creative writing beginners exercises

• Writing Activities

105 Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Writing Again

You know that feeling when you just don’t feel like writing? Sometimes you can’t even get a word down on paper. It’s the most frustrating thing ever to a writer, especially when you’re working towards a deadline. The good news is that we have a list of 105 creative writing exercises to help you get motivated and start writing again!

What are creative writing exercises?

Creative writing exercises are short writing activities (normally around 10 minutes) designed to get you writing. The goal of these exercises is to give you the motivation to put words onto a blank paper. These words don’t need to be logical or meaningful, neither do they need to be grammatically correct or spelt correctly. The whole idea is to just get you writing something, anything. The end result of these quick creative writing exercises is normally a series of notes, bullet points or ramblings that you can, later on, use as inspiration for a bigger piece of writing such as a story or a poem. 

Good creative writing exercises are short, quick and easy to complete. You shouldn’t need to think too much about your style of writing or how imaginative your notes are. Just write anything that comes to mind, and you’ll be on the road to improving your creative writing skills and beating writer’s block . 

Use the generator below to get a random creative writing exercise idea:

List of 105+ Creative Writing Exercises

Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again:

• Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment.
• Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour. For example, Orange, the colour of my favourite top. 
• Open a book or dictionary on a random page. Pick a random word. You can close your eyes and slowly move your finger across the page. Now, write a paragraph with this random word in it. You can even use an online dictionary to get random words:

• Create your own alphabet picture book or list. It can be A to Z of animals, food, monsters or anything else you like!
• Using only the sense of smell, describe where you are right now.
• Take a snack break. While eating your snack write down the exact taste of that food. The goal of this creative writing exercise is to make your readers savour this food as well.
• Pick a random object in your room and write a short paragraph from its point of view. For example, how does your pencil feel? What if your lamp had feelings?
• Describe your dream house. Where would you live one day? Is it huge or tiny? 
• Pick two different TV shows, movies or books that you like. Now swap the main character. What if Supergirl was in Twilight? What if SpongeBob SquarePants was in The Flash? Write a short scene using this character swap as inspiration.
• What’s your favourite video game? Write at least 10 tips for playing this game.
• Pick your favourite hobby or sport. Now pretend an alien has just landed on Earth and you need to teach it this hobby or sport. Write at least ten tips on how you would teach this alien.
• Use a random image generator and write a paragraph about the first picture you see.

