Devil's swing

Devil's swing

What's a warm up?

'Writers write because ..."

Slumming angel

Slumming angel

What's a warm up?

Combining senses

Try combining smell, taste and touch words with sound or speech words. See what kind of attention perking images you can come up with .... a gingery drawl, a raw sigh, crisp chatter ...

SMELL	TASTE	TOUCH	SOUND	SPEECH
sweet balmy earthy rotten fishy scented spicy piney reeking fragrant sharp tempting spoiled moldy perfumed fresh pungent sickly	oily bittersweet crisp fruity overripe buttery hearty ripe tangy burnt salty mellow bland raw gingery bitter sugary sour hot peppery	cool spongy mushy thick hot thin fuzzy crisp slippery satiny icy soft rubbery elastic feathery tough silky sandy oily waxy furry tender woolly wet gritty rough smooth warm dry prickly furry damp steamy velvety sharp fleshy dull hairy leathery sticky	sigh growl bump smash bark clink murmur crash thump rasp roar mute whisper thud boom clash blare still whir pitter-patter thunder jamble racket hush rustle thwap bang bawl bleat hubbub	stutter screech whisper stammer snort whimper giggle bellow talk laugh chatter speak sing murmur drawl

---

From Rip the Page!: Adventures in Creative Writing by Karen Benke. A hundred ideas honed in workshops at schools for playing with words, with examples from kids. The exercises are nterspersed with pep talks from writers, many of them children's writers. You can tell she's a poet since her word lists are luscious :-D

Shout at the devil

Shout at the devil

What's a warm up?

"An author in his book ..."

Riot in the dungeons

Riot in the dungeons

What's a warm up?

Mix and Match

Get in the habit of finding, gathering and generating story ideas. Write them down in a notebook. (Or a couple of notebooks kept in places where you often get ideas. Or your smart phone.) Save them for when you need them.

Go to Mix-and-Match Game. Click on Generate Character. Make that character the best at this, the ultimate expression: the most charming, the most faithful, most mysterious, the most whatever. Set a timer for 5 minutes and crank out a story idea. (Dr. Wicked's Write or Die, in the blog's sidebar, can come in handy for this.)

Do this 2 more times.

This is one of the exercises from My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! by Jeffrey Alan Schechter. He walks you through ten steps to ramp up your ideas into compelling story telling.

Every story has a central question that, when answered definitively yes or no, signals the story is over. Each question has 3 parts, a physical part that many people care about (kill Dracula), an emotional part that characters closest to the hero care about (win the love of the most recently turned vampire wife) and a spiritual part that the hero cares about (regain his self-respect).

What three goals could your most confused wedding planner or most frantic princess want more than anything? Goals that, if not achieved, would doom him or the world to actual or virtual death?

Deviantly roving ROCKS

The mystery of Sailing Stones (and for the mystery revealed, click the picture)

For this deviant description, you can mention the rock, since moving rocks are pretty deviant themselves.

For the rest, deviantly describe the scene without using the names of the objects. Dig into what objects look and feel like rather than telling what they are.

Capture the senses' experience. What does it feel like to your whole body? Does it get inside your clothes? Does it get inside you? What does it smell like? Taste like? Sound like?

Go further and find a mood or personality of the place and let those inspire the descriptive words you choose.

Try unexpected adjectives and vivid verbs. For example, svelt, sleek, oozing, crouching aren't words normally associated with places, but can create fresh images.

"The unread story .."

The three gods of purification

The three gods of purification

What's a warm up?

In stereo

Eric Myer stereotype shuffler

Create a list of 12 stereotypical characters each doing something stereotypical.

Cut them up, shuffle them to create new combinations of people doing unexpected things. Pick 3 of your favorites and explore their interactions.

Try mixing fantasy with mundane stereotypes. If your brain is stuck on ethnic or racial stereotypes, I've posted a list of professions and preferences that often get stereotyped in the comments. There's also a massive List of Stereotypes by country (probably once at the Uncyclopedia). (If the list disappears, it's preserved at List of Stereotypes (copy).)

(Needed a quickie since my daughter and sister are visiting. But I rather like it! Sometimes simple is best. :-)

Stoned in the temple

Stoned in the temple

What's a warm up?

"The role of a writer ..."

Flight of the rat

Flight of the rat

What's a warm up?

Two guys and a shop

These guys have opened up a shop in your small town. It quickly becomes popular with the locals

So, what's the shop? Is it popular with a broad cross section? Or to a segment of the population? Which segment? Who are they and how do they manage to be accepted despite being comfortably outside the norm?

Roland the headless Thompson gunner

Roland the headless Thompson gunner

What's a warm up?

"A writer needs ..."