Meredith Sue Willis writing exercises

Meredith Sue Willis
Author and Teacher

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(Updated 5-29-08)

Current Exercise

My Featured Book

More Places for Writing exercises

Writing exercises for kids, click here.

For teens, begin here.

Writing hints

Dear Visitor,
    I am a veteran teacher of writing from little kids to university level, and I offer these writing exercises free in the spirit of the Internet as a place for a new kind of community among people. I call these "exercises" rather than "prompts" or "lessons" because I think of them as ways to strengthen the writing muscles that you already have and to expand your range of techniques. The execises are free, but if you want to give something back, please consider reading some of my online fiction or my books. I also teach private classes online as well as public classes at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies.
     Finally, I have a free newsletter you can get by sending an e-mail to:  Readerbooks-subscribe@topica.com . Or, read it at Books for Readers. I appreciate feedback-- which exercises were useful to you? Do have suggestions for me to share with others on this site?

                                   -- Meredith Sue Willis

Current Exercise

Set a kitchen timer for ten minutes. Think of some public figure living or dead about whom you feel strongly, and start writing about him or her. This could be a film star or a politician or anyone else. I had a student in a college composition class once, an American, who adored the British Royal family and wrote every assignment about some member of the British royal family– whether it was a descriptive essay or comparison and contrast!

Start writing about your person, keeping your pen or fingers on the move, repeating a word if you get stuck. If your thinking takes you off on a tangent, go with it. Don’t worry about cleverness, repetitiveness anything. The focus here is on the process of going inside yourself and seeing what comes out.

If you are working on a novel, you might have one of your characters think about this famous person–or have two characters talk about him or her–perhaps while they have something else really on their minds. That is, they talk about Britney Spears while they are avoiding talking about their own relationship...

Writing Hints

Grace Paley once said in an interview, "I'm an ear believer--I think the ear is smarter than the eye. The experience of reading your work aloud in a class carries you back to that original impulse, 'I want to tell you something.' 'What did you want to tell me? Tell me.' When you tell a story, it's your voice telling a story. You really can hear what's wrong with it. People think you can just sort of smear over it, but that's not true. What I'm trying to do is to remind students they have two ears. One is the ear that listens to their own ordinary life, their family and the street they live on, and the other is the tradition of English literature."
Words to avoid. There are certain words and phrases, all perfectly good English, that I avoid in my writing. I find that I have in the past overused them, probably because I actually like them. One word I have sworn off is “shard.” "Shard" sounds like what it is, a broken piece of something, but I’ve come to over-use it. It seemed like every time a glass broke or sun was refracted through a window in my prose, I would call it “shards of glass” or, metaphorically, “shards of light.” I also avoid “smirk” except in really particular circumstances, preferring the more neutral “grin” or “sneer.”“Smirk” has an almost comic book quality for me, so I have to really careful of it. I also avoid certain phrases I used to love as a beginning writer: "visibly shaken" was one I used to look for excuses to use, as in "When she heard him say her name, she was visibly shaken." When I was a child, I adored "gathered up her skirts!" That's got to be what Cinderella did when she fled the Ball, and I was always looking for excuses to have someone gather up her skirts and run away. Do you have such words and phrases on your personal Avoid list?

Try not to do just one thing if you can do more than one. Don't give the information that he ate a steak, rather, show both that he ate a steak and that he was angry when he was eating it: "He stabbed his fork into the slab of sirloin and and slashed off a piece with his knife."
Separate your critical brain from your drafting brain. Try writing at least three paragraphs (or even better, three pages) before you go back and fiddle with the words. If possible, don't read over what you wrote today until tomorrow or at least after lunch. It will be much easier to make changes.
After you've written your draft, go through it looking to see if all the essential conflicts have been dramatized. This is an especially good technique if you feel that your dialogue is flat or boring. Put the dramatized conflicts into the dialogue.
Put thinking, contemplation, and dramatized flashback scenes at a point in your story where it would be natural in real life too: riding a train, lying awake at night when the character can’t sleep, etc.
Click here for more hints from writers, editors, and agents.

More Free Writing Exercises below and here :

Exercises 1- 20

Exercises 21- 40

Exercses 41 - 60

Exercises 61-80

Exercises 81-100

Exercises 101 - 120

Here's something new that looks like fun: Snapfiction.com offers a writing exercise "challenge" every week--give it a try!
Looking for Poetry Writing Exercises? Writenet at Teachers & Writers has some good ones originally planned for young people, but they would make great starters for anyone
For writing exercises for children, click here. Teens can use the ones on this page, or look at my page for teens.
Here's a link to a really interesting haiku exercise from Timothy Russell.
And then there is making fun of writing prompts:McSweeney's has a fairly funny take-off called "Thirteen Writing Prompts" by Dan Wienceck
Rita Marie Keller has a blog called Buried Treasures that is full of writing prompts and links to more writing prompts. " Essays and writing exercises to help you uncover the great writing ideas you already have."

