Harmonious
 Confusion

Ideas, Exercises, Prompts

The exercises here are optional writing prompts for times when you feel blocked or would like to try something different. Some may occasionally be assigned in class for points. Most of the first half are fiction-oriented; most of the second half are poetry-oriented.  The ideas are mainly original, though a few are adaptations.  (Sources are available upon request.)

The Luminous Object

Take a look at some everyday object--an ironing board, radio, tennis shoe--and start writing.  Associate spontaneously from the object, drawing whatever connections you wish and moving on to any other subject you care to.  What does this object remind you of?  How would such an object appear to a visitor from outer space?  In what way does it embody your worst fears or fantasies?

Don't be staid, boring, or predictable.  Try some "leaping" comparisons, such as the ones Pablo Neruda draws in his odes. (He compares his socks to wildly disparate things, such as sharks and firemen, for instance.)  Invent some figures of speech.  End up someplace other than where you started.

Have fun.  Don't edit yourself.  Just write.
 

The Thing Itself

As an alternative to "The Luminous Object" above, try writing about an object without venturing beyond that item as your subject.  Describe it with as much specific, intense, concrete detail as possible, using all of your senses.  Don't explain, ruminate, or deviate .  Simply make the object vivid and present through language, respecting its thingness.
 

Pulling Over for a Siren

Compose a vignette in which you describe a lake, a tree, or a living room from the perspective of one of the following people:

a) Someone who has just committed a violent crime.
b) Someone who has just been told he or she has one year to live.
c) Someone who has just been unfaithful to his or her lover.

Describe the lake or tree or room almost exclusively in concrete language; do not allow the narrator to talk about how he or she feels, or what he or she thinks about the scene.

And:  DO NOT MENTION THE BAD NEWS, THE CRIME, OR THE INFIDELITY.
 

Slamdancing through Winter

Fold a piece of paper lengthwise.  On the left side, make a list of any ten nouns.  Consider names of animals, places, household items, and people, as well as words signifying emotions or concepts. (I find abstract nouns--hope, grief, luck--most interesting for this exercise.)

Now turn the page over to the right side.  Write down fifteen specific verbs associated with some occupation: carpenter, cook, dancer, doctor.  Or try fifteen verbs having to do with the weather, an animal, or a river.

Open the page, and experiment now with interesting sentences by making unlikely noun-verb connections. (You may need to change the tense or number of some of the verbs.) Feel free to extend the sentences if you wish, or to recombine some words.

DO NOT construct obvious or necessarily rational combinations; try for strange and surprising ones.  Finally, you might compose these unusual sentences into a surreal poem or short prose work, or use them to prompt something new.
 

What a Character

(I suspect most fiction writers discover their characters as they write their stories, and that their characters may even remain somewhat mysterious to their authors, but the following, more calculated approach might be of some help regardless, or if you feel stuck.)

To improve a figure in one of your stories, or to help you get started on a story, write an elaborate character sketch in which you answer the following questions.  Your answers should be well-developed, believable, and consistent.

  Where is this character from, and when was he or she born? What is the economic and religious background of the character's relatives?  How large is the family, and does this person have brothers and sisters?  What is some of the family's history, significant events, problems?

  What is this character's build?  The color and style of his or her hair?  What clothes does he or she wear on formal and on casual occasions?  How would you describe the character's voice?  What are some of his or her physical habits--blushing, frowning, tugging on hair, resting chin on fist, wiggling foot when seated, etc.  How does this person walk?

What are some of this character's favorite activities?  What does he or she do for excitement, for relaxation, for money?  Who are this person's friends?  How does this person relate to authority figures?  To strangers?  How gregarious is this person?  Any special skills?  Any special flaws or failings?

  What is the character's name?

  What are this person's greatest fears?  Greatest hopes?  What does he or she daydream about?  How well does the character understand him or herself?  What are this character's primary childhood memories?  What contradictions exist in this person's actions, self-image, world-view?  What does this person value most in life, and least?

  What are some of the most important events in the character's life?  Which ones especially contributed to how this person thinks and acts?  What significant choices has the person made?

