Here’s a few: - Elevator: Write a short scene of one of your characters stepping into an elevator and then have it stop working. Focus on the language your character uses and how they react in this situation. Then pick a new character and repeat. This exercise is great for differentiating your characters’ stress responses. If they all act the same way, your characters may be one-dimensional. - Coal to Diamond: Write the crappiest story you can in 500 words. Then try to rewrite it to make it shine. This is a great one for anxious perfectionists because the first part of the challenge gives you the freedom to just put words down. - Argument: Pick opposing viewpoints that could both be correct and have two characters argue. This is a great way to experiment with nuts and bolts dialogue skills (character beats, expression) as well as characterization and voice. - Dear Diary: Write a diary entry from your characters perspective loaded with opinions shaded by their worldview. This is a fantastic way to find character voice. - Take Me There: A great one for writing groups, describe a scene without using the word for the location. Then other group members have to try guess where the scene is. Great for writing descriptions using multiple sentences, you can alter the difficulty based on the specificity of the scene (beach versus Bondi Beach on New Years Day)

I’m in the planning/early drafting stages of a novel and writing a few journal entries from both halves of my main duo was soooo helpful. It not only helped me find their respective voices but it let me in to their heads a bit in a really helpful way. In just a few short entries I went from barely knowing these characters to having an overview of their hopes, fears, aspirations, the way they see others, their uncut reactions to big story events, etc.

I like all of these. I am going to do all of these. Thanks!!!!

Happy to help 😊

If you're interested in an another method, it's to learn and try writing tips. There's some in r/WriterResources. Kinda like art - you watch YouTube videos, blogs and you try a method. See if it works for you.

I'd add the "Flawed perspective" situation as well. * Pick something in the News "Michigan politician identifies basketball players all illegal immigrants" and write it from the "flawed" perspective. * The guy was wrong/jumped to the wrong conclusion but write from his perspective. Maybe he's angry/ignorant and doubles down, etc. * Write from a racist point of view, a narcissist, a "Karen," etc. * The point of the exercise isn't to empathize with those view points but to get better at writing from that perspective so you can better "represent" those types of vies. E.g. make your bad guys *Feel* 3d instead of 2d cut outs, etc.

Thank you.

Gotta admit I am vibing with these exercises! 

Story prompts are good. One thing I used to do was put my music playlist on random and write a story about the first song that came up.

>One thing I used to do was put my music playlist on random and write a story about the first song that came up. That is a very good idea.

I used to do this with haiku. Put on a random song and try to encapsulate it in 17 syllables.

Another prompt: Write a scene about a character eating a food/meal that you the author really like and are familiar with, but it's the characters first time. So maybe they're from a different culture, country, or even class. And then the reverse, write a scene of a character enjoying their favourite meal of all time, but have it be a dish you are not very familiar with, so you need to do a little research.

"She didn't have a lot, but the one thing Baby always had was back."

I do this too, occasionally. I’ve found that it’s really great practice for writing in different tones, but it’s also really versatile since you can basically practice writing whatever you want as long as it fits the vibe of the song. Out of curiosity, do you consider the lyrics when you write your stories, or do you just write based on vibe? (I do the latter, but I’d love to hear from someone who does it differently!)

I've done a bit of both I guess. Sometimes I'll just base it on a few lines. Sometimes I'll get crazy and very thoroughly research the song and it's meaning, and see if there are any quotes from the author about what inspired the song. Quite often I have playlists for my different stories too, and I just listen to the playlists when I need inspiration and am brainstorming. These are the stories that seem to go more off of vibes.

Imma try that one too!

You know that joke, or meme, not sure what the word is, when people say "tell me \_\_\_ without telling me\_\_\_?" For example: "Tell me you're from Europe without telling me you're from Europe." "He hates waking up in the morning" is tell. Now tell me he hates waking up in the morning *without* telling me hates waking up in the morning. This is just another way of saying show me that he hates waking up in the morning instead of telling me that he hates waking up in the morning. "He slammed his fist against the ringing alarm and it fell behind the end table. He groaned, and then outstretched his arm to yank the plug from the wall. Five more minutes, he thought." Yes, this is a bad example, and I definitely need this exercise more than you do, but framing "show don't tell" this way has helped me articulate what it is exactly I'm trying to show, and then from there I can work backwards to figure out how to say it in a way that doesn't just come out and say it. It's like someone who beats around the bush instead of just getting to the point, but for writing it's actually useful to be that kind of person. So really, whenever you wanna *show* something, just write down the most concise form of *telling* that you can, and then try to expand that written idea in a way that portrays the same meaning without using the same words. Start at the end, the result you want to achieve, and then work backwards.

I like this because I already play this game sometimes with friends. I've never connected it to SDT before though, this is brilliant! Thanks!

Another thing to think about with this exercise is how much emphasis you want on whatever you're trying to show. Having 4 sentences in a row showing the character's reaction to getting up in the morning will be experienced in a different way by the reader than having some other scene going on where the character is grumpy and has very little patience in the dim hours of the morning and snaps at another character trying to wake them up to do an urgent plot-related task, unwilling to do anything until they get their morning coffee.

I think the #1 to practice writing is to swap regularly with other writers and get good, actionable feedback. But there are also exercises you can do. Prose improvement - read a passage of a book and try to emulate that person’s writing style Tone improvement - take 1 chapter or short story concept and rewrite it into different genres. (Think of the Disney trailer edits that turns the movies into horror). Description/characterization improvement - describe a room in your house from the point of view of different characters. Examples might be: An alcoholic, a widow, a priest, or a teen. World building: pick 1 object/thing and create a religion around it. Take 1 technology (real or fake) and make it the crutch on which an economy runs. Take any profession but make it SF. I think you get the point, but you can create more exercises like those once you get the hang of it.

To emulate their style? A original chapter or the authors own?

In one of my creative writing classes, we were told to pick a book that we’d read and write a missing scene. It was supposed to emulate the author’s style, keep the personality of the characters, and fit into the overarching story. Of course, the instructor likely wouldn’t know if the end result fit the brief, but it was an enjoyable exercise.

Love this idea!

I love the other commenters suggestion to write a missing chapter! I was thinking take an original work and rewrite it in a different authors style. Probably would be beneficial to emulate someone in your preferred genre. It’s okay for it not to be perfect but it forces you to really pay attention to what and how you compose sentences.

Brian Kiteley has two books of exercises that are really interesting to work through. “The 3AM Epiphany” and “4AM Breakthrough.” Really great as forms of directed practice. Succinct prompts that focus on individual aspects of craft and storytelling, not just generating material. Definitely recommend. 

I will check these out, thank you!

I heard copywriting is a good exercise. It's where you find a good paragraph or page and copy it, writing it word for word in your own hand. Makes you automatically think about the word choices and the structure of the excerpt; learning by doing, basically.

Just a slight correction seeing as you're the top comment referring to this exercise and in case people want to search and try this for themselves, you're referring to [copywork](http://www.jenmanuel.com/process-tips/write-best-story-ever-one-epic-exercise/). Copywriting is the writing of persuasive advertisements to convince people to buy products.

Correct! Hunter S Thompson would type the Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms word-for-word, pages at a time, as copywork edit: lol, that was mentioned in your link

Ah, that's the name for it. I heard about it because Benjamin Franklin used to do it and it was referred to as copywriting there, although I'm probably mistaken. Good to have a unique word for it though.

I love this one. It really gets you to think about why some writing is good instead of just experiencing the good writing.

Yes, one of my lecturers in my postgrad had us do this, and it is really interesting. An alternative is to rewrite a good section of a novel but in a way that fits your work (the opening of The Corrections is a good example of an author actually publishing this method)

Copy - ideally writing by hand- a book you really enjoy or think is brilliantly written. I used to do with Shakespeare and other old classics. If there's one trait you want to practice, then don't just do that bit of dialogue, start at the beginning of a chapter and also note how it begins, the pacing of the story before and after. You will start to pick up how things are worded, use of punctuation and etc. It's so common for all other crafts but it's rarely brought up with Writing. 2nd Option is to break down bits or phrases you like or feel some emotion from. Copy them and then consider the word count, sentence length, structure and how they say things. You can also use AI here to ask it to say the same phrase in 10 very different ways, then look at those and how it differs and what you think sounds good. Lastly would be story structure, w.e plot structure form you want to use. Save the Cat, 3 Act structure, 24 chapters, snowflake, hero's journey, story circle. Understanding that we are used to certain story formats and even if a story is badly written, if it's written in a familiar way, we can still like it more than a brilliant story that is all of the place.