Exercise # 121

Sometimes it's fun to experiment with writing exercises usually reserved for elementary age children. Try this: Write an introduction to yourself that includes the following things that move roughly from outside, to inside, to deeper inside-- to explosion!

Write about what people see when they look at you from the outside
Write what people commonly know about you-- your job, some of your accomplishments or interests, who you live with, where you live, etc.
Write something that very few people know about you: wishes, dreams, a secret.
Finally, write a lie: how sometimes when you are home alone, you are transformed into.....

Exercise # 122

For Valentine's Day, write about a person selecting a gift for a loved one-- this could be yourself or a character, and the gift could be appropriate, wildly inappropriate, welcomed or rejected. Candy and flowers are old standard choices...

Exercise # 123

The man is crossing the railroad tracks on a damp summer day. He thinks to himself....

(For information on the photo, click here.)

Exercise # 123

It is a presidential election year. When I was growing up, I was taught never to discuss politics with friends-- a piece of advice I've rarely followed.... Write a dialogue in which two (or more) people discuss a political issue or candidate. Have the people disagree. Does the conversation become heated? Or does one person back-pedal or suppress her or his real beliefs? If you are writing fiction, try this with at least one character who you haven' t thought of as political at all. Is the character registered in a party? Does the character always vote? Ever vote?

Exercise # 124

Take this extremely short and dull bit of dialogue. Rewrite it, adding more. First, write it as a conversation between a teenage boy and an elderly woman. What you add may include longer speeches, more speeches, a setting, descriptions of the people, how they say things, their gestures, and anything else you want to add. Now write it again, as if spoken by two people in love, of any age. Then try it again as... ???

Here is the bare-bones dialogue:

Hi.

Hi.

Where were you?

Nowhere.

Exercise # 125

Imagine the face of a stranger. This could be a person you see on the bus or someone in a restaurant or anywhere else. Start with a real face, but change anything you want. Visualize the face first, then where the person is, and the specific situation. Imagine that the person begins to speak to you, telling you how they came to be here. Now in your imagination, move closer to the person so you hear them speaking into your ear and telling you more personal things: what they are worried about, who they love. Finally, slip into the person's mind so that you are hearing thoughts and dreams and fears. Write as much of this as you can, not worrying about order or chronology. Just try to capture the voice.

Exercise # 126

You (if you are writing memoir) or a character (f you're writing fiction) leave home for an important event: a job interview, a funeral. Something entirely unexpected and perhaps even random happens: on the way to a funeral you stopped by a roving t.v. reporter and asked your opinion on the new smoking laws. Or there is a freak hailstorm-- at any rate, something for which the person is totally unprepared. Describe the incident, but also write about the effect on plans, feelings, ability to proceed with the set task, etc..

Exercise # 127

"I looked down the aisle of bookshelves and at the very end I saw..."

Exercise # 128

Guy de Maupassant above wrote old-fashioned plotted stories toward the end of the nineteenth century. First, read this translation of one of his well known stories, "The Necklace," online. Then write a very short story with a surpise or turn at the end.

Exercise # 129

Here is a mini plot: She tells him she never wants to see him again.

Write it in two ways: once, fully dramatized, with a setting and names and motivations-- a scene that could be the beginning of a story. Then, write it again in a single, summarizing sentence that captures some of what was dramatized in the first version.

Exercise # 130

A person--you, if you are writing memoir, an important character if you're writing fiction-- is involved in a physical struggle. Describe the action. This could be an actual fight, or struggle to escape, but it could also be a problem with putting on a pair of too-tight jeans. Focus on the action, but also include the person's frustration or fear, or whatever feeling is caused by the bodily movement.

For some examples of writing about physical action, click here.

Exercise # 130

This is an especially good exercise for writing for children, but can be used with creating any character.

Think of the face of a child (or other person) you have seen. This works best if it is not someone very close to you. Visualize the face first, then where the child or other person is: a specific place and a specific situation-- an eight year old boy with dark hair that falls into his eyes who is sitting on the stoop in front of his apartment building.. He has just moved to a new neighborhood.

Now imagine that the boy begins to tell you about his life: He speaks very quietly, close to your ear: his mother is a single mom, his little sister likes to run away, he’s worried about making new friends

Move closer to him in your imagination, so that you slip inside the boy’s head and hear his thoughts instead of his voice. He tells you how frightening the school bully is. He tells you a dream. He wants his own dog.Next write as much of this as you can, not worrying about order or chronology. Just write in the person's voice.

