Some days it’s hard to get the creative juices flowing. Words seem boring and everything you write feels useless. On those days, it helps to shift gears to a different mode of writing. The kind of writing the frees up your creativity and lightens the pressure. Writing exercises, specifically designed to help unstick you in your work, are great for keeping you focused but pulling you out of your writing slump. Writing prompts can grease the wheel and sharpen the knife. I will share a few different exercises that have really helped me as well as a list of interesting writing prompts to inspire and motivate you to stay the course even during the dry spells.
Exercise 1:
You are struggling with a passage that feels lackluster, a paragraph or scene that you just can’t seem to get right. Try this: Imagine the passage as poem. Rewrite the event or idea as a poem. Poetry forces you to focus on the essence, significance and meaning of your passage. Once you have written a poem rewrite the passage from this new perspective, using lines from the poem to infuse into your paragraph some of the specific poetic language that emerged from your poem.
Exercise 2:
We use metaphors and analogies when frank language fails to deliver the impact and real meaning of something. But the pitfall when using metaphor and analogies is to fall into cliché. Or on the other end, to offer unhelpful comparisons the pull the reader out of the story. Try this exercise, which I have found helpful.
Example: Let’s say you are writing about the feeling of smallness that a child might feel among adults. Everything around them is big, overwhelming, and daunting. Make a list of related words. Big, small, child, overwhelm and so on. Use your scene to gather words.
As fast as you can and without overthinking it, write as many comparisons as you can.
As big as a. . .
As small as a. . .
Overwhelmed as . . .
You can use a different entry point too.
Big is like. . .
Small is like. . .
Overwhelmed is like. . .
Example: Big is like the color red, once you look, you can’t see anything but red.
There will be lots of really bad ones. (See example above) That’s okay and expected. Maybe a good one will emerge, a REALLY good one from this exercise. Keep going. Have fun. See what connections your mind makes.
A slightly simpler exercise along the same idea is this one:
Take the word big. Write it at the top of a page. From left to write, and without stopping at all, write the first word that big reminds you of, then the second word, write what it reminds you of and so on for about ten minutes.
Example: Big, large, cow, field, sky, open, cavity, well, darkness, path, cold, echo, (and on and on)
The exercise will feel pointless and stupid at first. Stay with it for as long as you can. It helps to turn on some music while doing this. Some of the words that emerge will be surprising and exciting. You may be able to use them to spice up your work.
Exercise 3:
You are hating on your work. You feel like an imposter and a bad writer. Try this exercise. Find your favorite author. Read out loud, this writer’s work. Especially if you have a favorite passage. Do this for roughly an hour. Read passionately and carefully. Step into the shoes of this author. Now write something from your own work as if YOU are your favorite author, their words and unique way of expressing are fresh in your mind, bouncing around, you can almost hear them reading your work, slowly and with passion. Create one or two paragraphs this way. Subconsciously you will change your voice and style. Maybe you realize you are good writer, and that those you admire are not word magicians, but writers who have simply found their style and voice. They don’t seem quite as mysterious and you too, through practice can find your style and voice.
Writing Prompts
These writing prompts are for memoir. Feel free to modify them for fictional purposes.
Prompt 1:
Look around the room that you are in. What object grabs you attention. It doesn’t matter what the object is. Some objects that I can see in my space are as follows: a tissue, a computer jack, a wrist brace, a pair of glasses, anything will do.
What did your mind and eye grab onto? There is something there. Pick up the object and let your mind remember whatever that object reminds you of. Let this be the beginning of a longer essay or story. See where it goes and let your curiosity have free rein. I will give you two examples from my own list.
Example:
Tissue: My mother always kept used tissues in her pocket and handed them to me whenever I was crying. I remember holding a used tissue and feeling nervous about blowing my nose into it. Which sibling had used it before me?
Wrist Brace: I am reminded of the time my three-year-old broke her elbow, her older but smaller sister, trying to carry her into the house.
Prompt 2:
Go read a journal entry from your childhood (provided you have one) or if you can remember one that works too. Use the words of your child self as the starting point of a new entry written from your older self, anytime in the last 5-10 years or so. Write it as if it just occurred. Use this to tell a story from your past through a different lens.
Example:
Childhood Entry
Today was the worst day. Choir practice was canceled! I don’t know what I’m going to do!
Today’s Entry
Today was the worst day. I am lying in a hospital bed, barely injured from the car accident wondering if my six-year-old son, who was flown by helicopter to another hospital, is dead or alive.
Prompt 3:
What is your last name? Where did it come from? Does it carry any weight or meaning to your family, community etc.? Using your surname as a prompt write about your relationship to your own family name.
Example:
Barlow comes from an Old English word/words that meant barley hill, a name derived from a geographical marker. Common in those days. The family that lived near barley hill became the Barlow’s. Something like that I presume. I was married into the family name. My husband’s family comes from a long line of ancestors who have stayed in the area for many generations and had large families. I can hardly visit a grocery store or mall without a stranger, reading my name on my credit card and asking me “do you know a Jerry Barlow? A Marjorie Barlow? A Kathy Barlow?
Exercises and prompts are a great way to feel reconnected to your writing and give you fresh take on your projects.
