#Writing Exercises

[novlr]

Writing Exercise: The Locked Room

Write a short scene where two characters are trapped in a confined space (e.g., a stuck elevator, a supply closet, a basement during a storm). Each character should have a conflicting goal or need, and those goals must come into direct opposition during the scene.

By keeping the perspective intentionally limited, you'll learn how to develop strong, contained scenes that rely on interaction and pressure rather than external action or changing locations.

[daily-prompts]

Here's a good way to warm up. Pick a topic and write a list of words associated with it. I usually go with about twenty. Here's one for carnivals.

ferris wheel

fried dough

sawdust

tent

ticket

fortune teller

clown

bizarre

barker

stilts

ring toss

pink panther

tilt-a-whirl

cotton candy

calliope

crowd

megaphone

unicycle

kazoo

carousel

[choshashio]

12 Writing Exercises to help develop your character and their voice.

Editors note - There's a lot of boring writers drivel. So, to spare you from the headache if you're not interested, your characters individual voices and personalities are important for engaging stories and interesting plots. You can skip down to the end for the exercises.

Think about the people you know, the people you love. What's one thing they have in common, besides the obvious? They're all uniquely different. Everyone in the world is different in some way, even in media. Books and movies all have unique sounding characters that are different from each other. In Harry Potter, for example, All of the characters have their own voice, even the Weasley twins are different in their own ways.

Complex and unique characters that sound different, interact and speak differently, make for engaging books and dynamics.

I don't know anybody who would want to read a 50,000 word novel about two boring characters, who're exactly alike, and talk in the same monotonous tone. You can have a character who is "boring." who speaks monotonously and still have an interesting novel that people would read.

Having different characters who come together to create funny, interesting, or weird dynamics makes for a readable piece. Take your monotonous character, by themselves, they're kind of boring. They're not engaging to follow. But, introducing different characters to come and interact with your "boring" character, creates funny and memorable dynamics.

Think the anime Saiki K, or Veronica Sawyer from Heathers. If you took only those two characters, and stripped away all of the background characters, they wouldn't make for very interesting stories. Saiki would be happy, living his days in peace and quiet. Veronica would just be a normal edgy high school girl. But if you bring the side characters back, you bring the story and their conflicts back. Saiki goes back to being annoyed by his weird and goofy friends, wishing for peace and quiet. Veronica goes back to being tormented by JD and the group dynamic in the Heathers clique.

These stories utilize background characters to create conflict in their main characters' lives, and makes fun and interesting stories and dynamics with them.

Without further ado, here are 12 exercises to help you develop your characters, and get you thinking.

Ask your character what they want, and have them monologue about it.

Think about who, in your life, does your character remind you of.

Ask yourself, What does my character want, and what does my character need? How do they conflict with each other, and how does this affect my story?

A good exercise to help you write characters interacting, and practice dialogue is to do the ABCD exercise. 

The ABCD exercise is writing a full page, or 500 words, of dialogue between two characters, character a and character b, talking about what they think character c thinks of character d. Then, write another page depicting how character c actually interacts with character d.

Write journal entries from the pov of your character.

Think about your character's habits, nervous tics, or tells, and write out a page where they do those things.

Think about something your character holds dear to them, and give the item a backstory.

Think about how your character interacts with other characters, and write a page for each interaction. 

Think about a belief or opinion your character has, and write a page of dialogue, where your character is explaining their belief, and why they believe in it, to another character.

Write a page about your character reminiscing, or talking, about a cherished memory from their past, or childhood.

Write a page of dialogue about character a telling character c about character b, whom c has never met before, what kind of things do they say? What do they think of b? Then write another page from character c’s point of view, what are they thinking? How do their thoughts of b change? What do they think of character a? How do they imagine character a and b’s relationship?

Write a page about a character being forced into a situation with their greatest fear. Then, if you want to go a step further, write a page of the same thing, but introduce another character that the first holds dear to them, or wants to protect.

[dionysiaproductions]

Ides of March Writing Challenges:

🗡️ Stab it: Write 23 words (or 23 sentences if you're playing on hard)

🗡️Settle a debt: Finish an old unfinished work

🗡️Become a dictator: Outline a version of your narrative world where your protagonist has complete control. What would they want the world to look like?

🗡️Kill Caesar: Outline a version of your story where the main character dies. What would all the supporting characters do?

[regthomas1728]

Writing Exercises

I'm wondering. Would anyone benefit from writing exercises? I definitely would!

If you'd like writing exercises, comment or message me what you'd like to work on. Tell me if you'd prefer daily, weekly, or monthly challenges.

Some things I'd like to work on:

Eliminating filler words, unnecessary sentences. I've noticed that my writing is redundant or over clarifying. To change this, I need to make sure each word serves a purpose, that each sentence achieves the overall goal and conveys exactly what the reader needs to know without saying it directly. This will kind of go into 'showing not telling' which we've all heard before.

Dual Action Plotting. I JUST LEARNED THIS FROM A FELLOW TUMBLR USER! Basically, two things are going on in one scene. I want to practice this and make the most of every major scene in my stories.