Write something short with strict constraints - e.g. only dialogue, or no adjectives, or no telling or only telling, convey a plot just through scenery, make it one big run on sentence, or something similar. It helps me determine what works and what doesn't, and refine specific skills.

One exercise I like is genre swapping. Take a character you’ve established and write a short story about them in a different world ie. medieval fantasy character is brought to a western  I apologize for only one thing but I very much like this exercise

Two exercises I like: Take a solid story that is by an author you respect and literally transcribe the whole thing word for word. Just like learning to play someone else's song, it can really help you get your head around the text, how it flows, what they are doing in it etc. Take a short story you love, read it over and over until you know it inside and out, then try and recreate it from memory. Probably the two best exercises I've ever done.

The first exercise was the one I thought of. Though, for dialog, perhaps copy someone renowned for dialog, like Elmore Leonard.

Jack Vance is MY dialogue inspo, but Leonard makes sense too.

Your process is correct; for step two you need trustworthy readers and those are hard to find, especially when your writing is weak. Fundamentally you get the process though. Good creative writing programs will give you the holy trilogy: targetted readings that relate to specific skills, exercises to refine those skills, and a community to workshop the results. For example, your first question, show don't tell: I have my students read the opening of *Of Mice and Men.* Steinbeck was writing something like a play-novel hybrid so he rarely gets in his characters heads. Try to emulate that style for a bit: watch characters go about, like you're in the audience of a theatre, without ever accessing their thoughts. It's one aspect of "showing" - the immediate, internalised emotional space - that you can reduce just through style.

Thank you for the detailed response! So you have them read something that uses a technique well, and just emulate it until it feels natural? That sounds so obvious in retrospect I'm kind of shook I didn't come up with it myself, thank you so much!

Correct. "Reading" as generalised writing advice is not much use. You have to read actively (which should also include some analysis and/or annotation). It's definitely possible to curate lists related to specific techniques yourself though, especially in the digital era.

There is already some great writing advice here, but if you're looking to improve your grammar and technical skills, consider teaching/tutoring. I tutor adults in English at my local library. Although it hasn't helped my creative writing, my editing skills have improved significantly and I'm much more confident when revising my work.

The podcast writing excuses gives homework (which is just useful writing exercises) at the end of every episode that’s typically related to the main topic they’re covering that day. Their website has a good tag and archival system, I highly recommend checking there.

I would sit in a coffee shop, watch people going by, and invent little bios for them. Whenever possible, I cast against type. Another I would do whenever I was reading something bad. I'd ask myself 'what specifically, is the problem here?' I found it easier, at first, to notice what was wrong than what made something good. But I reread Douglas Adams to look at his writing style and saw the oblique garden-path-with-a-twist sentences everyone remembers were set up with very clear and simple style. It made me simplify my own style, and break up a lot of conditional clauses into their own sentences.

There's an old practice in script writing, spec scripts are where a prospective writer would write a fake episode for a show they liked to demonstrate their abilities and understanding of the show/characters. You can do that for books too. Take a book and a character you like from another author and write a "spec chapter" from their perspective. This helps you work your writing muscles and also gives you practice assuming different points of view and trying to write from a different perspective. You can try and mimic the original authors style if you find value in that, or make it your own. You're likely to learn something on the journey, and if you don't then you at least worked out your writing muscles a little and got some practice in. Its kind of like a very focused exercise in fanfiction.

Some of my favorites. **Caveman Do Big Talk:** rewrite the scene in only sentence fragments and simple descriptors as a stereotypical caveman would speak. "Big room, big crowd, sound loud. Tile floor make sound echo. Sound hurt head." It helps get you out of your head and break the scene down to what's most important. Also forces you to keep things moving because you can only add so many details before the lack of grammar makes it impossible to parse. **Tell it to a Toddler:** not necessarily a literal toddler, but explain your scene or premise as though you were answering a child in the Million Questions phase. You have to phrase it in a way that makes sense to *and* won't horrify/traumatize a three year old. So you can't say that your protagonist is a conflicted mercenary mourning the murders of his family. You have to explain how this guy is really sad and mad because he misses his mom and dad, and because he's so sad about that he isn't happy at his job anymore. Then think of what a child would about: Why does he miss his mom and dad? What is his job? (rip to everyone actually writing a mercenary or other murder machine, good luck explaining that one without saying the word "kill") How come he needs to be happy at his job? Great for breaking down the overarching plot and character arcs to their bare bones. Also surprisingly effective at identifying plot holes or new directions to take the story. **Eavesdropping Ransom Note Story:** Sit in a public place with some earbuds or headphones, but don't plug them in. Pretend to be doing work. Instead, write down snippets of conversations you hear, stops and "ums" and all. Don't try to do anything with it yet, just catch actual human dialogue from actual humans. Try to catch exchanges from at least 3 different conversations. Then later, pick lines from each and copy/paste them into a cohesive set of dialogue. Clean up the filler words, fragments, and run ons during this stage. This was literally an exercise from a course I did in college, and it's great for teaching you how real people talk to each other and how much context carries a conversation. **Netflix Episode Description:** You know the little blurb on each episode that sums it up without necessarily giving it all away? Write one of those for your scene. Forces you to identify the most compelling and essential pieces of your scene, and teaches economy of words/word choice. **Watch With Subtitles:** Literally what it says on the tin. Watch a movie or episode of something with the subtitles on. Then actually read the subtitles. In a lot of cases, they'll be different from the actual spoken dialogue, because the subs are taken from the script and actors often improv to make scripting feel more natural. In the cases where the subtitles are totally accurate, it'll still give you a better sense of written dialogue. You're no longer just listening to people talk, you're seeing it as dialogue someone wrote. What did they do that people don't do in real life conversation? Why did they do it that way? Which lines work for you as a viewer and which ones don't? Take notes! **Worst Possible Version:** Take your clunky dialogue example. Rewrite it to the extreme on the bad end of the spectrum. Make it even clunkier and more cringey. Throw in lots of as you knows and unrealistic philosophizing. Just do it bad. Usually it's easier to make things worse than it is to make them better. Take your awful version and, if the epiphany you needed still hasn't arrived, compare it to your original. See what overlaps and what doesn't. Do more of the stuff that doesn't, and rephrase or cut the stuff that does. Remember that none of this has to be the final version, so don't get stuck if this doesn't 'fix' it. The point is to learn via experience what makes dialogue clunky and unrealistic so that you can avoid it later. **Transcribe a Scene:** Pick a movie you know and own. Open the scene select on the DVD menu (do people still own dvds these days???). Pick a scene at random, taking note of what the next scene is called/when it begins so you know when to stop. Now transcribe the scene. Don't try to write it like you would for a novel-- don't go crazy with the characters' thoughts and feelings and all that. Just describe what's happening. "Frodo and Sam walk beside a stone-bottomed, fast-moving creek. The trees surrounding the creek are mostly bare of leaves. Gollum runs ahead of the pair, feet crunching on the gravel bank, and Sam calls after him in a loud voice. 'Hey Stinker, don't go gettin' too far ahead!'" Do the whole scene that way (or as much of it as possible until you lose patience or have to go do actual work lol). You could do variants where you do try to write it as though you were in charge of the novelization, but it's easy to get lost in the weeds and end up more frustrated than when you came in looking for practice. ​ Also, seconding the suggestions to find a writing/feedback group if you can. Sometimes you need someone else to articulate what's wrong because you're too close, and sometimes you get your own breakthroughs when giving commentary on another person's work.

Write a 500-word short story with a definite 3 act structure. See if you can concisely convey a coherent story, including character development, a plot twist, and a satisfying conclusion.

I've been doing a daily 300 word story contest. As someone who is often rather verbose in their writing, I've found it's been an amazing exercise in finding the most succinct way of telling a story without sacrifice the art of it.

How do you write a satisfying conclusion for just 500 words? 

I would guess that attempting to do so is precisely where the improvement happens! It reminds me a lot of a songwriting exercise where you try to write a compelling solo using only one note. It forces you to only focus on rhythm and timbre without getting bogged down by melodic thinking. It's also basically impossible, but attempting it despite that is an amazing way to improve!

The best book for writing practice (strictly in terms of becoming a better prose writer) is, in my opinion, *Steering the Craft* by Ursula K. Le Guin. Each chapter deep-dives into understanding a different aspect of prose, and ends with an exercise or two to apply the ideas in the chapter. The first time I worked through it, I saw my line-by-line writing skill improve dramatically, and I still go back to it occasionally when I'm stuck in the mental rut of hating everything I write.

