Writing Exercises

You character receives a phone call. The first thing the person on the other end of the line says is the classic sentence: “Are you sitting down?”

Grab a map or an atlas. Close your eyes and flip through the pages of the atlas, move your finger over the map and let it land somewhere. Where are you?

Pick a book from your shelf. Go to page eight and then to line eight. Copy the sentence that starts on that line to the top of your page and use that as the first line of your story.

For movies show, don’t tell is common Knowledge, but the same goes for writing. You can just tell your reader that Alexander is feeling lonely and scared, but that won’t create the feeling of lonely and scared in the reader and won’t help us engage in the story

The first thing you must do is let go of the idea that you have to write beautifully. Somehow you have to connect to that crazy brain filled with stories, images, characters, and atmospheres. You will have to learn to tune in to your creativity and let it flow.