Self Editing. I edit my work to death. To the point it's not even changing important details, I'm exchanging words that are synonymous with each other--saying the same thing a different way. The problem with his is that I'm still int he first draft phase. I shouldn't be editing so heavily without a complete first draft. A touch up makes sense, but heavy editing doesn't. To keep it brief. The first draft is for me to get to know my story. The second is to make it understandable for the reader/editor. I want to change this.

Writer's Block. Enough said.

There are also small things--dialogue, descriptions of scenery and people--that I'd like to practice. If this would be beneficial to anyone aside from me, I'll start making regular posts or an Ellipsus folder/document to share work and get feedback.

[esamastation]

I've been writing some first sentences / prompts as idle writing exercise and here's the first 100. You're welcome to use any of them, if you get inspired.

-

Across the deep blue sky streaked a comet, with a purple tail trailing after it like skirts of a dress and several small companions chasing her.

Across the cell the older man farted loudly in his sleep - which was good, since for hours now John had been wondering if he'd gone and died.

Before the grand three story mansion the half a million dollar Porsche burned merrily.

Backstage, half deafened by the deep bass and the beat, Jane threw up all the whiskey she'd been drinking that night. 

"Call me when you get there," was the last words John heard from his mother, before his hometown was engulfed by a blazing inferno. 

Cloud seeding was probably a good idea, once, back when rain was still mostly water and frogs were only a ground level issue.

Dark academia was, in John's honest opinion, an oxymoron - but that didn't mean he didn't look damn good in a waist coat and ascot.

During the end of the world there were a lot of people who wasted their time looting and running - but in the end, it was the people covering under their beds who survived the longest. 

Elephants are unappreciated as hallucinations, in Jane's most expert opinion - with elephants there was rarely any doubt about whether she was hallucinating or not. 

Effervescent, John thought as he bled over his crumpled up crossword puzzle, a gaping hole in his chest, and sighed, who even uses a word like effervescent.

For all the times Jane had driven him mad with her stunts, John loved her crazy ass - he just wished she'd drawn a line before murder.

Fall descended upon the countryside like a knife - with a swift brisk breeze that brought with it a cutting frost and killed all their crops in a single night.

Grave is such an unpleasant place to wake up in. 

Gulls raced the ship to the shore, despite being easily able to outpace her - whether they were like vultures circling a dying beast or doves bringing the message of hope and safety, John welcomed their company nonetheless.

High on the church tower, a little runaway devil was miming the acts of sodomy and making rude gestures at the gathering crowd of shocked and horrified parishioners.

Hot, acrid air blew in through the vents before John shut down the car's air-conditioning - not quickly enough to block out the stench of sulfur.

Inclined to be polite, Jane let the sexy bombshell into her office, even taking a moment to appreciate the figure she made even though she wasn't that kind of detective.

In the last moments of her life before the zombie virus scrambled her brains, Jane thought about John and concluded, there's a man whose brains she'd like to eat.

Just as the bell rang for midnight, the vampire lord took out a notepad and said, "Let's start with your parents, shall we?"

Jackal puppies are kind of cute, thought the mummy, even as they attempted to unravel his binding and probably feast on his desiccated flesh.

Kitchen is a bad place to fight ninjas, John thought, completely tuning out whatever Jane was ranting about; too many knives.

Kicking the door open without looking, John read through the front page again and so completely failed to notice the fact that there were people in his house.

Leading with, "We have only twenty hours to live," might've set an awkward mood for the rest of the meeting - but it was damn effective. 

Lowering the rope feet by feet, Jane cursed her armour; it was pretty and impressive, sure, it got her all the ladies, but it also creaked with every move and the dragon was waking up.

Man's defining flaw is definitely hubris, John decided, but started the jetpack anyway.

Most of the city had already evacuated by the time Jane made it out of the basement, with torn ropes still hanging in her wrist and fury burning like an artificial sun in her chest.

Media tried to give the invaders new names, each more fantastical than the last, but the public had already made its mind - they called the aliens Kaiju right from the start.

"Now that civilisation has fallen, it's the survival of the fittest," declared her former highschool bully, before Jane racked the shotgun.

Night fell upon the office like some kind of hex, wearing on their already frayed nerves; the Deadline approached.

On her deathbed, Jane would announce a game, a treasure hunt to her great fortune - fortune which didn't even exist anymore.

Owned by the worst kinds of people, attracting the worst kind of user base, using the worst tech and implementing the worst kinds of terms and conditions… is it any kind of surprise that virtual reality went on to destroy a whole generation of people?

Parking the spaceship on top of the tallest skyscraper was probably an overkill - but it certainly got the message across.

Power cut off three days after the end - on the exact fucking moment John hooked his electric car to a charger, of course.

Quills aren't great tools for stabbing, maybe - but they hold poison very well.

"Qilin are supposed to mark the king, aren't they?!" he demands while again narrowly avoiding being stabbed by the unicorn deer from hell.

"Questions will be after the presentation," said John firmly to his captive audience, chained to their seats.

Rather than die in ignominy like the rest of her family, Jane made something of herself, digitising her mind at age of thirty and becoming a ship's AI by fifty.

Rest of the tenants were asleep when John broke out through the third floor window - and thanks to a whole lot of sleeping pills, so we're the attendants.

"Verily I say unto thee," slurred the handsome, completely shit-faced elf, "Thou truly art a harlot of the highest degree."