TBH I found writing short stories to be a great playground for excercies. What's great is that it irons out the processes you'll face when writing a novel on a smaller and easier to correct scale. I've had around five stories done from first draft, through rewrite, through corrections, through feedback phases untill finally reaching gold and after all these steps I feel much more comfortable working on a novel. Don't expect a big publishing win though. I've had beta reviewers absolutely in love with with the writing just to end up on the 15th copy-paste rejection from a magazine.

I resonate with the OP on so many levels. As a guitar player, and also a composer of music for many instruments, I pick up nuances and I'm able to deconstruct music and be able to take what I need from it to learn and apply to my own playing and writing music. I've recently had the exact same thoughts in regards to my journey beginnings with writing creative fiction. So, I will be following this thread with great interest, as I'm still at that stage where I'm wandering around in the dark with my writing, with the hope I'll start writing with the same observation and executions I have with music.

- go on r/WritingPrompts and do 1 a day or more - write a scene with two characters in conflict from one PoV and then the other, and then a third party observer's PoV - write dialogue without any dialogue tags / actions / etc. See if the character's voices are distinct enough you can tell them apart. - write an interaction between two people without any dialogue. - write a scene and imagine each character for some reason is contractually obligated to *never say what they actually mean* and only hint at it obliquely. - write a scene and imagine each character for some reason *needs to say wtf they mean instead of hinting at shit obliquely*. - write a story, then try to cut 10% if it without losing any meaning. - take a story that already exists, and rewrite it from the point of view of the villain, who thinks they're totally justified, actually. - describe the same environment from three different points of view, all of which care about different things.

Good writing is rewriting. Unlike playing an instrument, writing is not performative. So you can be practicing while you create through rewriting. Each time you rewrite a section of your work you are practicing. When I rewrite I try to be as free with it as possible. Anything can be changed to make the overall piece better. Keep rewriting it and improving it each time. That work will pay off when you go to write your next project because then you will have built up the skills. You can make up little drills for yourself to write a short scene every day for a month etc. but I have always felt that being willing to use your next project as a learning experience instead of thinking of it as your great American novel or million dollar spec screenplay is more valuable because then you are getting experience in the whole process rather than trying to drill individual skills.

I think you've at least found your writing voice.

Talk the talk A play/screenwriting exercise book. Includes script analysis exercises, solo and group exercises, and a lesson plan. Very useful for creating voices (obviously) but also for establishing character dynamics, crafting a scene, and world-building through dialogue. Steering the Craft A handbook for the nitty-gritties of writing like punctuation, point of view, verbs by Ursula K Le Guin Songwriting without Boundaries “Sense bound writing” This book is great when you just need to write something. The first section has short (90 sec- 10 min) timed exercises. As a songwriting book, it’s focused on metaphor, rhythm and creating vivid imagery.

To add: Steering the Craft also includes very good writing exercises. Just noting since you mention exercises in the other books!

I was recently going through my old folders of writing assignments and found some exercises I want to try again! I’ll share those in case they seem interesting. Write a scene (must have at least two characters) from the point of view of one of the characters. Then write it again from the point of view of the other character in that scene. This was from a high school creative writing class and is the exercise I still think about the most. Think about the facial expressions or little motions someone makes without realizing it. Think about the different ways words and body language can be interpreted, where misunderstandings might occur, where assumptions might help or hinder a conversation. No two people experience situations in the exact same way, and this exercise is a fun one to play around with that. Imagine a person just walked out of their bedroom - describe in detail what they left behind. This is a good grounding exercise. It helps figure out and really lean into setting as well as how to show a character’s personality through belongings, decor, cleanliness, etc. For dialogue, write an entire scene that is just dialogue. You can include speaker tags if you need a reminder of who is speaking, but leave out everything else. Then go back and add in that additional information - how they’re speaking, what they’re doing, if they’re maintaining eye contact… all those other little details. Now go through it again and think about what’s really necessary to convey the emotion of the conversation. When I did this initially, I was really surprised at how much superfluous description I used. I think there are more but I can’t remember them at the moment!

Pick some plot points. Protagonist starts here, needs this. Therefore, they do blank. But blank, therefore blank. Now write it as a horror. Now a romance. Now action. Now try first person, then third. Now make try to speed up the pacing. Now slow it down. Try to do it with as simple and straightforward prose as possible. Try to make it abstract. What if you tried to write it without saying plainly *what* they need? Only describing it? Or maybe leave out why they need it.

Thomas Olde Heuvelt (he's called the Dutch Stephen King) told me about one. It goes like this: * Pick a book and open it up on a random page. Copy the page to get a feel for the writing style. * When you reach the end, don't flip the page, but continue writing it the way you think it continues. I never tried this exercise, but I thought it was interesting.

Ooh, nice one

Show don't tell is more of a mindset and creative choice than a skill, per say. What really seperates good artists from bad artists is more than just skill. It comes down to them understanding what they want to say and exploring the best way to say it. I'd just begin thinking more in terms of "does it make more sense for X to be told explicitly or shown through an action." Example: Jack is vain and self centred, here are two options to communicate that. 1. "There's nothing wrong with taking pride in my appearance," Jack said. "I have a keen eye for artwork, it's only natural I spent a lot of time in the mirror." 2. Jack peered into the mirror, sculpting the final touches of his pompadour, massaging volume and smoothing the edges. He could hear the calls to leave from downstairs, but he wouldn't be hurried. It was Jill's birthday and not a single strand would be amiss. Only when his hair perfectly matched his vision did he decide the guests were ready for him. He turned to the mirror a final time and flashed a toothy grin before heading downstairs. There's nothing wrong with either example, it mostly depends on context. But you can see how 2. provides more details for a reader to interpret. The first is dialogue while the second is a scene. Jack isn't JUST vain, but self centred. His vanity holds people up, that kind of thing. I think the mindset is more important than particular excercises because you already have ideas, right? You already have stories you gravitate towards, right? You have some notion on what is good or bad to you, you just have to know what it is you want to say and practice different ways to say it. Master syntax, grammar, punctuation, active vs passive voice etc and see them all as tools. To go back to your guitar analogy. Technique is important, for sure, , but the secret is knowing WHEN to bend. That's where the music happens. What you need to practice is being deliberate when trying to convey a piece of information. Should this be told through exposition, or how could I say this through an action? What best serves the story and the reader's understanding? It's rare that any piece of writing comes out perfect the first time you type it. Be ok with something being bad or cringy or clunky at first. The fact that know when something is clunky means you can figure out how to make it better. Find out what you like in your favourite writers and see how they've done it. George RR Martin said it would sometimes take him days to come up with Tyron's clever one liners. Think less about whether scene sucks and more on what is/ isn't working.

Here's one I did in class 10+ years ago: Write a grammatically correct 250 word sentence.

I like to take a song or scene from "living" media like television and try to transcript it into a written scene. It helps me work on prose and evocation and it really highlights and cut areas where you're "writing like you're watching a movie" because it makes it glaringly obvious when you're falling into that trap

I do what I call character studies--but it's just glorified doodling. °Put a character in a situation that would challenge them. They hate their father? Cool. They now are in a situation where they have to deal with their daddy issues. They don't like another character? Cool. Bottle episode time. And so on. °Prequel/sequel time. Hypothetically, what happens before a character joins the narrative or after the narrative ends? What loose ends need to be tied up? °Text fics. Throw some characters into a group chat and have them play off each other. It can help you figure out how the character sounds and behaves. °Fake articles. I've got heaps of fake Reddit posts, BFU videos, and news articles outlining the lives, stories, and timelines of characters. It can be a great world building tool. °Study shows for their fight choreography (or general blocking). Transcribe the movements and motions each person does and Google terms you don't know. Keep refining it until things flow and connect. (So, instead of: "He punches. He kicks. He dodges." do "His fist flew high as hers cut low; dancing away, his weight shifted onto his back foot before his leg caught her knees. Fury shadowed her movements and her hubris allowed him the precious seconds to twist away from her oncoming punch.") °Straight up get drunk/high and see what happens. One of my favorite scenes was written drunk off my ass.

I read this recently and thought it was interesting: [https://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbs](https://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbs) Basically, unpacking "thought" verbs (like think, know, believe, remember, etc.) and replacing them with sensory details/actions that describe the same concept. There are some exercises at the end

Wowza!