  What is the most frightening dream this person ever had?  Describe it in detail.

What other information can you add about this character?  Feel free to mention here general attributes as well as particularities.
 

What a Character (Part II)

Keeping in mind Part I above, choose one of the tasks below and write out a detailed response.

Consider some recent national or international news.  Describe in detail how your character would respond to the event.

Describe this character through the eyes of another character, either real or imaginary: your mother, your best friend, the character's husband, the character's boss, etc.

Imagine situations that would reveal something essential about your character, that would put him or her to a test, or that would dramatize his or her most interesting attributes.  Make a list of possible situations, with some exposition following each. (List at least three.)

Write a detailed paragraph describing, through an objective third person narrator, an uneventful, relatively dull day in the life of your character, starting with the moment of waking.

Repeat the "dull day" idea above, but this time use the first-person point of view.

Write a diary entry, last will and testament, and job resume for the character (first-person point-of-view, of course).

Describe your character twenty years from now.
 

Swamp Buggy Spectacular

Get together with one or more people and decide who will begin writing.  That person should sketch out the exposition for a short story, then pass it on to the next person, who should then continue to develop the piece.  (Try to develop believable, interesting characters, and to provide some good complications and hooks in the plot.)  Pass the story around several times, or until someone determines that the story is finished.  The group can then discuss the results, and/or each person can revise the story as desired.
 

The Most Amazing Thing Was The Cheese

Write a story whose first line is:  "The most amazing thing was the cheese."
 

Stuff

Write a short story which is one sentence long.

Write a short story with yourself as the main character.  Use the third person point of view.

Look up "parody" in a good dictionary, encyclopedia, and handbook of literary terms.  Then write a parody of a short story that you've recently read, or of last night's network news, or of one of your classes.

Write a short story set in 400BC.

Pick three public figures, past or current, and write a dialogue involving those people.  Have them waiting in line to see a movie, sitting together at dinner, or spending a night together in jail.

Write a sex scene.

Write a children's story.

Write a short prose passage or paragraph whose aim stylistically is to bore your reader to death.

Take one of your own completed stories, and cut out a paragraph from the first page, a middle page, and the last page.  (Is there anything there which you really don't need?  If you picked up the story and shook it, what paragraphs would fall out?)

Write a short story based on a letter or e-mail message you've recently received.

Write a story set in the place where you work.

Write a story with a plot that runs backward in time.

Write a story about writing a story.
 

Komputer Kicks

Here are some exercises to try with a computer word processing program:

a)  Try freewriting WITH YOUR MONITOR OFF.  Type as long as you can in one sitting, allowing your mind to wander freely.  If you become engaged with one subject, image, or pattern, go ahead and go with it.  After you've written as much as you can, turn your monitor back on and read the results.  You might then continue to develop and revise the whole thing, or part of it.  Or you may find, in the random flow of relatively unfruitful writing, the germ of an idea you can then develop separately.

b) Type what you think will be the final line for a poem at the top of your screen.  Then type the second-to-last line, but enter it above the first one you typed.  Continue to add lines this way until the line first entered has been pushed all the way to the bottom of your screen. (Don't invent your poem beforehand; you want to actually construct a new poem in this fashion.)

c) Take a "finished" poem or story and rearrange its parts.  You might highlight/select a paragraph in a story and move it to a different position, or delete several paragraphs randomly to see what's lost or possibly gained through the resulting compression.  Or, if you like, you could take a free verse poem and break its stanzas differently.  What happens when a poem written in a long block or single stanza is broken into two-line stanzas? Into three-line stanzas?  Does a different order enliven the piece, or bring into the foreground buried aspects of the work?  Does the new arrangement help you see possibilities for revision, or perhaps a whole new poem or story?  Continue to experiment with text manipulation; try out any reorderings or other ideas that you wish.
 

Prose and Cons

Go find stories by three modern or contemporary fiction writers and write a passage of prose imitating each one. (You might consider choosing three of the following writers:  Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzerald, William Faulkner, Angela Carter, J.P Donleavy, Don Delillo, Joyce Carol Oates, Susan Minot.)

Pay close attention to senten