Venting her frustrations by throwing her smart phone across the street was a terrible idea - not only would Jane need a new phone now, but it hit a random passerby smack in the middle of the forehead and now she's going to be sued… again.

Without any damn sense at all, John falls in love on the same day he'd planned to kill his dad.

While busting up some dance moves on the battlefield isn't the best way to win a battle, sometimes it wins out an audience with a king; in unrelated news, Jane thinks she might be about to become the court jester.

"X marks the spot isn't driving directions, John - oh, shit never mind, I see it," Jane says into the phone, and gapes at the house - a true modern masterpiece if she ever saw one.

"X," the alien argues, sounding like a buzzer from a TV show, and lifts a laser gun to emphasise the point.

Yawning as he refilled his coffee cup, John didn't quite register the earthquake until he was two swallows in - moment later, the house begun falling apart

Yesterday everything was fine and Jane's world was normal, ordinary, blessedly boring even; today, she met John again.

Zero effort was spent in writing the actual article; the headline "Aliens Conquer the Moon" by itself was enough to sell the papers.

Zealous isn't how Jane would describe John, exactly; completely batshit crazy is much closer to the mark.

One thing could be said about the whole portal incident; it definitely turned a new leaf in Jane's life.

Two of the bandits had already broken into the back of the wagon - judging by the sound of it, they'd also found the gold.

Three times Jane had thrown John's clothes out of the window and into the street, and he was damn well going to make sure there wouldn't be a fourth time.

Four of Jane's students quit on a monday and another two would follow in the following week; by the end, she'd figured the problem might be her syllabus.

Five new starts lit up the night sky, which by itself was already an astronomically significant event - the fact that they were in a circle made it less significant and more ominous.

Six bullets in John's gun, each with its own target and a plan and chance to change destiny - and he missed each and every fucking time.

Seven is supposed to be the lucky number, but somehow all the worst things in Jane's life happen on the seventh - including this.

Eight coins in his pouch is a pitiful showing for a season's hard labour, except for one thing: they're each and every one of them magic.

Nine years old, John thought grimly looking over the crime scene, the blood, the body, and the unrepentant culprit - nine years old and already with blood on her hands.

"Ten outta ten," Jane breathes, her body limp and her vision full of stars, and sighs happily, "Would fly again."

Already Jane's hands were shaking, and she'd barely begun; cutting up frozen bodies was never going to be her favourite part of the job. 

Before the fire John used to love swimming, but now the scent of chlorine makes him want to cry.

Calling her boss at one in the afternoon to tell him she'd be late, Jane mused whether she should consider moving to an area with fewer reported spatial anomalies.

Deciding he'd had enough of zombie dogs in his lawn, John invested in automated machine guns - big mistake. 

Enemy drone sightings had gotten fewer and fewer in the last two days, as the fires had died down and the base laid in ashes - the plan, it seems, worked.

Figuring out she'd done enough for one day, Jane set aside her saw and hammer and went looking for a dog to play with - it shouldn't be difficult, the estate has about two hundred of them. 

Going with his gut feeling, John got a baseball bat and a trash can lid before investigating the noises coming from his basement - whether it was racoons or demons from the underworld, they wouldn't catch him unawares.

Hiding under her bed was a comfort thing Jane refused to feel ashamed for, not after it had saved her life twice. 

Including the weird kid in the game seemed to be a great idea - up to the point where John started throwing up frogs and Jane started floating during musical chairs.

Joking had been Jane's defence mechanism since she'd been young, and it usually worked, but going "Ey, how you doing?" at a serial killer was probably not the smartest plan. 

Keys rattling like a bunch of chains and his heart pounding in his chest, John peered into the darkened office and lifted his flashlight.

Lifting the well cover, Jane leaned back, fully expecting it to smell awful the way still water not disturbed in decades should - and the fact that it didn't was alarming.

Mowing the lawn on the eve of the asteroid impact might not be the most productive use of his last hours on earth, but John didn't care - even now it brought him peace.

New hires always get the worst jobs, Jane reminded herself while picking everyone's trash around the office - at least she was still being paid.

Oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner got pretty boring after two months, but thank god John had even that much prepared.

Pleased with her progress so far, Jane lifted her hand and wiped John's arm - she isn't sure why he wanted the tattoo of a bunch of random letters all over his arm, but it was coming along nicely.

Quelling his rebellious stomach the best he could, John reached for the baby wipes - changing diapers is a basic fucking task for a dad, and he's going to do it, he's not going to throw up and he's going to do it. 

Rationally speaking, what she was seeing couldn't be what she was seeing - because portals to other worlds weren't real - but in her heart…

Singing as he worked, "Going down to the river,"  John lifted another log over his shoulder - ignoring with long practice the way his coworkers gaped at him.

Trying for several different things was how Jane had gotten where she is now - ballroom dance, coding, waitressing and working at a zoo might look like they had little to do with each other, but each was a useful skill for an assassin.

Under his house there's a basement and under the basement there's dirt, and under that, well, John isn't sure, but whatever it is makes a lot of very concerning noises.

"Vacancies 0," informed the sign of a clearly long abandoned roadside motel - of course they pulled over to check it out., 

Without John at the helm, the ship wouldn't budge, the AI simply refused to respond - which is unfortunate because someone had thrown John out of the airlock about half an hour ago.