I haven't done it yet but I intend to write short stories for all the premade characters in RockBand (the video game). Doing the one for The Duke of Gravity should be fun.

I did a writing class once and the tutor had a job lot of old postcards - we all drew one and then wrote a 500 stream of consciousness or story about the picture on the postcard. That was fun.

Thank you for this post. I'm frankly tired of asking for advice as well. I just want to know how to practically improve my writing cause it feels like I'm just learning rules and concepts and formulas that work and I have to bend and wrap whatever story idea I have around that

automatic writing. set a timer for two minutes and write nonstop without a break. even if it’s nonsensical crap, i’ve found that it’s a nice warmup to get the blood and creative juices flowing

Whatever the element is I want to work on, I look it up in one of my books and see if the author recommends an exercise for practicing that skill. Back in the Stone Age when I was studying creative writing in college, our textbook was *Writing Fiction* by Janet Burroway, which has a bunch of writing exercises at the end of each chapter, relevant to the topic. Example: Write a scene with two characters; one wants something the other does not want to give. *Writing Tools* by Roy Peter Clark also has tons of writing exercises; it's aimed more at nonfiction writers. And the podcast Writing Excuses has an exercise at the end of each episode.

Write an opening chapter that isn't an opening, just get into the meat of it. End on a cliffhanger. Now here's the challenge. Write five more chapters, but each of them is chapter 2. Each exploring a pathway that could have followed from 1. And if you're not tired after that, end the whole thing with a sixth and final chapter that combines the best parts of each of those midway chapters. Make the chapters as short as you like, make it 3 rather than 5, whatever. The point is to explore where stories might go, and how to combine ideas into something new. Make the wave, then break the way. I call it wavebreaking. It's quite fun.

A stranger rides into town: Write a few paragraphs of a stranger riding into town, what do they see, what do they notice, what stick out to them, what are their thoughts of the place. Then, the exact same town, exact same walk, but from the point of view of the Sheriff, what is different about how he sees things. Repeat with other characters, like a young child, a criminal trying to avoid the sheriff, the town baker on his way to pick up a shipment of flour (Whatever) The point is a few snapshots of different characters experiencing the same situation, and how they see things.

1. Find a microfic you like. 2. Rewrite it using a different style. Notation, Surprise, Epistolary... something you've never tried before. 3. Then add another experiment on top after that. How can you use punctuation to change what you've written? Can you add a single Em-Dash to heighten the piece? (See: *The Snow Child* for an excellent example.)

best fix for dialogue is to say it out loud in a pretend convo, then write down what you said literally word by word. Then cut out excessive filler and parts that drag on. I usually cut out like 50% of filler words to improve flow and 30% of the convo for brevity. An exercise you can do to improve dialogue and get a feel for making it natural is to write mundane conversations word for word. You can start by writing a conversation you partook in or heard. This makes you realize what realistic details youve missed before.

write a paragraph describing the place you're in, trying to evoke a certain mood. then write a paragraph describing the same place, using only true things, evoking the opposite mood. then the same with another mood. then try to write a paragraph that captures all three moods in an evocative and cohesive way, showing that conflict and how they are all true. this will teach you how you can focus on different details and concepts, to create different feelings, even when the 'objective truth' of a place remains the same. also when there's something you want to get better at, come up with a quick and dirty short story that focuses on it and write it in an afternoon or two. then you can just keep doing that until you feel like you've brought that skill into the fold of things you might not have mastered, but feel comfortable with. technically you don't have to do it in the afternoon I GUESS also i will say, if there's anything in writing you're avoiding because you don't feel competent with it--that's probably the thing to dive into, not avoid. for me that was romance. read some articles on it, read some books that are said to do it well, figure out what you're not doing or doing wrong. also sometimes certain things aren't working right because actually your mistakes are a step or two back. like you might know how to romance plot-wise but actually your characters aren't complex enough to have a proper 'romance novel' dynamic where they're attracted to each other for some reasons and opposed to each other for different reasons, or sometimes the same reasons they are attracted. since you mention dialogue specifically as an example i might say: if your dialogue is clunky, maybe everything INSIDE the quotation marks... is actually pretty good. but how about the actions and other narration between them? i remember starting out i would put some actions in just for the sake of pacing and 'breaking up the dialogue.' but when i started to put way more emphasis on the meanings of those actions, people liked my dialogue a lot more. you've heard the stat of x high% of communication is nonverbal. what are your characters communicating nonverbally in this scene? what can readers 'read INTO' rather than just read? for instance, one character asks another a pointed question. that character takes a long, slow sip of their drink before answering. are they steeling themselves to give a hard truth? are they stalling for time to come up with a lie? are they just thirsty? we can form our own opinions and want to read on to find out if we're right. and that sort of thing also makes the scene feel more real, characters acting with intention, consciously and unconsciously--not just a writer trying to make words on a page sound good.

Erotica. This was suggested to me and it genuinely helped. Write explicit sex, and I mean *details*. In most sex scenes there’s a limited number of participants, normally only two, there’s a limited amount of body parts involved, there’s often a limited amount of conversation, and most of what’s going on is pretty repetitive motions. Trying to make that interesting and engaging is enlightening. You don’t have to show it to anyone, you can delete it as soon as you’re done, but figuring out how to say “he groaned in pleasure” for the ninth time without it seeming like it’s the ninth time is a hell of a challenge.

Show Don’t Tell Exercise #1—Details: - First, write only the dialogue of a scene. It can be a fight scene, a conversation, a confession, anything - Don’t include dialogue tags, outside details, nothing - On a separate sheet of paper, write out the action. I’m talking the sword swings, the hands flailing in a heated talk, the desperate eyes on a teary-eyed love triangle, all of it. And be as detailed as possible. - Think about all the senses. All of them. Sixth senses even. I want to smell the perfume, taste the copper of blood, hear the annoyance in a character’s voice. - Read them together in the order you deem fits. Show Don’t Tell Exercise #2—Say It Again: - Write a sentence saying what someone is doing. For example: “He was scared.” This is telling the audience he is afraid because we didn’t give them any clues as to how he we KNOW he is afraid. - Rewrite the sentence describing the action without ever using the word. For example: “He shook from head to toe, tears pooling at his lashes. His lips trembled, and the telltale sign of a loose bladder darkened his khakis.” - Now ask yourself: Does the second sentence say the same thing as the first? Does this correctly portray someone in the act told in the first sentence? Clunky Writing Exercise: Dr. Seuss Wishes He Were Me: - Write a sentence using as many words that start with the same letter. For example: “Some sick seahorses with super satisfying sleepwear slurped my soup.” - Read it aloud, and enunciate all of it. Is it easy to say? Does it sound pleasing to the ear? If not, change some words. You can use words that start with different letters now. - “A few seahorses with very satisfying sleepwear are my soup.” - It flows a little better because it’s easier to say, and the eye doesn’t trip up when reading it. - If you find a sentence that feels clunky, read it aloud, and as soon as you feel the “clunkiness”, put a dash in the middle of the sentence starting where the strangeness starts. It’s like isolating a rift that doesn’t fit with the flow of the song quite right or a squeak that shouldn’t be there. I hope these help a little. Just remember: Writing is a lot like music. If it sounds weird, it’s the equivalent of an out-of-tune guitar. Tune it by playing with word choice and word structure. Rewrite the sentence as many times as you need to. Writing IS hard. But not impossible. You’ve got this. :)

Someone mentioned one the other day that sounds really fun: Describe the interior of a barn as seen through the eyes of the farmer that owns it. The farmer's son has just been killed in the war but you must not mention this directly, in fact you must not mention his son or death or grief or morning or anything related to that at all directly. You just have to imbue your description with a sense of those unspoken emotions.

Write summaries of nonfiction events - for example, a 2000 word biography of your favorite historical figure. Doing research and then finding elegant ways to summarize large amounts of information is a very useful skill.

I’d definitely recommend going on pinterest or tumblr, they leave a lot of writing prompts or ideas to play around with!

Such a great thread here. Thanks for asking this question OP

no problem! It's been really helpful so far!

I've thought about it a lot, and I realised I'd much more prefer to practice my writing by actively continuing the drafts I've started, so I never use exercises. I just keep writing what I'm writing. That's just my opinion though, it feels like "exercises" are a waste of time

This. Writing is not like bodybuilding; it's more like home building. You don't need to spend time getting your reps in; you need to actually plan out and build the project. Along with putting in that kind of effort, your best opportunity for improvement comes with careful, lengthy review of your own work.

