Question

i need some good creative writing exercises...

Answer 1

think of a word. then write a sentence around that word. Read the sentence then write the first word that comes to mind. Write another sentence. Do this until you have 3-4 sentences. Then try to connect the sentences with one word, and start the process over.

Answer 2

I have a list of a few prompts:

There's a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper...

There are three children sitting on a log. One of them looks towards the sky and says....

A twinkling eye can mean many things. The one that is twinkling at me right now....

I believe that animals exist to...

Write about nature using the following words: Hard drive, stapler, phone, car, billboard.

I like to sit down and do these occasionally. You can probably find more online. I hope this helps. I think they're pretty fun, particularly that last one.

Answer 3

Find a short story you like, a poem usually works too. Use the first line or sentence as the first sentence of your piece, and then write a completely different story to follow it. After you are done writing, change the first sentence to match your style, diction, etc. And then you have an entirely new story/ poem. It really challenges your creativity to come up with an entirely different story from the one you started with.

Answer 4

Hey guys... great exercises...
@Katelyn - i love that one... is a never ending thing... i can just go on and on...
@Mandy - Amazing... i loved the last one, i had a lot of fun
@mikaela - terrific idea... i haven't tried it yet... but sounds amazing

Btw... i just found this while stumbling... it's really good as well.. try them out and tell me how it went...


English 50 – Intro to Creative Writing: Exercises for Poets
First Lines:
1. The King James Bible has long been recognized for its importance to English literature. Choose a verse from the Bible and write your own poem with the Bible verse as the first line. You can use the blank verse of the Bible as a basis for developing rhythm, the subject matter of the verse to develop theme and metaphor.
2. Take a line from someone else's poem, presumably one you admire, and use it as the first line for your own poem, again adapting rhythm, subject matter, metaphor.
3. Take a sentence or phrase from a novel or short story or essay that you think is striking and make it the first sentence of a poem
4. Look in your journal for a line or striking image and make it the first line of a poem. Don't forget to consider lines and phrases from letters you've received, email messages, phrases you're heard in conversations, movies, songs, anything to get started. If the poem goes well, you'll end up dropping the "borrowed" first line.
Subject matter: Try the unusual
1. Science is one of the most fruitful areas for poets today. Physics is especially metaphorical in its language as it attempts to describe the limits of human knowledge. Find a passage in a physics text book that seems especially metaphorical in its description and use the language to create a lyrical description of the phenomena being described in the text.
2. Find a prose passage in a book that strikes you as highly descriptive and render it in lyrics. Play with the lines to create meaning through rhythm.
3. Don't forget math. This is the universal language used to describe the universe. Try turning a mathematical concept into a poem. Or use a mathematical concept to examine some aspect of the human condition.
4. Find a photograph that you find striking and write a poem that describes what is taking place in the photo.