Xylitol gum and old cigarettes - there was something very nostalgic about that scent, Jane thought, as she watched the old woman push her shopping cart over the crack in the pavement and right into the ditch.

"You know you're going to have to clean that up, right?" John asked as they watched the blood dye all primary colours of the carpet in hues of red.

"Zoom!" went the kid on her tricycle as she drove right over John's foot that morning, somehow breaking two toes in the process.

The store keeper glared at John and John glared right back - between them the dragon egg rocked gently side to side.

For as long as Jane had known him, she's never seen John read - which isn't really something you notice about a person, not until they have to do the thing… and they clearly can't. 

Finding people was rarely the hardest part of starting a new adventuring party, since there were always some newcomers hanging around the tavern - bringing them all back alive though…

Deciding that he needed some professional help with his problem, John went to consult the wizard, who then pointed him to a witch… who pointed him to a sorcerer… who summoned a demon… who pointed at him and laughed.

Even before everything changed, Jane had had a bad feeling about things, like, the sky shouldn't be that colour and she didn't used to get that many static shocks and the TV didn't use to be that… purple.

John and Jane tossed a coin over who got the first go at the treasure - and of course the coin landed on its side. 

Digging for gold used to be an honourable profession for loners and lunatics - now it's all about grave robbing and tomb raiding.

There was a noise coming from outside like the world was ending, but Jane was almost done with the damn report and not about to let herself be distracted. 

The doctor looked at him sadly, the way they do when there's nothing to do and no time left, and said, "I'm sorry, there's no easy way to put this; sir, you're inflicted with stage two lycanthropy."

When she was a kid, Jane pretended she was capturing fairies and sticking them into her doll house as prisoners - when she turns twenty one, this comes back to bite her in the ass.

Finding out that he got an inheritance from some relative he didn't even know about was one thing, but finding out that he'd inherited what was clearly a haunted mansion?

Before John met Jane, his world was dull and colourless, boring from start of the week to the end - now he can just taste technicolour his world has become… which is probably not a good thing.

There's a monster in Jane's closet, tied up with Christmas lights, hanging from a coat hanger, re-thinking all the choices in his life..

Seven days after his wife left him, John reconnected with his mother and took up the family grimoire again.

For the second time in twenty four hours Jane was sitting down to talk with a dead person - which was, even in her line of work, a bit unusual.

The fact that John went from being a secret agent to a nanny might've amused his brothers - but none of them knew the absolute abominations he was taking care of, and yes, Jane, the sidearm is necessary for his work, thank you very much!

-

Modify them as you see fit, etc etc. If any strike as especially good/horrendous, please let me know!

[so-many-ocs]

fifty creative writing warmups

1. search for lists of writing prompts, select one at random, and write from it for 15 minutes. the goal should be to write as much as possible, rather than trying to write something “good.”

2. read or watch a scene from a book/film/show/etc. and then rewrite it from memory.

3. choose one of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound) and write a brief scene focusing primarily on that sense.

4. write an interview as if it were occurring between yourself and a character you’re writing about.

5. rewrite something you wrote a long time ago.

6. shuffle your favorite music and write something based on the first song that plays. 

7. choose a scene from your least favorite book and try to rewrite it in a way that you like. pay attention to the changes you make and why, in your opinion, they improve the scene.

8. choose an object in the same room as you and write as much as possible about that object: descriptions, history, personification, etc.

9. choose an author whose style you like and read one of their works for about twenty minutes before sitting down to write.

10. write a short scene with no adverbs (words ending in -ly such as quickly, hastily, quietly, dimly, etc.)

11. reread a scene from a book you like and write down what you think the author did well: characterization, use of literary devices, foreshadowing, dialogue, etc. then write down the characters, goals/motives, and conflicts of the scene.

12. go outside or look out a window and simply write what you see.

13. write a scene with no dialogue.

14. write a scene with only dialogue.

15. choose a scene from your current work in progress and rewrite it from a different character’s point of view.

16. without editing, reread the last couple of scenes you wrote.

17. describe a room where you live.

18. learn a new word and try writing a few different sentences that each use that word.

19. reread something you’ve written out loud. pay attention to things like sentence flow.

20. write an alternate ending for a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

21. write a short story based on a side character in a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

22. rewrite a classic fairytale, but find a way to turn it on its head.

23. go to a random word generator and write a quick scene based on the first word that comes up.

24. describe your day as if it were the first chapter of a book.

25. choose a book from your shelf. find the fifth word on the fifth page and write something based on that.

26. go for a walk. or, if you can’t do that, try to find a way to move your body around.

27. choose an emotion and write a scene where that emotion is the central focus.

28. rewrite a scene you’ve already written, but switch the perspective—so, if your story uses first person present tense (I, me, my, mine), try third person past tense (they, them, their, theirs), or second person present tense (you, your, yours).

29. rewrite an important scene in your work in progress from the point of view of a complete outsider with no stake in the plot.

30. read three pages of a random book, making note of the author’s style, and then try to write a page in that author’s writing style.

31. write a news article about one of your characters. what is the headline? what is the article about?

32. in public, transcribe a conversation happening near you.

33. write a short dialogue exchange, then choose an emotion to highlight and rewrite the dialogue with that emotion in mind.