This is a way to get close to a character and perhaps to get some ideas for a story line

Exercise # 130

I've been working with my classes on physical action, something that movies do so well we often don't give much attention to it in prose writing, as if we assumed there would be a special director for the fight scenes in our fiction! Exercise #130 below was about physical action. Here is a slightly different one, using a passage from the thriller novel Gorky Park. (Alert: for the weak of stomach: sreading this passage may be a bad idea).

Write a description of something violent that you have really seen. This means it is probably not a murder (although maybe it is), but rather an animal attacking another, or a child pulling another's hair, or an adult losing control and breaking things.

Try to slow it down enough to bring out the most important parts of the action. You don't need to describe absolutely everything, but try to visualize it in a way that the most striking parts stand out.

While Iamskoy braced him, Unmann punched Arkady in the stomach, pulling his fist away with a curious flourish. Arkady looked down and saw a slim knife handle protruding from his stomach. He felt a sensation of ice inside himself and couldn’t breathe....

“And you surprised me,” Iamskoy went on....“Be honest with yourself...and admit I’m doing you a favor. Besides your father’s name, you’re losing nothing– no wife, no children, no political consciousness and no future....Believe me, this way is better. Why don’t you sit down?”

Iamskoy and Unmann stepped back for him to fall, and Arkady’s knees trembled and started to give way. He pulled out the knife. It seemed to come out forever, double-edged and sharp and red. German workmanship, Arkady thought. A hot rush poured down the inside of his uniform. Without warning he swung the knife into Unmann’s stomach at the same spot that Unmann had driven it into him. The force of his thrust carried them both into the pool.

They rose together from the water. Unmann tried to push away, but Arkady single-mindedly lodged the knife deeper and jerked it upward. Along the edge of the pool, Iamskoy ran back and forth for a clear shot....

(Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park (New York: Balantine, 1981), p. 309 - 311)

Exercise # 131

Writing from "Dance." Try a directed free write beginning with the word "dance." A directed free write is a timed writing (set a kitchen timer for tne minutes) in which you write steadily and without stopping anything that comes to mind but begin with thoughts and feelings about, in this case, dance.

More writing exercises related to dance:

1. Watch a dance live or on a DVD or tape. Describe it in two different ways:
           – analyze the movements: “The dancer stamps her feet and angles her body in different directions. She forms her fingers into a pyramid and her arms sway...”
           – write about the same dance using figurative language: “The dancer leaped heavily like a pouncing tiger...
          – Write about dance from the inside: “When I dance, I fee at one with the music, as if the music were my body and my body the music...”

Exercise # 131

Try this:

Think of three characters, major or minor, in your fiction or memoir. Show each of them getting angry. What characteristic gestures do they use? What tones of voice? Emphasize their physical action and how it shows their anger, but feel free to include dialogue and what is going on inside them.

For great photos of West Virginia mining towns, steel mills, and much more at Kevin Scanlon's site, click here.

Featured Book

If you order this month's featured book by direct mail, you may take 10% off your total order, excluding shipping & handling and tax. Order from the Order-by-Mail page.

A Space Apart

A Space Apart is so deftly and subtly written, I hardly noticed how involved I'd become until I'd read the last page and turned it, wanting more. The Scarlin family is going to be with me for a very long time. — Anne Tyler

Willis fleshes out with warmth and tenderness the omplexities of family love, which not only defines commitment but deepens the need. An important new talent.    — The Kirkus Reviews

This is the story of a broken family trying to mend itself through three generations. It is a painful but essential process, and like all such repair jobs, it is only partly successful. Before it is over we come to know John and Vera and Mary Kay, as well as Vera's daughters, Lee and Tonie— to understand the wars they must declare and the peaces that they are able to proclaim within the state of being Scarlins. – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Willis views the Scarlin family ties and loyalties, limits and tensions, with realism, sensitivity and precision. A noteworthy first novel.
                        —Publisher's Weekly

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Want some great graphics? http://ann-s-thesia.com/

Music& Mixed Media Websites Peter Sciaino Deep Listening

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More Links

Meredith Sue Willis Author and Teacher

More Places for Writing exercises

Writing exercises for kids, click here.

For teens, begin here.

Writing hints

-- Meredith Sue Willis

Current Exercise

Writing Hints

Try not to do just one thing if you can do more than one. Don't give the information that he ate a steak, rather, show both that he ate a steak and that he was angry when he was eating it: "He stabbed his fork into the slab of sirloin and and slashed off a piece with his knife."

Separate your critical brain from your drafting brain. Try writing at least three paragraphs (or even better, three pages) before you go back and fiddle with the words. If possible, don't read over what you wrote today until tomorrow or at least after lunch. It will be much easier to make changes.

After you've written your draft, go through it looking to see if all the essential conflicts have been dramatized. This is an especially good technique if you feel that your dialogue is flat or boring. Put the dramatized conflicts into the dialogue.

