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments.
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 exempt 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, and keep on writing!
If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments.
Fiction Writing Exercises: Change the Tail
Fiction writing exercises will help improve your writing by challenging you, providing you with new ideas, and forcing you to approach your fiction writing from new angles.
This is a flexible writing exercise that could also be called Changing the Tale. But in this exercise, we’re going to change the tale by changing the tail.
The idea is to take an existing plot and change the ending to something completely different. This will help you understand the basics of story structure, particularly the part where you bring the story to a close.
Take the tail end off a story, right after the climax, and change it to something completely different. Choose a story from a book, magazine or journal, film, or even world events, and change the ending!
Changing the Tails on Tales
Gone with the Wind - What if Rhett Butler hadn’t walked away?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Without the lobotomy?
Titanic (movie) – What if the opposite characters had lived and died?
Try this with any of the Star Wars movies (I dare you!), or a Shakespeare play. Try it with a Dr. Suess book or try it with War and Peace. Try it with world history. What would life be like if World War II had gone the other way? What if a different candidate had won a major election (i.e. what if we’d had a different U.S. president in 2001?)?
Or just try it with the last book you read.
Change the Tail Fiction Writing Exercises (Variations)
You can flesh out a completely new ending for your story by writing a polished piece or you can simply jot down some notes or an outline that explain how your new ending will differ from the original.
You can also write a few sentences about how your new ending might affect the integrity of the piece. Would Romeo and Juliet be the classic that it is today if the two star-crossed lovers had lived? How would that have changed our culture, the literary canon, or the way the most compelling and moving stories throughout history have been viewed and received?
Which story ending will you change? You can pick one that you didn’t like much or one that you loved — just to see what a different outcome would have been like.
Fiction writing exercises are supposed to be fun and challenging, so tackle this with a light heart and a focused mind. And keep on writing!
If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments.
Fiction Writing Exercises: 10 Prompts
Fiction writing exercises for you!
Fiction writing exercises, and prompts in particular, are a great way to jump-start your creativity when you’re in the mood to do a little creative writing but need some fresh story ideas.
Fiction writing exercises and other creative writing prompts may not directly inspire a new writing project, but they are likely to trigger your imagination and give you some new ideas for projects you’re already working on or projects that you haven’t started yet.
Here are some ways you can use these ten fiction writing exercises and prompts:
- Start the first sentence of your piece with one of the creative writing prompts and run with it.
- Write a story that includes one of these fiction writing exercises (prompts) somewhere in the text.
- Plan your story around a prompt but don’t include the actual prompt anywhere in the story.
- Use the prompt as your final sentence and build up to it.
- Alter any of the prompts to your liking and then use any of the suggestions above to write a story.
Bonus challenge: Write a story that includes each and every one of the ten prompts below. That would be quite a feat!
10 Prompts for Fiction Writing Exercises:
- She rolled over and felt her body push up against something hard and solid.
- My wife disappeared on August 28, 1998.
- Sonny jumped up against the chain link fence, wagging his tail furiously.
- Mom says it happens to all girls, but I think she’s just trying to make me feel normal.
- I’ve been to nine planets in twelve years and it’s starting to show.
- They say Old Weezie’s been reading palms out of her run-down shack for a hundred years or more.
- Acronyms give me a headache in general, but PBRT gives me a migraine.
- Ashley stared at the fruit, so lost in amazement she didn’t comment on its size.
- Every day the sun comes up and every night it goes down again.
- When the elven guard put out a call to action, their plea went unheard and what followed was sheer terror.
If you do decide to use any of these fiction writing exercises, feel free to post excerpts in the comments section and if you post a story on your blog, do come back and leave a link. Happy writing!
If you have any fiction writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments.
What Can Fiction Writers Learn from Poetry?
The following is a guest post by William Womack who also blogs at Words for Writers.
Fiction writers are scavengers. We scour daily life collecting faces and names, sharp words and longing glances, then hunker in our caves to weave tapestries from the pretty bits we’ve found. It isn’t just ideas and images we pilfer; techniques and craft are fair game too. Some of our most potent writing tools are borrowed from our poet friends.
A well-turned poem often seems close to magic in the way it telegraphs strong emotion and vivid imagery in a compact space. Fortunately for poets and fiction writers alike, magic has little do to with it. We can dissect poetry, lifting out the parts that are most useful to us. Take for example a passage from my most recent manuscript, Last Thursday. The main character has gone for a walk along the river in Portland to sort out his thoughts when (surprise!) it starts to rain.
A pellet of water slaps the bridge of my nose. I frown at the heavens. Crap. Jerking to my feet, I scramble down the path toward my bike. The brambles around me quiver with a steady piff, piff, like bullets grazing, as random raindrops fall to Earth.