34. choose an object near you and describe it three times. each time, try to capture a different emotion or vibe.

35. if you’re within earshot of a conversation, write down 2-4 lines of that conversation and then continue it by making up your own dialogue.

36. write brief, 1-2 sentence descriptions of people you see in passing.

37. pick something you love and write about it as if you hate it.

38. pick something you hate and write about it as if you love it.

39. read something you wouldn’t normally read: an author, genre, style, medium, or subject matter you’d usually avoid.

40. write a goodbye scene between two people three times to capture different emotions: somber, cheerful, angry.

41. find a random photograph online of a person or place and write a story about it. what is the history behind the image? how did the picture wind up being taken—why?

42. find a random image online and write 1,000 words describing it.

43. watch a scene in a tv show or movie and try to adapt it into a written format.

44. read a few pages of a book about writing.

45. describe your main character’s home.

46. describe a day in your main character’s life.

47. set a timer for five minutes and list as many words as you can think of.

48. write a page of pure stream of consciousness. put down anything that comes to mind.

49. write a page describing the appearance of a side character.

50. choose one of your characters and create a new character based on them. for every trait your character has, this new character will have its total opposite—so, generous → selfish, cowardly → bold, short → tall, etc.

---------------------------

psst check out radio apocalypse

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

The False Oracles

Rinather hovered at the apartment's steps, peering nervously into the room within. He straightened his tie and wrung his hands. "Come in," a girl drawled, full of feline elegance and boredom. "We won't bite, pretty boy."

He snorted nervously, then stepped into the room. It was sparsely decorated, a large sofa, a table with a board game laid out and a variety of armchairs being its only furnishings. It was also host to a range of women and a man. "Good afternoon? My name is Rinather O'Brien," he offered nervously.

"And we are the False Oracles, as you know," the girl replied, smirking. "You need help saving your husband from the Void, don't you?" At odds with her voice, she was a teenager, perhaps the same age as his daughter, with a shock of purple hair and dark eyes, and held the centre position on the sofa.

He flushed scarlet. "S- So what if I do? And how did you even know that?" He had been certain they did not know of him.

An older redhead, curled up in a chair of her own, laughed at that. "Rin, my dear," she said in a strong Oxford accent, "We are Oracles. If we did not know every minor detail about you, we would not be very good Oracles, now would we?"

"My name's not Rin," he said, with a twinge of anger. “I'm not your friend. You don't get to call me by a nickname."

"Rin,” the redhead said casually, "You came here to ask for our help. I don't think you can afford to be a chooser." A smattering of laughter went up at his expense.

"Stop harassing the poor thing," the man, perched on the end of the sofa, interjected. "Rinather, right? Take a seat." He gestured to the armchair next to him.

Grateful for the rescue, Rinather settled next to him. "Are you another client?" he offered the man a conspiratorial smile.

The man, tall and blonde, glared at him. "I am an Oracle, just like every other person in this room. Apart from you, that is," he snapped.

"Forgive me for my rudeness, I had thought the Oracles were all ladies," Rinather offered by way of recompensation.

Another round of laughter went up, this time at the male Oracle. "Well, fancy that! Our Lily, being a lady," the girl snarked jostling the man with her elbow.

"Shut it," the man snapped. "My name is Liam, not Lily," he said to Rinather, who nodded sympathetically. "And to answer your question, I'm the only male Oracle. There was a clerical mix-up, and I somehow ended up here." He gave a long-suffering sigh.

Taglist: @coffeeangelinabox, @dorky-pals, @calliecwrites, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @shukei-jiwa

@thewingedbaron, @pluppsauthor, @cowboybrunch, @wylloblr,

@possiblyeldritch @tragedycoded, @finickyfelix, @urnumber1star, @ratedn,

@ramwritblr @vampirelover890, @possiblylisle, @illarian-rambling, @the-ellia-west,

@differentnighttale @evilgabe29, @glitched-dawn, @rivenantiqnerd, @dragonhoardesfandoms,

@abiteofhoney @drchenquill, @everythingismadeofchaos, @dimitrakies, @beloveddawn-blog

@riveriafalll, @the-golden-comet, @rascaronii, @trippingpossum, @real-fragments

@unrepentantcheeseaddict, @the-inkwell-variable, @paeliae-occasionally, @an-indecisive-nerd, @thecomfywriter

@seastarblue, @wyked-ao3, @bookwormclover, @oliolioxenfreewrites, @aalinaaaaaa

@the-letterbox-archives, @gioiaalbanoart (Anyone else who wants to get added can tell me in the comments, pm me, or send me an ask about it!)

[gildedbearediting]

Writing Exercise: Flashback

Today’s cue card writing exercise is straightforward and quick. Remember, if you recognize these cue card exercise then let me know where I got them from in order to properly credit the source. Alright, let’s get to it. Start with these memory prompts: 5 years ago… When I was a teen… My father used to… Keep it short, use the senses. Include important setting details and dialogue. You can use…

[alexanderwales]

I'm going to do a simple grid-based worldbuilding exercise:

There are five attributes: Power, Speed, Precision, Sense, and Vitality.