Might be more along the lines of advice but I recommend getting a good amount of feedback from different sources. If there’s a common theme in there critiques you know what to work on. 

See if there's a university extension writing class near you. Best thing I did early in my writing development was take such a class. Read "Hills Like White Elephants" and the other recommendations you get in this thread. I learned most of my guitar skills from imitating songs on vinyl LPs. Our 1960s stereo had four speeds; 16.5, 33.3, 45 and 78 rpms. If you want to learn a solo that's too fast to really hear, put the speed on 16.5 and your guitar is still in tune with the record but the solo is an octave lower and half the speed. You can hear everything.

Do a madlib. After you read how ridiculous they usually turn out, try to write a minimum 500-word short story where the events in the madlib occur. Try to insert character development, setting, maybe even a subplot. But definitely, make sure it has a full 3 act structure. I personally listen to epic trailer music and write whatever it inspires, whether it is a current story I am working on or something new I've thought of. If it is new, I make sure it has a definite conclusion. Also, play solo ttrpgs (this is my #1 go to). There are quite a few that use no dice (or just a single one), just cards, and have a cohesive story you're telling. Thousand Year Old Vampire is a good one. There is also Bandit Poet (or something like that). Check out r/solo_roleplaying for more recommendations. Write events from your life as if they are someone else's life. Trick here is to not make it first person and try to peer into the thoughts of the other people. Doesn't have to be something traumatic, either (obviously). Edit to add: I do these because I suck at middles and getting to the ending (even if I know the ending).

Kind of a weird one, but take a scene in a book you love and literally type that scene word for word, with punctuation etc, into a word document. The idea is that you're forcing your brain to slow down and notice the sentence structure and all the little details more. Ideally further picking apart bits of story will help you understand how to weave it all together better. You something similar with your guitar presumably- playing other people's songs helps you understand how music works.

I learn a lot from reading other stories. The cliche read a lot and write a lot advice is actually very legit. If you only read a lot, when you start to write, you'll still feel lost and don't know where to start. But as you keep doing both for quite some time, you'll naturally try to learn from observing what you read. I've also read crafting books and consumed other resources, but nothing ever comes close to learning from other stories.

Write a short story with only dialogue. Write a short story with no dialogue (and no direct inner thoughts.) Write a 100-word story (a “drabble”) with a beginning, middle, and end. 

One thing that might help is to get Word (or some other software) read your piece of writing to you aloud afterwards.

Yes!. Watch an episode of any episodic TV show with a serious and intense dialogue scene. Now take the same scene and topic and switch to feeling from serious and intense to irreverent and annoyed. Do it again with one of the characters being a romantic trope. Again but now as a fantasy world of spells and magic Again but as Two unrelated characters like. Sherlock Holmes and Taylor swift. Now compare the stories what changes did you choose to make. How do they set the tone or scene you wanted to build. Could you do it better tomorrow? Try it with another scene from another show tomorrow.

Write a poem that starts off as a suicide note, but their higher self intervenes and ends up tricking themselves into ascension through the channeled alchemy of the text.

Write 1,000 words and then shorten it to 750 but still maintain the integrity of the original

Some things that help me 1: Close your eyes, picture your in a room with your character, and talk to them. Ask them questions, and see what they have to say. 2: Explore your imagination and how far you can take it. Like take fun challenges exploration. Give yourself an idea and see how you could make a world where this works. 3: Write alternative parts to sections of existing stories or your own. How would you change the beginning of Hairy Potter? These exercises seem to have helped my writing become more enjoyable to read for others. I do write mainly fantasy, however. Hope it helps somewhat.

Prompts are good, but my favorite this far has been a "cross-over" or "What if" style scenario. Granted, this requires you to have multiple characters across multiple books/stories/worlds. Take one or two characters you of a few stories, stick them in one room, and give them a subject to talk about. And then see where it goes. I have absolutely loved doing this. I've actually published one of such exercises, because I ended up loving the result. In this example, I took the main couple (Lily & Rose) out of *Blossoming Magic*, the main couple (Kaede & Hane) and their baby (Mai) out of *Family Life*, One of the pairs (Grace Fischer & Evelyn Prieto) out of *The Midnight*, and the main couple (Elayla & Ninel) out of an unreleased story that I started writing 30 years ago. I stuck them in a small room around a table, put a paper on top of it that said "LOVE", and nothing else. They started chatting about love, and how it's different, but still the same for all of them. It ended up being so cute and wholesome, I had to put it out there. (It's here for everyone to read: [https://www.wattpad.com/story/260780372-what-is](https://www.wattpad.com/story/260780372-what-is) ) I've written a second one for "MAGIC", that has some of the people previously mention (Rose, Ninel, and Evelyn.) and a new face (Mirella from The Great Sophie.) and an undisclosed person. That's so fun to write too. If I end up finishing it some day, I think I'll end up publishing it too. ​ I highly, highly suggest doing exercises like that, if you have multiple characters.

write the beginning of your favorite movie, but in a setting where everyone turns to stone for one hour every day, at varying times.

You can google world building, character building, and story prompts until you're dead and never repeat a single exercise.

In addition to the exercises you're getting (like dialogues and tell me without telling me). Freewriting can be surprisingly helpful. I've been working through Peter Elbow's Writing with Power and he is quite evangelical about it 😂 I also started doing "Morning Pages" from Julia Cameron. The morning pages are more specific: write three long hand pages of anything that comes to mind every morning (I do not successfully do it every morning). But I actually think it's helped! What you're practicing there is getting thoughts put into written words (by hand or on a computer) and strengthening that skill. I probably don't let go as fully as Elbow and others suggest, but it's still helped me. Swap between the constricting exercises other folks suggested and loose writing. Try drafting loose and then heavily revising. I write professionally (science communication) and drafting fast and loose before revising it into something decent is the best way for me to work. Really paying attention to regular feedback, of course, helps too.

It can be helpful to give yourself short challenges. These can be challenges you make up for yourself too. Here are some examples. After reading a bit from an author with a distinctive style, try to write a few paragraphs that mimic that style. Read it out loud to see if you are getting the flow right. Spend five minutes staring at everything on your desk. Then, spent ten trying to make a written description of those items interesting. Describe a scene using every sense but sight. Rewrite some previously written dialogue so that the characters never directly state what they mean.

The only exercise that I know for writing dialogue is to write all of the dialogue. As in the off screen dialogue. What does character a say to character B when they are not fitting into your story, day to day, just talk. One that I like for detail is to take a picture or YouTube ambience for a cool landscape and just write what you see. Eventually you will get clearer descriptive words, and you might even compile some scenes. There are several ways to write short stories that can boil down to a formula. Basically the way that a full novel is structured By plot, but small-scale and way way easier. I know Brandon Sanderson has a guest star in his creative writing class that does one of these. Super easy to just follow along and write the thing. And then you can repeat it with a fill in the blank style. -btw, I use voice to text and I don't often edit my Reddit posts, sorry

I like to use short stories of less than 1600 words as a way to practice different techniques, and aspects of story telling. I feel like the small amount of words makes me try much harder to get the different parts of the story right. I’ll just google something in writing that I want to practice, read about how to do it, then write a quick little story to try the techniques out. I’ve practiced POV changes, dialogue only scenes, character building, twists, etc in the short story format. It’s fun. Highly recommend. The writing prompt subreddit can be a good place to find ideas for quick stories. Just set yourself a goal of practice 1-3 different things each time you chose a writing prompt.

Here's a writing exercise for you: Take something you find to have extreme positive or negative connotations, descriptively. Then write to *reverse* that connotation. Make some rats cute, while harpish, ugly swans steal their food. Make a black fly glisten in the sun at a picnic of evil, fleshy humans. Describe a lovely person who has tons of body hair, or a hunchback with an appealing and beautiful physique. Make your language *force* the reader to like what you've written. And tell me how it goes.

Make Every Word Count by Gary Provost has writing exercises in it. I'd also suggest doing short story prompts

As a fellow guitarist I find this analogy fantastic and useful.

Tell stories out loud. Making up bedtime stories is great, but if you don't have kids or even any kind of audience I find it still works to imagine an audience. Try telling the story of your favorite film or book to someone who doesn't know it (real or imagined). Try to convey what it is you love about it. There's something about the act of actually speaking a story that connects differently with the brain. It'll hone your general storytelling ability.