One poetic device this paragraph employs is the recurring theme. Outwardly, the passage is simply describing the onset of a storm. On closer inspection, the subtext created by the choice of words indicates something more-an antagonistic relationship between the main character and fate (or life, or God). He doesn’t just frown at the sky, he frowns at the heavens. His argument with the almighty is an ongoing motif in a number of the early scenes.
Simile and metaphor offer shortcuts to understanding by comparing one thing to another (often unrelated) thing. This is no simple rainstorm beginning, but a personal affront. Somebody’s out to get him! His choice of simile, like bullets grazing, underscores his belief that he’s being targeted by an uncaring fate.
Although it’s subtle, there’s also a bit of assonance, the repeated use of a vowel sound. Crap, scramble, path, brambles, random, the a’s set up a backbeat that draws the eye along. It’s fun to read aloud, too. A little alliteration also rears its head with random raindrops. As with any of these techniques, a dollop goes a long way.
Another thing you might notice on reading this bit aloud is the rhythm. The first two sentences are structured in deliberate groups of three syllables da da da – da da da – da da da – da da da. Again, this is subtle, but it makes for sentences that roll along at a pleasing pace.
And finally, there’s a bit of onomatopoeia, that clunker for words that sound like their meaning. My favorite from above is slaps. Not only is it visceral and sharp, but it repeats the persecution theme. I’ll make the case for the non-word piff as another example, although it invokes a bit of poetic license.
I’ve only slightly scratched the surface with these examples. There are countless other ways we can raid the poet’s toolbox to build fiction. The next time you’re casting about for an inspirational novel to get your head set for writing, try grabbing a book of poems instead.
About the Author
William Womack is a writer and graphic designer living in Portland, Oregon. He is currently working on his second novel, Last Thursday, a tale of murder and intrigue set against the backdrop of the Portland arts scene. For more of his thoughts on writing and the writing lifestyle, visit www.wordsforwriters.com.
Writing Resources: No Plot? No Problem!
Chris Baty: No Plot? No Problem!
In 1999 Chris Baty rounded up 21 friends and together they set sail on a journey like no other. With no map and no compass, they each set out to write a novel in just one month (July).
Some of the crew were lost at sea. Others survived the voyage and reached dry land with scrappy but completed novels in hand.
“That [we] were undertalented goofballs who had no business flailing around at the serious endeavor of novel writing was pretty clear. We hadn’t taken any creative writing courses in college, or read any how-to books on story or craft. And our combined post-elementary-school fiction output would have fit comfortably on a Post-it Note.” — Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!
Despite their lack of talent and experience and despite the fact that more than half of the original crew went overboard, Chris Baty and his friends had unlocked one of the secrets of novel writing, and with that treasure in hand, Chris went on to found one of the most beloved and exciting writing events in the world.
National Novel Writing Month
Today, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place every November. In 2007, the event’s ninth year, over 100,000 participants signed up from all around the world, and over 15,000 reported that they finished their novels.
Some NaNos (that’s what participants are called) have even gotten book deals and published novels they wrote for NaNoWriMo. Others found that writing a book wasn’t as hard as they thought and went on to pursue a career in writing. A few discovered that writing a novel wasn’t the dream they thought it was and moved on to other endeavors.
But every person who signed up and went through NaNoWriMo came away with a valuable experience and new wisdom about what it means to write a novel.
Writing Resources Can Be Fast, Fun, and Functional
I read No Plot? No Problem!
Chris takes you through his own journey to becoming a novelist and then dives right in to the lessons he’s learned and techniques he’s discovered. Much of his advice centers around plot development (which is no surprise, considering the book’s title), and I was ecstatic since the one wall I kept crashing into with every novel attempt I’d ever made was plot. For each novel I started to write, I had plenty of characters, settings, and scenes. But no plot.
No problem!
Chris Baty solved that problem for me. Oh sure, he touches on character creation, finding time to write, and why you shouldn’t EVER revise while you’re still plowing through your first draft. But more importantly, Chris revealed ideas for tackling plot that I’d never before considered (or even heard about).
A couple of weeks after I read the book, I diligently signed up for NaNoWriMo 2008 and hopped aboard my own ship. The voyage was sometimes smooth, sometimes rocky, but in the end, I reached the far shores as a novelist. And while I’m the one who wrote that novel, I have to thank Chris Baty not only for founding the event that led me to write my first novel in just thirty days, but also for his funny, insightful, and informative book on novel writing and plotting.
Believe it or not, there is a plot lurking around somewhere inside that muddled imagination of yours. There are also characters, scenes, themes, and a whole lot more. No Plot? No Problem! will help you dig through the muck and unearth the novel that’s waiting to be written.
Whether you plan on participating in NaNoWriMo this year or if you just want to write a novel at your own pace, this is one of the best writing resources for starting and finishing your novel. My own experience with this book is proof that by changing the way you approach novel writing, you can also change the outcome and finally succeed. Next time you have an idea for a novel or start a novel project, you’ll actually finish it!