• Write a letter to your favourite celebrity or character. What inspires you most about them? Can you think of a memorable moment where this person’s life affected yours? We have this helpful guide on writing a letter to your best friend for extra inspiration.
• Write down at least 10 benefits of writing. This can help motivate you and beat writer’s block.
• Complete this sentence in 10 different ways: Patrick waited for the school bus and…
• Pick up a random book from your bookshelf and go to page 9. Find the ninth sentence on that page. Use this sentence as a story starter.
• Create a character profile based on all the traits that you hate. It might help to list down all the traits first and then work on describing the character.
• What is the scariest or most dangerous situation you have ever been in? Why was this situation scary? How did you cope at that moment?
• Pretend that you’re a chat show host and you’re interviewing your favourite celebrity. Write down the script for this conversation.
• Using extreme detail, write down what you have been doing for the past one hour today. Think about your thoughts, feelings and actions during this time.
• Make a list of potential character names for your next story. You can use a fantasy name generator to help you.
• Describe a futuristic setting. What do you think the world would look like in 100 years time?
• Think about a recent argument you had with someone. Would you change anything about it? How would you resolve an argument in the future?
• Describe a fantasy world. What kind of creatures live in this world? What is the climate like? What everyday challenges would a typical citizen of this world face? You can use this fantasy world name generator for inspiration.
• At the flip of a switch, you turn into a dragon. What kind of dragon would you be? Describe your appearance, special abilities, likes and dislikes. You can use a dragon name generator to give yourself a cool dragon name.
• Pick your favourite book or a famous story. Now change the point of view. For example, you could rewrite the fairytale , Cinderella. This time around, Prince Charming could be the main character. What do you think Prince Charming was doing, while Cinderella was cleaning the floors and getting ready for the ball?
• Pick a random writing prompt and use it to write a short story. Check out this collection of over 300 writing prompts for kids to inspire you. 
• Write a shopping list for a famous character in history. Imagine if you were Albert Einstein’s assistant, what kind of things would he shop for on a weekly basis?
• Create a fake advertisement poster for a random object that is near you right now. Your goal is to convince the reader to buy this object from you.
• What is the worst (or most annoying) sound that you can imagine? Describe this sound in great detail, so your reader can understand the pain you feel when hearing this sound.
• What is your favourite song at the moment? Pick one line from this song and describe a moment in your life that relates to this line.
•  You’re hosting an imaginary dinner party at your house. Create a list of people you would invite, and some party invites. Think about the theme of the dinner party, the food you will serve and entertainment for the evening. 
• You are waiting to see your dentist in the waiting room. Write down every thought you are having at this moment in time. 
• Make a list of your greatest fears. Try to think of at least three fears. Now write a short story about a character who is forced to confront one of these fears. 
• Create a ‘Wanted’ poster for a famous villain of your choice. Think about the crimes they have committed, and the reward you will give for having them caught. 
• Imagine you are a journalist for the ‘Imagine Forest Times’ newspaper. Your task is to get an exclusive interview with the most famous villain of all time. Pick a villain of your choice and interview them for your newspaper article. What questions would you ask them, and what would their responses be?
•  In a school playground, you see the school bully hurting a new kid. Write three short stories, one from each perspective in this scenario (The bully, the witness and the kid getting bullied).
• You just won $10 million dollars. What would you spend this money on?
• Pick a random animal, and research at least five interesting facts about this animal. Write a short story centred around one of these interesting facts. 
• Pick a global issue that you are passionate about. This could be climate change, black lives matters, women’s rights etc. Now create a campaign poster for this global issue. 
• Write an acrostic poem about an object near you right now (or even your own name). You could use a poetry idea generator to inspire you.
• Imagine you are the head chef of a 5-star restaurant. Recently the business has slowed down. Your task is to come up with a brand-new menu to excite customers. Watch this video prompt on YouTube to inspire you.
• What is your favourite food of all time? Imagine if this piece of food was alive, what would it say to you?
• If life was one big musical, what would you be singing about right now? Write the lyrics of your song. 
• Create and describe the most ultimate villain of all time. What would their traits be? What would their past look like? Will they have any positive traits?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: Every time I look out of the window, I…
• You have just made it into the local newspaper, but what for? Write down at least five potential newspaper headlines . Here’s an example, Local Boy Survives a Deadly Illness.
• If you were a witch or a wizard, what would your specialist area be and why? You might want to use a Harry Potter name generator or a witch name generator for inspiration.
• What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday night? Write a short story centred around this activity. 
• Your main character has just received the following items: A highlighter, a red cap, a teddy bear and a fork. What would your character do with these items? Can you write a story using these items? 
• Create a timeline of your own life, from birth to this current moment. Think about the key events in your life, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings and so on. After you have done this, you can pick one key event from your life to write a story about. 
• Think of a famous book or movie you like. Rewrite a scene from this book or movie, where the main character is an outsider. They watch the key events play out, but have no role in the story. What would their actions be? How would they react?
• Three very different characters have just won the lottery. Write a script for each character, as they reveal the big news to their best friend.  
• Write a day in the life story of three different characters. How does each character start their day? What do they do throughout the day? And how does their day end?
•  Write about the worst experience in your life so far. Think about a time when you were most upset or angry and describe it. 
• Imagine you’ve found a time machine in your house. What year would you travel to and why?
• Describe your own superhero. Think about their appearance, special abilities and their superhero name. Will they have a secret identity? Who is their number one enemy?
• What is your favourite country in the world? Research five fun facts about this country and use one to write a short story. 
• Set yourself at least three writing goals. This could be a good way to motivate yourself to write every day. For example, one goal might be to write at least 150 words a day. 
• Create a character description based on the one fact, three fiction rule. Think about one fact or truth about yourself. And then add in three fictional or fantasy elements. For example, your character could be the same age as you in real life, this is your one fact. And the three fictional elements could be they have the ability to fly, talk in over 100 different languages and have green skin. 