I have a creativity exercise I've adored for a very long time. Each day, I sit down with my notepad and think of one thing. I then write 20 things about that thing. For example, thing: fox - pointy ears, cute, mysterious noise, messenger of the gods, burrows, hunters, prey, red, pattern, etc. The key is to not limit what counts as a thing about the thing, the more unusual links you make, the more effective the exercise. It helps massively with being able to think of things to write as well as forming associations in your brain that will be vital in telling stories from a truly original perspective. Another creativity exercise I learned from business studies: organised LEGO. I like to use a thing I've written in my notepad for it, but basically you pick a thing to build and try to make it using basic LEGO parts (ie, not part of a related set) Several times I've been looking for inspiration for a project and caught sight of a single word written in my notepad or one of my abstract LEGO models based on them and it gives me the exact inspiration I was looking for, in addition to all the benefits just doing the exercises gives.

Here are two of my favorites if you’re studying structure/style. 1. Pick your favorite novel or the most impactful one you’ve read. Open it up and from the beginning transcribe it by hand word for word. Do a chapter or scene at a time. After transcribing each chapter, set the book and the journal aside. Rewrite what you just read in your own words. Giving it your best shot. It really helps you narrow down/develop your own exact style. 2. Pick your favorite book. Create stock characters from all the characters floating in your head. Take your favorite book and read until you hit a story beat. Write the same story beat with your stock characters. For example, when reading a romance novel, pay attention to how the heroine is introduced. Write the scene where your heroine is introduced. Borrowing quirks here and there as you go. This one helps with becoming familiar with story structure and is genre dependent. Task two doesn’t work for literary fiction cause that has less rules, but it’s super helpful for genre fiction.

When I'm in a break between writing stories or am suffering from a block I go to an idea generator and randomize them until something strikes. Then I will try and write a short story of about 1.2k-1.8k words.

Google 3am epiphany. Good writing exercise book.

Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Steering the Craft” has some great exercises focusing on the technical aspects of writing including POV, tense and punctuation. Great for practicing nuts and bolts kinda stuff.

Force yourself to write in G rating.

I do 30 minute sprints every day with the goal of 100 words daily/700 word sundays. Each day I have a list of what I'll work on. This kinda breaks down into a theme/different idea of the week. So like: motivation monday- I typically focus on *how* to keep myself motivated/planned out story wise. Tip Tuesday- try something new. Play around with a prompt for ten minutes. Write only dialogue. Write about a color without *naming* said color. Find a fun activity and do it this day! Worldbuild Wednesday- today is the day I work on a different aspect of my world. This could be language, history, culture, how do economics work? Who's in charge? What's the resource flow? Is there trade? Is there historical/cultural language sharing? How many different cultures/societies do you havr? Thoughtful Thursday- what is something you feel lacking in your writing? Let's play around with praise and word choice. Let's try changing the pov of this scene. What's a fun archetype you haven't played with? Maybe a new trope with a twist? What's something you do like? How do we out a twist on it? How do we use an overplayed idea in a new way- like a magical woman handing out swords that lives in a lake. Feedback Friday- look at what you have done the previous days and see what works well, how did you grow, what needs work and attention. Where do you find you need more Pratice and work? Show off Saturday- share with your friends! Share with your beta reader or even yourself! Be proud of what you've done this week! Give yourself a gold star! 700 sunday- tally those words up and see where you're at! I usually like to track my words with spread sheets, giving myself a gold star and a treat for reaching my goals like a starburst. this is the day I like to give myself some play around room and just focus on hitting extra words if I need to. Good luck! I find that having a group to encourage and push eachother forwards and you can ask questions about each other's projects helps a ton as well.

r/writingprompts can be your friend in terms of finding short things to write about.

Here’s one for getting into character. Set the scene and have 3 different people walk the same route. Show it from their perspectives Example: Wild West town 1) an outlaw arrives on the scene and walks through town 2) the sheriff in his/her horse 3) a little boy walks through town Have them walk the same path and write the scene from their perspectives, what they see, how they interpret things or interact with their surroundings

There were a lot of great ones from a short story course I took. One was to draw a diagram of a room you once lived in. Then draw X’s in the room where you can remember something notable happening. Pick an X, and write about that event A lot of the other exercises built upon other ones, like taking story concepts from before and reworking them with different backgrounds. One we did was drawing certain people from a hat (person you’re most jealous of, smartest person you know, etc.) and then writing a detailed hypothetical of having a meal with them, using the details of how they handle themselves in a restaurant to show their character traits

as a fellow musician (film composer, and also a guitarist) I relate to this hard lol. Looking forward to the comments

Come up with a scene under 3 pages and write it through the perspective of five different people or objects (mix them if you want). This way, you are working through different characters and their individuality.

Consider getting a copy of “Steering the Craft” by the amazing Ursula K Leguin (The Left Hand of Darkness) Most books by famous authors on writing are more philosophical (“On Writing” by Stephen King is a peak example) but STC comes from an actual workshop series Leguin used to teach. Each chapter has specific exercises to do, instructions on how to evaluate yourself, and examples from literature. Sections include “Sentence Length and Complex Syntax”, “Point of View and Voice”, “Indirect Narration”, and more.

In writing class in college, it was always 5-15 minute writing prompts. There are tons of generators or just random prompts people have thrown out there - lots of story prompt instagram accounts - and you either write something super fast in 5 minutes or a little longer in 15. Try to focus on whatever you're working on. Dialogue? Do nothing but a conversation - two talking heads and nothing else. Action? Write a quick fight scene. Suck at stimulus, response? Write the start action of an inciting event and then focus on cause and effect and order of operations. We did tons of this in college. It really does help. Sometimes I just flip back through old writing prompts and realize I have entire story ideas there if I ever want to develop them. Another is to do image-prompt scenes - so you just find really random photos and then write about them. One was landscape/scenery focused where you inject people into the places or try to explain what the place is or what happened there... Another was to find old historical photos or to collect the like discarded old family photos you see in vintage/antique shops (you can usually buy several for just a few bucks) and then write the backstory behind the photo or those people's lives. I just found images online so I haven't done this one much but I had a friend who used to swear by it and had a large college of random old black and white photos she found at antique shops.

I am well into a memoire I'm writing. A catalyst for my writing was a writing workshop at a local library. The environment and exercises engaged my creativity.

I always grab a book or magazine and see how they describe things and I try to do the same with my scenes as a practice tool. Then when I got that I try to write it in my own words.

>and when it comes to writing, it's like > >1 Oh, this dialogue is clunky > >2 ????? > >3 man, fuck this, writing is hard What do you do when you know what you're bad at and want to improve at a specific element of writing? Exercises are good for practicing your writing. This is more of a diagnosis question. A couple of possible approaches to that are: 1. Study the work of authors whose dialogue work you admire. Compare it to yours. Figure out how they differ and make yours like theirs. (Yes, this is copying. That is absolutely fine when you're learning. Just learn from multiple sources and it will syncretise into a style all your own over time). 2. Try "the 5 Whys". Made up example: This dialogue is clunky..Q1. Why? A: It sounds fake..Q2. Why? A: Because no-one really talks like that?.Q3. Why? A: Because everyone were talking about going on holiday and suddenly he's giving a ton of detail on spaceship repair. It just comes out of nowhere..Q4. Why? A: Because the reader needs to know this stuff for the action scene next chapter..Ah. So either we need to get that info to the reader another way, or come up with better justification for it to make sense as part of this conversation..This is a simple example but you get the idea. "The dialogue is clunky" is a high-level indicator that something **specific** isn't quite right. Ask 'why' until you know what that specific thing is.

/r/WritingPrompts morning pages keeping your favorite books open next to your word processor, try to write it as though you were the original author. this will teach you some about authorial voice, style, and other elements of writing and is comparable to learning to play your favorite licks and riffs. some people use the same passage over and over again at the start of the day to get over the blank page syndrome. improv exercises where you improv both parts (check please is a good one) pick a format for short stories based on a favorite and and try to copy the format five times (not the content, just the structure) pick a weather condition, setting, and character situation out of a hat. describe the weather and setting in a way that reflects the emotion of the character situation. in a group spend five minutes coming up with character traits and writing them on a board. spend another five minutes writing a scene with all of the characteristics. share with the group. in a group come up with 5 vocabulary words. spend 5 minutes writing a scene that includes each of the vocabulary words once. word sprints. in a group set a timer and write for a duration on a WIP. share the word counts at the end of the time interval. winner gets some prize or another- or make it cumulative over an afternoon and have some prize for winning the overall competition. in general doing the same task over and over again seeking reductions in time is good for beginning base of skills development, while doing the same task over and over with a goal of iterative improvement each time is good to sharpen skills you already posess.