There are five elements: Leaf, Rust, Syrup, Teeth, Chalk. (These categories are loose an symbolic, not literal. Leaf means anything particulate, Rust is anything with a chaotic process, Syrup is viscous fluids, Teeth are hard and sharp things, and Chalk is anything that writes or marks by leaving something behind.)

There are twenty-five magic systems, predicated on combinations of attribute and element, with relatively high levels of "interpretation" of their base. Rules for myself are no more than a minute per entry, so expect typos, and a few stinkers.

Power-Leaf allows the manifestation of a single giant leaf, as though pulled from some gigaflora, from a regular leaf. This can be wielded as a weapon, and manipulated by the user, creating strong winds, or fanned to help launch the user into the air. Since "Leaf" covers all particulates, less standard versions of this include a giant boulder from a grain of sand or a caber from a wood chip.

Power-Rust allows the indiscriminate spread of chaotic, destructive forces, anything that's a process, including rust, fire, mold, rot, etc. The spread is indiscriminate, but the nature can be tuned, and skilled practitioners learn to pay close attention to their surroundings.

Power-Syrup is a sloshing mess. Anything viscous works, waves of mud, torrents of honey, huge sweeping waves of the stuff in combat, manifested from nothing. Very useful for making any food that's a thick liquid when not in combat.

Power-Teeth is largely bite-based, but also represents a suite of personal combat powers, particularly those that use bone (elbows, knees, headbutts). If teeth is symbolically hardness, then Power-Teeth is using something hard and inflexible as a tool.

Power-Chalk is a marking power, slashing sticks of chalk against the enemy, using those marks to throw them around. The same can be done with objects, a kind of high-power low-precision telekinesis.

Speed-Leaf is speed around obstacles. The naïve case is running very fast across grasslands, but this is the power of falling leaves, which are sometimes carried by the practitioner for use in a fight, letting them move with swift strikes as a handful of grass flutters down around them. The more obstacles and barriers to move around or weave through, the faster they go.

Speed-Rust is largely used as a healing power, accelerating the mending of wounds, but it can speed decay too, or the flourishing of plants, or any other messy biological power. Its use with fire is limited, making it flash brightly and then burn out, but it can be used with rust as well oxidizing touched metals, sometimes so much that it sucks the air from a room.

Speed-Syrup is a movement power, slow to start, slow to stop, mimicking the viscosity of a thick liquid, taking that aspect into their body. Slow to move doesn't just mean that they take a while to get to their top speed, it also means that they can plant their feet in a fight.

Speed-Teeth is hard, sharp, cracking speed, not quite teleportation but the speed of something inflexible. It works better with a rigid subject, like someone in full plate armor, though practitioners without that kind of money sometimes just strap bits of metal to themselves.

Speed-Chalk is a "follow-the-line" speed, better on marked paths, better in a fight with set moves. Restriction breeds speed, and of all the speed class, they're the ones that can move the fastest, assuming that they have a properly lined roaded to run along.

Precision-Leaf is a striking power, best able to hit one thing of many, a knife thrown precisely through a crowd to hit its target, a jab to a weak spot. Metaphorically, it's plucking the single correct leaf from a tree without even trying that hard. In theory, it's taking a chaotic, varied system and isolating an element. In practice, it's best at target selection.

Precision-Rust is bending chaotic systems toward a goal. It's manipulation of that chaos with an aim. Done perfectly, you can walk through flame without getting hurt. It's almost luck-bending, but only when the process in question is sufficiently random or organic.

Precision-Syrup is a matter of flow, moving from one thing to the next without breaks, uninterrupted motion, smooth maneuvers. It comes with the power to alter things around you, bending them to the flow, making wood and stone curve beneath your touch as you move through them like a hand dipping through placid water.

Precision-Teeth is a molding power, shaping things, the harder and stronger, the easier. In combat, you can get a hold of someone, grapple them to the ground, and bend their bones. Out of combat, you can shape marble sculptures by hand.

Precision-Chalk is a matter of lines drawn on the ground or etched into staves, its own subsystem of manipulations.

Sense-Leaf is a branching power, tendrils of sensation that push out and retract. More sensory power is had when you have some time to sit in one place, pushing tendrils and tendrils of tendrils. It's functionally useless if you're moving swiftly, like on a boat, unless you gain something from trailing tendrils behind.

Sense-Rust is future sight, seeing the ways that things will fail and crumble. Because rust covers fire and other reactions too, Sense-Rust can be used by firefighters, letting them know where to go before the fire has gotten too bad. In a fight, Sense-Rust lets you know the best way to break the opponent.

Sense-Syrup is a sense of the slow-moving, things that are stationary, the longer the better, or in a pinch, something that's been moving on the same course for a long time. Virtually useless in a fight, but if anything in a building has been sitting there long enough, they can essentially see through walls. (Professional criminals make sure to move their files around at least once a day.)

Sense-Teeth allows a person to sense through physical totems of personal importance. The ur-example is teeth, a powerful totem with a close personal link, but a blood-soaked rag will do in a pinch.

Sense-Chalk allows inscriptions on paper to create portal views of distant places, but particularly those places which have already been inscribed with marks. A pair of papers must be physically separated for best results, but a blurry, distorted vision can be had from afar with no prep time, at least in a pinch.