• Describe the perfect person. What traits would they have? Think about their appearance, their interests and their dislikes. 
• Keep a daily journal or diary. This is a great way to keep writing every day. There are lots of things you can write about in your journal, such as you can write about the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of your day. Think about anything that inspired you or anything that upset you, or just write anything that comes to mind at the moment. 
• Write a book review or a movie review. If you’re lost for inspiration, just watch a random movie or read any book that you can find. Then write a critical review on it. Think about the best parts of the book/movie and the worst parts. How would you improve the book or movie?
• Write down a conversation between yourself. You can imagine talking to your younger self or future self (i.e. in 10 years’ time). What would you tell them? Are there any lessons you learned or warnings you need to give? Maybe you could talk about what your life is like now and compare it to their life?
• Try writing some quick flash fiction stories . Flash fiction is normally around 500 words long, so try to stay within this limit.
• Write a six-word story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. A six-word story is basically an entire story told in just six words. Take for example: “Another football game ruined by me.” or “A dog’s painting sold for millions.” – Six-word stories are similar to writing newspaper headlines. The goal is to summarise your story in just six words. 
• The most common monsters or creatures used in stories include vampires, werewolves , dragons, the bigfoot, sirens and the loch-ness monster. In a battle of intelligence, who do you think will win and why?
• Think about an important event in your life that has happened so far, such as a birthday or the birth of a new sibling. Now using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique describe this event in great detail. The 5 W’s include: What, Who, Where, Why, When and the 1 H is: How. Ask yourself questions about the event, such as what exactly happened on that day? Who was there? Why was this event important? When and where did it happen? And finally, how did it make you feel?
• Pretend to be someone else. Think about someone important in your life. Now put yourself into their shoes, and write a day in the life story about being them. What do you think they do on a daily basis? What situations would they encounter? How would they feel?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: I remember…
• Write about your dream holiday. Where would you go? Who would you go with? And what kind of activities would you do?
• Which one item in your house do you use the most? Is it the television, computer, mobile phone, the sofa or the microwave? Now write a story of how this item was invented. You might want to do some research online and use these ideas to build up your story. 
• In exactly 100 words, describe your bedroom. Try not to go over or under this word limit.
• Make a top ten list of your favourite animals. Based on this list create your own animal fact file, where you provide fun facts about each animal in your list.
• What is your favourite scene from a book or a movie? Write down this scene. Now rewrite the scene in a different genre, such as horror, comedy, drama etc.
•  Change the main character of a story you recently read into a villain. For example, you could take a popular fairytale such as Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time re-write the story to make Jack the villain of the tale.
• Complete the following sentence in at least 10 different ways: Do you ever wonder…
• What does your name mean? Research the meaning of your own name, or a name that interests you. Then use this as inspiration for your next story. For example, the name ‘Marty’ means “Servant Of Mars, God Of War”. This could make a good concept for a sci-fi story.
• Make a list of three different types of heroes (or main characters) for potential future stories.
• If someone gave you $10 dollars, what would you spend it on and why?
• Describe the world’s most boring character in at least 100 words. 
• What is the biggest problem in the world today, and how can you help fix this issue?
• Create your own travel brochure for your hometown. Think about why tourists might want to visit your hometown. What is your town’s history? What kind of activities can you do? You could even research some interesting facts. 
• Make a list of all your favourite moments or memories in your life. Now pick one to write a short story about.
• Describe the scariest and ugliest monster you can imagine. You could even draw a picture of this monster with your description.
• Write seven haikus, one for each colour of the rainbow. That’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 
• Imagine you are at the supermarket. Write down at least three funny scenarios that could happen to you at the supermarket. Use one for your next short story. 
• Imagine your main character is at home staring at a photograph. Write the saddest scene possible. Your goal is to make your reader cry when reading this scene. 
• What is happiness? In at least 150 words describe the feeling of happiness. You could use examples from your own life of when you felt happy.
• Think of a recent nightmare you had and write down everything you can remember. Use this nightmare as inspiration for your next story.
• Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning you can quickly jot down things that you remember from your dreams. These notes can then be used as inspiration for a short story. 
• Your main character is having a really bad day. Describe this bad day and the series of events they experience. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character?
• You find a box on your doorstep. You open this box and see the most amazing thing ever. Describe this amazing thing to your readers.
• Make a list of at least five possible settings or locations for future stories. Remember to describe each setting in detail.
• Think of something new you recently learned. Write this down. Now write a short story where your main character also learns the same thing.
• Describe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Your goal is to amaze your readers with its beauty. 
• Make a list of things that make you happy or cheer you up. Try to think of at least five ideas. Now imagine living in a world where all these things were banned or against the law. Use this as inspiration for your next story.
• Would you rather be rich and alone or poor and very popular? Write a story based on the lives of these two characters. 
• Imagine your main character is a Librarian. Write down at least three dark secrets they might have. Remember, the best secrets are always unexpected.
• There’s a history behind everything. Describe the history of your house. How and when was your house built? Think about the land it was built on and the people that may have lived here long before you.
• Imagine that you are the king or queen of a beautiful kingdom. Describe your kingdom in great detail. What kind of rules would you have? Would you be a kind ruler or an evil ruler of the kingdom?
• Make a wish list of at least three objects you wish you owned right now. Now use these three items in your next story. At least one of them must be the main prop in the story.
• Using nothing but the sense of taste, describe a nice Sunday afternoon at your house. Remember you can’t use your other senses (i.e see, hear, smell or touch) in this description. 
• What’s the worst pain you felt in your life? Describe this pain in great detail, so your readers can also feel it.
• If you were lost on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, what three must-have things would you pack and why?
• Particpate in online writing challenges or contests. Here at Imagine Forest, we offer daily writing challenges with a new prompt added every day to inspire you. Check out our challenges section in the menu.