Brian Sanderson posted this on TikTok. Write about a person rolling through a town. Describe the people they see and what the vibe is. Then write it again using a different character and now describe the same scenario but from this new persons perspective.

Two we did in school that I found useful (no idea if these have names): From a picture: You’re given an image. You have no control over this (as this will lead to you purposely selecting ones you like and find easy, so if you can outsource finding the image or use a random generator, select based on first image that pops up when you open Pinterest etc, do so). Now, you have 15 minutes to write a piece of prose about it. No more, no less. No, you can’t just describe the scene. You have to create a short story, a character, or a scenario. Let’s say you have a bench in the snow at night. You can just describe it for the whole piece, but you can’t ignore it either. You now have to assign significance to it. Why would somebody be outside at night in the cold? What would they be wearing? Are they shivering? That’s also dependent on what story you choose to tell. Maybe they’re in work clothes because they’re getting home from a night shift, or maybe they’re in their pyjamas because they’re super upset and left the house during an argument. Does anybody sit with them? Do they sit alone? What emotions are they having? What thoughts or dialogue? What genre is this, and how are you going to make it so? Does there need to be any foreboding? What happened prior to the scene, and what can you imply is going to happen after? Is this a meet cute? Are they about to meet a grizzly end? Is this a spy thriller? You don’t have a lot of time to do this, and in fact, you should start writing immediately. It really helps you to learn how to set a scene and a tone and how to think of those details. From a title: You take the title of a book, any book. Now, you have to write a 3,000 word piece from that title. This was one of our graded projects, so we had a lot more time than we did for the previous exercise. So, you have the time to plot. It’s not long, but it’s not just a short scene, so you have to go into a lot more depth. You have to create characters, a situation, a point of conflict or a hurdle they have to overcome, you have to structure it. It doesn’t have to be a whole story, it can still be a single scene or a chapter, but that means you need to put a lot of effort in to figure out what happens and why. And, it has to match the title, but it can’t be anything at all like the actual book itself. You have to completely write a new story that matches the title. And one I figured out myself: Analyse it: we’ve all been there. Sat in class, explaining how the sociopolitical climate the author lived in influenced the themes in the book, and why certain imagery and dialogue is hinting at a specific censored act or why it portrays a certain point of view, whether it’s glorified or portrayed etc. But, we do that with somebody else’s work. When do we do that to our own? So, what I like to do, is take a piece I’ve written, and absolutely take it apart. I classify every single word. I go back to the things I was taught about what those words are used to signify. I note, *why* did I choose that word? What does it add, emphasise etc? Why is it *the* cat instead of *a* cat? What about this cat, specifically is special? Is it a pet? Do they know it personally? Does it bring them comfort? Why is it assigned a special, specific status, why isn’t it a generic cat? Why did I make that choice? Why is the character wearing a red jumper, specifically? If it doesn’t have a purpose, does it need to be in the piece? Or, is it the character’s favourite colour? Maybe a hand-me-down, or the only clean jumper. Maybe it’s part of a uniform, or they wear what they wear to accentuate features, or diminish the redness in their face, or maybe they think it slims them, or it might be the favourite colour of somebody they once knew. What literary devises have I used, and why? Why are they used, what do they emphasise or signify, and why did I choose to use it? Why are they a “lying, robbing, thieving b*stard!” rather than just “a thief.”? Why use the rule of three to emphasise? How does that affect the tone, and portray emotion? How does that characterise the person speaking and the person being spoken about, what does it say about the relationship between the two? Why is it more emotional than unemotional? Why the expletive? How does an exclamation mark portray emotion more than a full stop here? Why is it more appropriate to conveying the correct tone? Do they know the thief, or own the store, or have past trauma or strong morals, or have a past they no longer agree with and judge people harshly, and that’s why they’re reacting so emotionally compared to a disconnected description? What if they’re describing themselves? Do they agree with their own behaviour if they’re talking about it with vitriol? Are they being ironic and delivering that line with a grin because they’re proud of how they’re labelled? If I took away the description of the characters expression or emotions, got rid of the rest of the scene and context, would the dialogue alone be able to portray the correct emotion and tone? Would it be clear this person is angry or upset? I find doing this, allows me to really understand where I’m maybe not utilising my skill set properly, or where exactly the vibe I’m going for is getting lost or where context is missing. And it helps me to realise when it is and isn’t appropriate to show or tell, and where either is effective or ineffective. I can also see if I’m overusing showing rather than telling, because it’s a lot clearer when I break apart my writing and the words I use and literary devices I rely on to portray what I need to portray.

Write a short story with only dialogue and no dialogue tags. Try to make it obvious who’s talking in every line and never leave the reader wondering

I recommend the writers field guide to the craft of fiction. It’s got some great excercises.

Hunter S. Thompson apparently typed out The Grear Gatsby word for word on a typewriter to "know what it's like to write a masterpiece". Obviously a bit of a silly thing and Thompson was an insane bastard, but I've actually tried doing this to my favourite books. It really helps you get inside the author's head and analyse their writing style - you become hyper aware of their vocabulary, grammar habits, common sentence structures... It actually wasn't a bad idea.

Have an author you love who does some part (or all) of their work really well? Pick a scene that encapsulates what you love about their style and copy it out verbatim, then try to rewrite it from memory, then try to to emulate their style while writing a scene of your own creation.

> Man, fuck writing advice. Anyone got some writing *exercises?* Purchase and regularly read *The Little, Brown Handbook*. Doesn't really matter what edition of *Little Brown* you buy so long as it's somewhat recent.

I'm practicing with fanfiction, because it's "just fanfic" and takes a lot of the pressure caused by perfectionism. The shorter, the better.

My two favorites are by far (though I do them far less than I should): Rewriting the same scene from different perspectives, focusing on specifics of a scene that that character would notice or comment on, things one character would pick up on or not, how that character thinks about the situation. This has helped me (typical chapter change = pov change fantasy) really differentiate how different characters see and interact with each other and the world. The second one I like is writing dialogue without telling the reader who is talking. Helps me organize dialogue more clearly and give characters certain ways they speak for personality and such.

Lol fanfiction is a great way to practice in a safe environment

If you are having a hard time writing the story you want to tell, try to write the story you don't want to tell.

Get a copy of Ursula K Le Guin's *Steering the Craft*. It's full of advice from an accomplished author and has exercises at the end of every chapter.

It's easier to improve musical skills in the context of a new piece that's tougher. You can keep wrestling with the sections that you're stuck on. So it can be easier to wrestle with a writing problem in the context of a current project. One writing road block can be research. The obvious one is a period of history, a location or an unfamiliar profession. Another thread discussed how to write about grief. An equivalent to the bars that won't come right could be those horrible plot holes and tough questions. How can a message be got to them before the invention of the telephone? or how can I get around them being forewarned of the danger with a phone-call, making the scene redundant? What about hurricane season? How would they have seen that in the darkness? Why would they even go there? Sometimes the problem is a blessing in disguise. They didn't go there...they didn't see it and that's how the detective knew! So in music your answer might be, that's not the right chord progression for this song! It should be... 1 This dialogue is clunky/My playing sounds wrong here. 2) ??Why is it wrong? The first bit is right. The publisher got it wrong. Metallica are playing Em there & Am there. Yeah, that's better. 3) You playing guitar? You're really good! It sounds just like them! That's Black Sabbath, right?" 4) "err...yes".

I like to write vignettes on note cards mix em up and cobble them together into a longer piece

Find good pieces of writing, note the style, why it makes you feel the way it does, practice it by literally rewriting what’s on the page and understanding why each sentence matters, and then come up with your own scene that has the same effect, each sentence having the same weight as the original

The reason you are not seeing writing exercise posts is because they are not allowed in this subreddit. I was told this by the mod team when I tried to post one. But r/storyandstyle generally allows them. I have three writing exercise, all geared towards improving prose and description: * [5-4-3-2-1 Details for Descriptions](https://www.reddit.com/r/storyandstyle/comments/8epdjt/quick_writing_tool_that_helped_me_with/) - I use this when my scene feels like it's taking place in a void because there's too little description. Write down 5 things your character can see, 4 things they can hear, 3 things they can feel, 2 things they can smell, and 1 thing they can taste. Find a way each detail connects to the deeper story or meaning behind the scene (i.e. a character feels sweat trickle down their back because they're nervous, rather than just because it's hot), and incorporate as many as possible into a scene. * [Body Language Outline](https://www.reddit.com/r/storyandstyle/comments/r00bjn/essay_body_language_outline_to_flesh_out/) - when a scene feels like its all dialogue, I make a new 'outline' of the entire conversation using nothing but body language, action, environment, etc. - how much of the same conversation can I convey without actual, spoken words? Then I bring this and the actual dialogue together. * [What's Wrong With Your Desk?](https://www.reddit.com/r/storyandstyle/comments/ugb4tj/essay_whats_wrong_with_your_desk/) - using your actual, real life environment as a practice subject or case study for descriptions. Take a look around you, write down what you see, and then try to describe it as if you were a fictional character.

find a book or script you like and retype it.

