Creative Writing Exercises to Spark the Inner Writer in You

Writing is fun when you’re in the flow and know what precisely what you want to write about. When you are planning to write a book, you’ve a topic in mind to write. While some people already know what to write about, some people have starting trouble. One can improve writing by indulging in creative writing exercises. These 19 creative exercises will not only help you start, but will also get the creative juices flowing.

Few examples of creative writing are:

• Short Stories
• Plays
• Poetry
• Memoirs
• Novels

Here are the creative writing exercises to help with the process of writing.

1. Story with Every Alphabet

Start writing a story by starting every sentence with a different letter. Go by alphabetical order. This creative writing exercise will help improve your vocabulary.

Example: Aries drum school was started by bob. Bob, the headmaster, loved teaching kids. Candy was 7 years old and was the youngest student he had. Daphane, Candy’s older sister, was the oldest student.

2. No Name Description

Think of a character and write down three qualities that describe them best. Without revealing the character, describe their living room or bedroom to match the qualities you’ve written. It will also help you with developing the characters.

Tip: You can start by writing down three qualities and describing then and then slowly increase the number.

3. Use Images

Find a few pictures online and link them together by writing a story. You can start off small by collecting around three photos. More you write, the more images you can keep adding to continue the story.

This helps develop an imagination level.

Tip: You can start by picking the most random images and create the craziest story. Try to not pick up similar photos.

4. Describe Sense

 As you know, the five senses are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Imagine your character has only one sense and write about it. Do the same for the other senses too. For example, write a story on how your character can only hear.

Tip: Have a target. It can be the number of pages or number of words.

5. Rewrite common phrases

This exercise involves reading. Start by reading books and pick out common phrases. For example, take the phrase “go down the rabbit hole.” Rewrite the same sentence in a unique way using visuals you don’t spot in writing.

6. Emotional States

Pick four emotions states – sadness, anger, happiness, and excitement, and write a page on every emotional state your character is feeling.

Tip: You can dig deeper and write about your character being drunk, hyperactive, flirty, eager.

7. Edit Your Old Writing

Editing your old writing definitely helps. Your writing can be from a week ago, or even years. You can edit the way it’s written, the verbs used, and maybe also change the point of view.

This is a great exercise as you can compare your old work and see how much you’ve improved.

8. Letter Writing

Pick a time and age you want the letter to be addressed to and write a letter to that version of yourself. You can write a letter to your 10-year-old self, or your 40-year old self.

Tip: You can also write letters to characters from your favorite film, book, etc.

9. Write Backstories

Though this is a common exercise, it’s beneficial. Take an imaginary character from books you have read as a child and write about how they ended being who they are. Even if they have backstories, it’s okay. Write one of your own.

For example, if your favourite story was Alice in Wonderland as a kid, get creative and write a back story for her.

10. Change P.O.V.

Take a chapter from any book and change its point of view. This exercise helps you practice writing in various P.OVs. You can find out what P.O.V suits your writing.

11. Write about You

Food – Write in detail about your favourite food, or the best meal you’ve had till date.

Animals – Write about your favourite animal. What you love about it, and what would happen if you could be it for a day.

Dream – Describe your dream. Expand on it. Create a story out of it.

Fear – The thing you are most scared of.

12. Use a Dictionary

Pick a random word from the dictionary; use it in a sentence. Make that sentence a story.

13. Write about What You’re good at

If you’re good with money or know-how to cook well, write about it. Write a few paragraphs or pages explaining to others how to execute it.

Imagine your reader has zero knowledge about the subject and write about it.

14. Describe your day

You can end your night by doing this exercise. All you have to do is describe your day in detail. You can start off by saying when you woke up, what you ate, leaving to work, what happened there until you went to bed. The primary purpose is to add creativeness to even the dullest moments.

Tip: Write in third person P.O.V (he/she).

15. Describe Your Surroundings

Another common exercise is to write about your surroundings. Challenge yourself and be very descriptive.

Instead of saying “her face was shining due to the sunlight,” you can say “the sunlight that was streaming through my window bounced off her face, making her eyes lighter than they appear. She looked beautiful, like an angel.”

16. Rewrite the Past

Take a trip down memory lane by looking at your old photographs and writing about them. Here are few writing prompts:

• Who are the people in the photo, and where did they come from?
• What is their relationship with each other?
• Where and when was the photograph taken?
• Why do they have the expressions they do? What are they thinking?
• What were the events that led up to the photo being taken?
• How did events transpire after the photo was taken?

17. Write in 100 Words

This writing exercise helps you with your chapter length. You can start off by writing about anything in just 100 words. Once you accomplish 100 words, move onto 300 words, and keep going until you can perfect writing within a given limit.

18. Reviews

This is an exercise that can be done almost anywhere. You can explore more by writing reviews for movies, restaurants, stand up shows, etc.

Tip: Try to write a review for almost anything and everything. You can write a review for the shampoo you use, or the pasta brand you are cooking with.

19. Your firsts

Everyone’s firsts hold a special place in their heart – their first kiss, their first love, etc. Writing about this will not only make excellent stories but will bring back some old memories but will be worth writing about.