Do you have any more fun creative writing exercises to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

Related Posts

Comments loading...

Spring Sale: Get 15% off selected writing courses, only through April 19! Learn more »

The best writing exercises bring out our latent creativity. Especially if you ever feel stuck or blocked, making creative writing exercises part of your daily writing practice can be a great way to both hone your skills and explore new frontiers in your writing. Whether you’re a poet, essayist, storyteller, or genre-bending author, these free writing exercises will jumpstart your creative juices and improve your writing abilities.

24 of the Best Free Writing Exercises to Try Out Today

The best creative writing exercises will push you out of your comfort zone and get you to experiment with words. Language is your sandbox, so let’s build some sand castles with these exercises and writing prompts.

Write With Limitations

The English language is huge, complicated, and — quite frankly — chaotic. Writing with self-imposed limitations can help you create novel and inventive pieces.

What does “limitations” mean in this context? Basically, force yourself not to use certain words, descriptions, or figures of speech. Some writing exercises using limitations include the following:

• Write without using adverbs or adjectives.
• Write without using the passive voice – no “being verbs” whatsoever. (Also called “E-Prime” writing.)
• Write a story without using a common letter –  just like Ernest Vincent Wright did .
• Write a poem where each line has six words.
• Write without using any pronouns.

Among exercises to improve writing skills, writing with limitations has the clearest benefits. This practice challenges your brain to think about language productively. Additionally, these limitations force you to use unconventional language – which, in turn, makes you write with lucidity, avidity, and invention.

Check Out Our Online Writing Courses!