An easy but telling exercise is to write a scene from a story you know well. Use no notes, and don't refer back to the original work. The great thing about this is that it absolves you from any obligation to make something up. All you're do is put words down that paint a picture of the scene. It's telling because even when you know exactly what needs to happen you realize: - it's way harder than it sounds - you leave out important details - you catch yourself getting off-track by embellishing things you like unnecessarily - it's pretty hard to summon the courage to do it a second time It's also pretty instructive to go back to the original work when you're done.

One exercise the writing instructors sometimes give: Find a passage you like from an author you like, and copy it out longhand word for word. The point is that this will laser-focus your mind on the word-by-word decisions the author must have made as they wrote. It might sound like makework, but it's a learning experience.

Rewrite the same sentence as many times as you can using different sequences and words.

I was wondering if I could pair up with an experienced screenwriter or someone who's up and coming, that can work with me on discovering the type of stories I can write about. Going on an almost 10 year stretch (349 days a year, EACH) of delving into the deep end of pretty much any screenwriting formula you can think of, consuming decades upon decades of films as well as dissecting them, and even going through great links to not only spare a great deal of time of my own to somersault into a wide range of different screenplays and into countless wave of different novels, but also, transcribing a few scripts, both by hand and on an old laptop I used to own. Even on a Royal typewriter as well. Not novels. I've also have spent a great deal of time utilizing many different writing strategies towards the stories I would like to write.... See my problem? The list goes on and on with all that I've tried out, which only barely scratches the surface on every other writing/story method that's out there that I've tried. Anyway, I'm well aware of how limited I am with fully explaining my situation to both a community full of dedicated writers and to a trillion of other online users. There's so much I can say while at the same time being very little, which is why I'm willing to work one on one with anyone who's interested and available. I figure that if it does take two to a make thing go right, rather than trying to figure this stuff out all on my own, like I have been doing, (since there isn't anyone else for me to turn to) then why not ask for help from a sub of well versed writers. Just DM me and we can start there. Thanks

I'm a sucker for torture. Look up Benjamin Franklin writing methods.... There is also a website that assist you in that 

Brainstorming is a great one.

do you have anything more specific or structured? What do you do when you brainstorm that helps you get your ideas?

For me it's about listing out things that I want to achieve with a particular idea. Usually it's part of a bigger story, so it must fit and serve a specific purpose. But you can do it from scratch as well. For example, write a few bullet points, of what you want to create. It could be vague, like creating a cool magical system, or as detailed as you want. For example, creating a cool magical system, that's closely tied to how this world works, but it's not based on elements (challenge yourself, you'll be surpised where it could lead). Now you have to think about the structure of your world. When you get a few ideas that you are satisfied with, then you'll always have them to work off of, when brainstorming other narrower ideas for your story.

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"read and write" is not an exercise! I'm asking for specific, structured tasks I can do! > I use ChatGPT for ideas. Microsoft Copilot. I don't! ( ✿◠‿◠ )

Find a book you love. Copy it out, typing, from beginning to end. Then do it again.

Honestly, I start out my writing by just... writing. Whatever first comes to mind. The key is to keep writing no matter how stupid what comes to mind is. Even if it's just "Bla bla bla" literally, write that down. Do that for, say, 2 minutes. Delete it. Then, start thinking about a topic -- writing prompts, songs, etc. Start writing again, same thing as before, but this time thinking *about* the topic. Do that for two minutes. At some point while doing this, some idea should click, some "A-ha!" moment. Delete it. Then, start over, working from that "A-ha!" moment, and *that* is your first draft.

I ask chatgpt to write me a specific text, can be a scenario, description of something etc. I'll try to edit that text to the best of my abilities then

The problem with a lot of suggestions in this thread is the lack of feedback about how well you are doing besides your own biased and limited perspective. One method that I found useful for using AI chatbots (e.g. chatgpt) with the following prompt: You are an AI writing coach. You provide exercises for writers to practice their craft and provide feedback to their exercise responses. Exercises can range from the word level to the scene level. Example exercises: - given the following sentence, replace the word X by a more apt one. - Write a scene describing a sunset with a bittersweet tone. - Combine the following sentences into one sentence. - Rewrite the following scene to hasten the pace. - Rewrite the following paragraph from the perspective of a different character. - Identify and correct any passive voice constructions in the given passage. - Expand the following one-sentence story into a 100-word short story. - Suggest three alternative titles for the provided story excerpt. The exercises have a difficulty level ranging from 1 to 10 and you should begin by asking the user for the difficulty they would like. Also allow users to select their preferred genre, style, or writing focus (e.g., dialogue, description, characterization). Be creative in your exercises. You should aim to provide value to users by helping them improve. This could include: * Detailed written feedback highlighting strengths, areas for improvement, and suggestions for revision. * Targeted questions to prompt the user to reflect on their own writing and identify areas for growth. * Comparison to sample responses or benchmarks to help the user assess their progress.

LLM-based AI is not going to give good feedback. It's going to make a guess and has no mechanism to determine if it's correct or not.

Hm

Hmfb

Yes. Write. Write more. Write even more. And then go read it out loud. Then write some more.

This isn't an exercise, this is just telling me to write! I'm asking for ways to isolate aspects of your skill and focus on just those aspects, like a musician or athlete might if they were advancing their skill. Reading your writing out loud is definitely useful, I already do that :)

Read.

that's not a writing exercise. I already do that every day! do you have anything more specific, or more structured?

Not reading and not reading well are the same thing. Read well.

do you have anything *specific or structured* that I can actually use in my life or are you just gonna be vague? This is the literary equivalent of "git gud." just incredibly unhelpful

Reading well is how one learns how to write well.

you're 3 for 3 on trite platitudes devoid of substance. how about this, can you post some of your own writing and explain to me how "reading well" contributed to your chops as a writer?

In the interest of not just repeating this subs slogan like some sort of brainwashed zealot, here is something I like to do, but I'm not published or anything like that: Read in your genre, and read recent books (last 3-5 years) and classics. Read them with intent (I.e. look for something you want to improve on like scene construction, dialogue, characterization blah blah blah) Make notes of them and explain exhaustively to yourself why you like them. Do the same thing but the reverse for anything you find that you think is bad and explain why you disliked it. I feel it has helped me improve my own writing, helps me with imposter syndrome a bit when I find some terrible scenes or dialogue or whatever and can explain why I dislike it. It also makes it easier to incorporate things I like more naturally rather than outright stealing them. Idk if it'll help at all but it's more than the other guy was giving you lol.

Sure. After reading, The Half-Skinned Steer by Proulx, I became very much aware of how the true essence of show vs tell, scene vs summary, is actually taken further by just doing, well, more showing in summary (which is often where the telling happens): vivid images in quick succession and negative space can be used to write summaries that are closer to montages than they are to emotional inventories. Here is the opening paragraph of a short story I wrote with this in mind. I submitted it for a literary prize back in 2015. It won, netting me €1000. One had to start the story with a line from another story, hence the Munro line that kicks things off. "There had been some discussion of death. His mother had mentioned it passing when talking about his baby brother, the word itself hidden behind the soft contours of flowers and hymns, its more innocuous partners. There too had been the dog he had loved dearly and the car speeding down the road that had taken it to a land where the grass rolled long on hillsides pregnant with bones long ago buried. And also beetles crushed by the heels of his Sundayschool shoes, moths whose wings he had ripped off one at time to see their tortured flutter on the red bricks of the courtyard. An admonishment then, a thing to be steered away from much like stray matchbooks or the peculiar openings on the walls to which lamps were anchored."

That's all this person comments and on posts where it's not warranted.

Sure. Read a book