Get your copy of No Plot? No Problem!
Writing Resources for Naming Your Characters
Have you ever read one of those epic fantasy novels in which the magical characters can gain total control over any living being (or non-living object) simply by discovering its real and true name? I’ve read about ten of those novels.
What do you think is more perplexing, the fact that authors continue to use this rule of magic (even though it’s tired and ready to be retired) or the astounding number of unique names that writers come up with for all the characters in these stories?
Dubworthy or Dubless?
I have been known to spend hours pondering names and wondering how a writer managed to choose a name that so perfectly fit a character, especially those characters that are iconic. Holden Caulfield. Harry Potter. Hamlet. Hanibal Lechter. And they don’t all start with the letter H: Ebenezer Scrooge, Mary Poppins, Sherlock Holmes, Gollum, Cinderella, Willy Wonka. The list goes on and on. And it doesn’t stop with literary characters. Remarkable character names can also be found in movies, comic books, and on TV.
Think about the most famous, unforgettable, and compelling characters. They have names that are memorable. Names that resonate with the character’s energy: Bond. James Bond. How do you forget a guy like that?
You don’t.
But here’s a better question. How does a writer come up with a name like that?
The Name is the Game
Let me be blunt. I suck at coming up with names. I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I’ve spent pondering great names and trying to come up with handles for my poor, nameless characters. But names elude me. They do. So, what do I do when my fiction writing antics require me to name a character? Well, if I’m already in the throes of writing, I generally write the characters’ names generically and in all caps:
GIRL is walking down the street and freezes when she spots ANIMAL sitting in the middle of the road as if it were perfectly ordinary for a tiger to be cleaning its paws smack dab in the center of a suburban middle-class neighborhood.
But I can’t avoid naming forever. The story is never finished until everybody is named, and I find that I can’t get very deep into the tale when I’m working with nameless characters. So, I do what any resourceful writer does. I turn to my handy dandy writing resources.
Enter, Internet
The internet is always my first choice for research. I use an online dictionary and thesaurus. When I need a quick fact, I’ve been known to obtain it from Wikipedia (judiciously, of course) and I also use the open-source, online encyclopedia as a starting place to look for more credible research (they often have excellent annotations). And when I need a name, I’ve engaged the power of Google (a search engine that happens to have a fantastic name of its own).
I’ve googled boy names and girl names, exotic names, and androgynous names. I’ve done it in reverse too, and searched for names by their meaning. I’ve gotten lucky a few times and found just the right name for a character I had in mind. I’ve even found a nifty tool that generates a character name, which is awesome if you can use a name like Magaga Dawntracker.
But looking for a name on the web is like looking for a song in your iPod when you can’t remember the title or artist. It takes forever. And you find yourself endlessly perusing, clicking, and nodding your head (or shaking it, as the case may be). I guess the benefit is that all those names you skim through might spark ideas for other characters, but what about the character you’ve already created? The one whose lack of a name launched you into this quest in the first place?
It’s not like this was a one-time ordeal. Name searching became a time suck for me. And fiction writing started to feel more like climbing Mount Everest than a writing experience. I went through this ridiculous cycle more times than I care to recall.
And then one day, I was happily browsing through my favorite bookstore, a local and independent bookstore, and this book popped out at me:
A World of Baby Character Names
Okay, so technically, the title of this book is A World of Baby Names
Even though this was the first name book that I noticed, I checked out several others before buying this one. It had some features I thought might be useful. Turns out I was right. I’ve used this book a lot. A whole lot.
What I like best about it is that the names are separated by country of origin. And there are tons of names in this book that my American self has never heard before. I can look at the Hindu names and the Polish names, and then I can get creative and start combining them.
The names are also sorted by gender. That makes looking for an androgynous name a little challenging, but on the other hand, there’s a nice index, so I can scroll through every single name in a few minutes — a great method for finding a name that pops out at me. I can then navigate to the name page and find out what it means.
Each section also includes a written introduction about names in various cultures, which is pretty cool.
If you struggle with naming characters the way I do, then you should seriously consider getting this book or one like it.
A Rose By Any Other Name
As you can imagine, this post contains affiliate links, which means if you click on the baby name book and buy it, I’ll get a kickback, which would be cool. But what would be cooler would be for you to tell me how you come up with character names. Do you have a name book? Is there a website you use? Do you have a knack for names using nothing more than your own brilliant imagination? And what are some of your all time favorite character names? And finally (here’s a question for the most creative souls out there), can you think of any other good uses for a baby name book, other than naming babies and fictional characters?
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101 Creative Writing Exercises
Explore the world of creative writing by experimenting with fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction through fun yet practical exercises that inspire and build skills. Honors & Awards
