Writing Exercises

WRITING EXERCISES serve a multitude of purposes. They:

• Sharpen your skills
• Let you know your characters better
• Help you visualize a scene
• Unclog mental blocks
• Present new ideas, new angles
• Are fun!

Experiment with all of the senses:

• sight-see the boy laughing hysterically at his sister
• feel-the cold metal of a gun
• smell-the vanilla pudding cooking
• sound-hear a splash in the swimming pool
• taste-a slice of apple pie

Ready, set, go…head for the mall and shop for your hero or heroine:

• What type of clothes or lingerie would he or she wear?
• What are their favorite foods?
• Try on perfumes
• What furniture or accessories would they choose?
• What type of music do they like?
• Get fabric sample. Feel the difference between them. Do they like smooth silk or starched cotton?

Take the scenic route:

• Go for a drive simply to look for setting ideas; take a camera
• Visit a museum
• Tour a historic landmark

Get in the mood:

• Watch a movie that fits the mood of a scene (horror, suspense, action, romantic, tear-jerker, etc.)
• Listen to music
• Take a hot bubble bath
• Light candles
• Eat something delicious: chocolate, ice cream, or perhaps the meal your characters are having in the story

Go treasure hunting--search through magazines and catalogues for

• look-a-like pictures of your characters
• settings
• a picture of the murder weapon
• recipes your character follows

Do a quickie:

Jot down a situation, quote, or setting, and then expand on it. You can spin off of a heading from a newspaper or magazine article, or tell a story behind a picture. This is great fun to do as a group. Put a time limit on the exercise and then share. It's interesting to see how different each person's story turns out. The possibilities are endless; in everything there is an opportunity to write. After all, that is what we like to do!

A quickie to get you started:

He/she peered over the edge of the cliff where the earth dropped away. Below, powerful white waves crashed on gray rocks, the sea-spray melted in the glow of the setting sun. The smell of salt and seaweed mingled with that of pine, and the pounding of the sea resonated in the air.

They inhaled a sharp breath in unison as a curious gull swept low nearly beating its wings on their heads. He/she stared out to sea, vast, unconquerable, dangerous.

Mica flecked gravel ground under his feet as he turned. "I never said…"

Your turn…

Who knows--this might be the idea for your next book. It's happened before.

More Quick Ways to Spark Creativity

• Visit a thrift store and pick out an old piece of clothing. Go home and write as much as you can about whoever wore this item, where they went, what they looked like, and how their evening turned out!
• Dislike how a particular book ended? Rewrite it to your own satisfaction (only, of course, for your own use!)
• Sit in a playground one pleasant morning and listen to the children playing and the mothers chatting. Try to re-write the scene from the point of view of the mother, and then from the point of view of the child. Note how different perspectives color the same moments of our lives!
• Think back on an emotional conversation you had with someone. Try to re-create it using only dialogue (think of it as a movie scene.) Then re-write it using only narrative (think of it as a journal.) Finally write it using both dialogue, and narrative.

This one is for writing partners.

• Provide your partner with 26 words, one for each letter of the alphabet. Now each of you write a cohesive story, using every one of the 26 words, one per sentence, in order.

About the Authors:

STAR President and 1999's "Launching a Star" contest coordinator Laurie Cooper writes historical romances. Laurie received an Honorable Mention in the 1999 "Mountain Laurel Contest."

Leslie Kelly is a multi-published author with Harlequin Temptation. With just her first two books, (Night Whispers, 9/99 and Suite Seduction, 12/00) she has won the prestigious NONA (Notable New Author of the Year Award), the National Reader's Choice Award, and the Colorado Award of Excellence. Her latest book, Relentless, was released in 8/01 as part of the Temptation "Heat" miniseries.

Please do not reproduce without permission.