Vitality-Leaf allows the drawing of energy from surroundings, with different textures depending on what the source is. Since one of Leaf's aspects is particulates, this works best with leaves, sand, cobbles, dirt, and anything else that's both loose and that there's a lot of.

Vitality-Rust allows the inner cultivation of some chaotic process, usually chosen early in a career. This can be internal fire, internal mold, internal rust, something that must be fed and kept (by e.g. swallowing fuel or metal). This confers strength, and also the ability to spew, leading to fire-breathers and mold-projectors.

Vitality-Syrup are squishy to the touch, like a Stretch Armstrong toy, very difficult to damage because they'll simply tank the hit. The best way to hurt them is to do it slowly or lock them in a position they can't get out of.

Vitality-Teeth is a sharp indestructibility, all-or-nothing hard-but-brittle. They fight like a heavy ceramic teapot, sturdy enough to smash someone over the head with, but if it hits the wrong angle, they'll shatter.

Vitality-Chalk is a variant of phylacteries using chalk markings for conditional restoration. While the most famous of these allows a person to return to life, other objects can be marked with their own conditionals, and a negative application exists where a marked person can be reduced to their lowest point, so long as it was captured by the practitioner at the time.

After-Action

Alright, I found that fun. How are the results? Eh. First pass, there's stuff to like in there. This was pantsing worldbuilding, just spitballing some stuff because I thought I would enjoy it, so I think there's some things to be learned about this system I'm creating.

If Leaf is more like "particulates" then perhaps "Sand" is a better choice, except that Power-Leaf then also needs a change, and maybe need a change anyway. The categories are more like: particulates, reactions, viscous fluids, hard sharp objects, and things that wear away. I was inconsistent about this.

Some of these I like, others are stinkers, which is about what I would expect naturally from variance. Possibly some of the stinkers could be replaced by something better with more time to think and noddle them over. Going for a walk often helps, but I did these basically all in a row over a single sitting without mapping out much ahead of time.

Sense and Vitality have a problem, which is that they're limited and reactive. This is technically fine, but the nature of Sense is probably such that it's never going to be all that useful in a fight, with little agency. It would be good for a spymaster character if I were writing that kind of book, but how many of those do you need? Vitality is more okay, because most lend themselves to tank/bruiser types. The remedy for Sense is probably to make is something with more push/pull, and for sensory stuff, that usually means illusion or mind control.

I would need to sand down and refine these, and if I were writing a novel, think about some of the worldbuilding consequences, and some of the plots, and some of the obvious characters. One of my approaches to storytelling is that I want to find out where the seams are located, all the sites of conflict, all the natural tensions. Some of this is just cool worldbuilding for its own sake, but I think you need to marry that with strong, compelling characters whose layers you can unfold. (It would be a fun writing exercise to create a character for each of these, but that will have to be for another day.)

"What's it for" is not really a question for an exercise like this, but it is one that's vitally important. Obviously this suite is pretty inappropriate if I'm not interested in exploring some fight scenes.

[recurringwriter]

Unusual Writing Exercises - Full Collection Available!

In this bundle, get 4 batches of writing exercises for $8CAD! These include:

(Tension, Outlining, Story Structure) 6 exercises

(Plotting, Conflict) 3 exercises

(Characterization, Dialogue) 4 exercises

(Setting, Description, Detail) 8 exercises

All of them feature creative ways to think about the different aspects of a story, using your own work in progress, stories you know and love, or whatever works for you! If regular writing prompts or exercises are hard for you but you still want to stretch your writing acumen, these attempt to feel relevant to your interests and genres. Find the bundle here, and the individual collections separately on my Ko-Fi shop:

[novlr]

[daily-prompts]

Write a paragraph about something that happens in a classroom. Start with a short sentence and then write longer sentences. The last sentence should be the longest.

[novella-november]

This isn't going to be another "you hate fanfiction!!" because very obviously you do not, but it is prompted by the discussion of branching out into original work, since it's something I often struggle with when trying to make that jump. Do you or any of your followers have any good resources on beginner worldbuilding? I really struggle with it.

Thank you!

If you check out my post where I made a "Prep Calendar" for Outline October (Which is a November-prep alternative/ supplement to Ominous October, the spooky short story event), I actually made a rather rough calendar outline of how to go about world building in advance for November;

The basic first steps for me are usually just three things:

Who are your characters

What kind of world do they live in (aka setting)

Whats your main plot/conflict?

To start worldbuilding at its lowest level, start with number one and work your way up; figure out what kind of character you'd like to write, where they live, and go from there!

Here is the prep calendar I threw together in MS paint, I definitely reccomend downloading it on desktop to actually zoom in to see what all it says lol.

And as a bonus, I will even make a fun, silly little exercise for anyone who'd like to get some practice in!

If you want to join in, grab a pen and pencil, or open up your favorite note-taking app :D

Here we go....!