Put thinking, contemplation, and dramatized flashback scenes at a point in your story where it would be natural in real life too: riding a train, lying awake at night when the character can’t sleep, etc.

Click here for more hints from writers, editors, and agents.

More Free Writing Exercises below and here :

Exercises 1- 20

Exercises 21- 40

Exercses 41 - 60

Exercises 61-80

Exercises 81-100

Exercises 101 - 120

Here's something new that looks like fun: Snapfiction.com offers a writing exercise "challenge" every week--give it a try!

Looking for Poetry Writing Exercises? Writenet at Teachers & Writers has some good ones originally planned for young people, but they would make great starters for anyone

For writing exercises for children, click here. Teens can use the ones on this page, or look at my page for teens.

Here's a link to a really interesting haiku exercise from Timothy Russell.

And then there is making fun of writing prompts:McSweeney's has a fairly funny take-off called "Thirteen Writing Prompts" by Dan Wienceck

Rita Marie Keller has a blog called Buried Treasures that is full of writing prompts and links to more writing prompts. " Essays and writing exercises to help you uncover the great writing ideas you already have."

Exercise # 121

Sometimes it's fun to experiment with writing exercises usually reserved for elementary age children. Try this: Write an introduction to yourself that includes the following things that move roughly from outside, to inside, to deeper inside-- to explosion!

Write about what people see when they look at you from the outside

Write what people commonly know about you-- your job, some of your accomplishments or interests, who you live with, where you live, etc.

Write something that very few people know about you: wishes, dreams, a secret.

Finally, write a lie: how sometimes when you are home alone, you are transformed into.....

For Valentine's Day, write about a person selecting a gift for a loved one-- this could be yourself or a character, and the gift could be appropriate, wildly inappropriate, welcomed or rejected. Candy and flowers are old standard choices...

(For information on the photo, click here.)

Exercise # 123

Exercise # 124

Hi.

Hi.

Where were you?

Nowhere.

Exercise # 126

Guy de Maupassant above wrote old-fashioned plotted stories toward the end of the nineteenth century. First, read this translation of one of his well known stories, "The Necklace," online. Then write a very short story with a surpise or turn at the end.

For great photos of West Virginia mining towns, steel mills, and much more at Kevin Scanlon's site, click here.

Featured Book

If you order this month's featured book by direct mail, you may take 10% off your total order, excluding shipping & handling and tax. Order from the Order-by-Mail page.

A Space Apart

A Space Apart is so deftly and subtly written, I hardly noticed how involved I'd become until I'd read the last page and turned it, wanting more. The Scarlin family is going to be with me for a very long time. — Anne Tyler

Willis fleshes out with warmth and tenderness the omplexities of family love, which not only defines commitment but deepens the need. An important new talent. — The Kirkus Reviews

Willis views the Scarlin family ties and loyalties, limits and tensions, with realism, sensitivity and precision. A noteworthy first novel. —Publisher's Weekly

Subscribe! Enter your email to join ReaderBooks today!

New Book for Kids
Billie of Fish House Lane
From Montemayor Press
Read a chapter:
Click on Catalogue,
Literature for Children

A literary Map of
West Virginia!

Writers' Links
& Resources
Resources for writers
Poetry Daily
Writers Almanac
How Artists Get Paid
Int. Women's Writing Guild
New Publishing Paradigm
Resources for writers
Thunderburst
Edwards Bros. Printers

Writing by MSW
Online Fiction
Online Nonfiction
Article on Revision
Article on Dialogue
Getting Published
Reviews
Books
Adult Fiction
Books for Children
Books on Writing
Free Newsletter
for Readers

FamilyOriented Websites
Ellen Kahaner's Mural class
Reading and Traveling with Kids

More
Jeremy Osner

Photos and Art
Linda Adato
Rachel Burges

Spire by Rachel Burgess
Charlie Cowger
Ann Olson
Rochelle Ratner
Kevin Scanlon
Duane Smith
Randi Ward
Ella Yang

Want some great graphics?
http://ann-s-thesia.com/

Music& Mixed Media Websites
Peter Sciaino
Deep Listening

Blogs
The Compulsive Reader
National Book Critics Circle Claudia Carlson
Sherry Chandler
Fred First
Cat Pleska
Valerie Nieman
Dee Rimbaud
Larissa Shmailo
Christopher Vera
David Weinberger
Lisa WIlliams
Loho (Group Blog about the Lower East Side)
Brooklyn Parrots Blog!

Meredith Sue Willis
Author and Teacher

Willis views the Scarlin family ties and loyalties, limits and tensions, with realism, sensitivity and precision. A noteworthy first novel.
—Publisher's Weekly

Subscribe!

Enter your email to join ReaderBooks today!