Let's start out by saying that my basic concept for a character is *spins mental wheel of random ideas*....... a talking deer! 1) So now that I have decided that I want a talking deer character, now I have to decide: A) do *all*deer talk? B) Do *all* animals? C) Or is it just this one singular deer who is special? 2) If it *is* just this one singular deer who can talk, are they: D) otherwise a perfectly normal deer who just happens to be able to talk? E) Can they talk because they used to be human? F) Can they talk because they used to be an Alien or encountered Alien Tech (scifi) ? G) Can they talk because they used to be a Magical Creature or ran into a Magical Spell (fantasy) ? 3) Now you get to decide, mostly if you chose A or B from #1 but also useful for C : H) Is your story a more personal nature documentary, with realistic interactions between predators and prey? I) Is your story going to be a unique world where deer have built a society with technology and know how to defend themselves from predators? J) Is your story a unique world where all animals can talk and are equally sentient, therefore predators are revered as gods or keepers of the dead, who bring all back to the circle of life and prevent the spread of illness and disease, with older animals proudly going "to the wolves" to give their life to their brethren who consecrate the bones of the dead and keep resources plentiful? K) Or are predators the monsters in the dark, the teeth that bite, the slavering jaws that kill to live and *cannot live any other way*, so has learned not to regret? L) Or even, predators who feed from the already-dead when they can, and eat their fill of berries, nuts and fruits when they cannot, because they do not wish to take the lives of others for their own sake?

*clears throat* ahem. Drama done (can you see why I love worldbuilding) ,

go ahead and pick a letter from each of the above options, and jot them down on your paper or note-taking app.

You now have: A basic character, their backstory, and a basic setting!

From three-ish questions from a basic idea, you can spawn multiple possibilities, each of which can branch off into their own unique iterations!

Here's a few more, if you'd like to continue the exercise as further practice:

What is your deer's name?

What do they look like / what kind of deer are they? (deer of various species are found over almost the entire world, so there is tons of variety! :D )

What kind of world do they live in?

How do they interact with humans?

*are* there humans in your story?

What kind of zany or terrifying adventures would your talking deer and a human go on?

What kind of adventures would your talking deer go on with other deer or other animals?

How does your deer get along with other species?

Do they have friends from other species?

Do they have rivals from other species?

Do they have *sworn enemies* from other species?

Do they have a *love interest* from another species?

etc!

I am hoping this game/exercise is helpful, my brain being both autistic and ADHD means I am, at the drop of a hat, ready to start spouting more and more ideas sparked from a single concept at any given moment!

And yes, if you did this exercise, please feel free to use your deer character in a story, draw art of your deer character, etc!

If this exercise was helpful to you or fun, please feel free to tag any deer creations with "NovellaDeer" , I'd love to see them!

You can easily adapt this exercise to any story concept you need to worldbuild; pick what basic idea you have for a main character, and start asking yourself questions about them and their circumstances, and let yourself come up with multiple, contradicting answers for each question; the more the merrier!

After you've decided which starting answers you like the most, you can work your way down the list, asking follow-up questions, and before you know it you will have your very own original character :D

And do not feel like you need to keep your character exactly the way they start out as; characters evolve over time, and you may find yourself changing their "base" character to suit your story or to suit your tastes as you get more experienced with writing and world building!

[regthomas1728]

Weekly Writing Exercise - 1

I won't date these, I'll just put them in an order that you can follow/start anytime.

To better explain these:

1.) Find a Writing Prompt: reblog your answer to the prompt. The answer should be between 3000-5000 words. Try to keep it between these, not less or more than. The goal: kind of like a Drabble, we're testing our ability to utilize good words.

2.) Find a work to edit: on Tumblr, find someone and ask if you can edit someone's work (FREE). One, make a connection. Two, you must ask permission--not everyone is sharing their work for feedback. Your goal: preserve the author's voice while editing for grammar and cohesiveness. This will help you identify problems in your own work later.

3.) Don't use filler words. You'll know these best but some good examples I've seen from others are "suddenly" which takes away the "how" you get from one action/scene to the next. Another example can be "that" or "then" which does the same thing. Avoid redundant words--don't over clarify (I do this, which is why I'm mentioning it) in more than one sentence the same thing. Your goal: make use of every word--determine how it contributes to your piece overall and if it doesn't, delete it.

4.) Add A Character: If you have enough characters in whatever WIP you're working on, then just create a character for another story or practice creating characters. Find a template (I have some reblogged) or create from scratch. Have fun with this character. Your goal: deep dive into your character. Not just appearances, how did they become who they are. Get attached.

5.) Create A Subplot: Everyone loves a good subplot--these can contribute to the plot or help develop who your character is. Or something else, I guess. This subplot can happen over one chapter or the whole story--maybe let it turn into an inside joke between two or three characters. Your goal: working with the plot and subplot.

6.) Edit Your Prompt Work: remember the first one? Responding to a writing prompt? Copy that into a document and hard core edit. If you need help doing this, reach out to me. Your goal: recognizing your writing difficulties and correct them. Rewrite and reblog your work. (Make sure you have some days between the first and second draft.)

7.) Use Writing Tip(s) You've Reblogged: check your writing tips in reblogs, or check mine, and apply one of the tips to your WIP. Either just a portion or the whole thing. Of course, find one that you think you need to work on. Your goal: improving using the advice of fellow authors.

Regine Thomas Tumblr Arse | With (His) Spunk regthomas1728@gmail.com

[juliamccartney]

trying a new writing exercise where i flip to a random page in a book and without looking point to a word, twice (creating a pair of words), then doing it a few more times to get several pairs, the words of which have to appear in the same paragraph in that order and um

yeah i think i can work with this