Tiny and True: Creating Flash Essays with Mindfulness

with Susan Barr-Toman

April 17th, 2024

How do you tell the full truth in under 1,000 words? Learn the art of flash essays and write nuggets of wisdom in this tiny essay class.

A Poet’s Calling Card: Writing and Composing a Chapbook

with Caitlin Scarano

The poetry chapbook gives poets the chance to make a small, artful collection around a poetic obsession. Learn how to craft yours in this 8 week chapbook intensive.

Plot Your Novel

with Jack Smith

Over eight weeks, you'll develop a solid basis in the fictional elements—protagonist, setting, secondary characters, point of view, plot, and theme—while you develop the outline of your novel. You'll receive feedback at all stages from your fellow writers and your instructor.

Poems of All Sizes: Haiku, Tanka, and Japanese Poetic Forms

with Miho Kinnas

April 18th, 2024

Explore the history and poetics of Japanese poetry forms, and write haiku, tanka, renga, haiga, and linked verse poetry.

From the Source: Journaling for Self-Knowledge and Creativity

with Amy Bonnaffons

April 24th, 2024

Journal to discover yourself, find a wellspring of creativity, and produce publication-ready pieces.

Freewriting & Stream of Consciousness

What do you do when the words just don’t come out? How can you write better if you can’t seem to write at all? One of the best poetry exercises, as well as writing exercises in general, is to start your day by freewriting.

Freewriting, also known as “stream of consciousness writing,” involves writing your thoughts down the moment they come. There’s no filtering what you write, and no controlling what you think: topicality, style, and continuity are wholly unnecessary in the freewriting process. While the idea of freewriting seems easy, it’s much harder than you think – examining your thoughts without controlling them takes a while to master, and the impulse to control what you write isn’t easy to tame. Try these exercises to master the skill:

• Do a timed freewrite. Start with five minutes.
• Freewrite until you fill up the entirety of something – an envelope, a receipt, a postcard, etc.
• Freewrite after meditating.
• Freewrite off of the first word of today’s newspaper.

Among daily writing exercises, freewriting is one of the best writing exercises. Poets can use freewritten material as inspiration for their poetry. Prose writers can also find inspiration for future stories from the depths of their consciousnesses. Start your writing day with freewriting, and watch your creativity blossom.

Copy What You Read

Plagiarism is still off the table; however, you can learn a lot by paying attention to how other people write. This is what we call “reading like a writer.”

Reading like a writer means paying attention to the craft elements that make an excellent piece of literature work. Good writing requires different writing styles, figurative language, story structures, and/or poetry forms, as well as key word choice.

When you notice these craft elements, you can go ahead and emulate them in your own work. As a fiction writer , you might be drawn to the way Haruki Murakami weaves folklore into his stories, and decide to write a story like that yourself. Or, as a poet, you might be inspired by Terrance Hayes’ Golden Shovel form — enough so that you write a Golden Shovel yourself.

• Read a favorite poem, and write your own poem in the same poetic form.
• Blackout poetry: take another poem, cross out words you don’t want to use, circle words you do, and write a poem based on the circled words.
• Copy a single sentence from a favorite novel, and write a short-short story with it.

Among free writing exercises, this is a great way to learn from the best. The best kinds of exercises to improve writing skills involve building upon the current canon of works — as Isaac Newton said, you achieve something great by “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Write From Different Perspectives

The conventional advice given to writers is to “write what you know.” We couldn’t disagree with that statement more. The best creative works force both the writer and the reader to consider new perspectives and learn something new; writing from a new point-of-view makes for a great exercise in expanding your creative limits.

Try these ideas as daily writing exercises:

• Write a story with the same plot, but with two or more perspectives. For example, you could write a lover’s quarrel from two different view points.
• Write from the point-of-view of a famous historical figure.
• Write a story or poem from the perspective of an object: a statue, a doll, a roomba, etc.
• Write from the perspective of a person you dislike.

While playing with perspective makes for a great fiction writing exercise , poets and essayists can do this too. Patricia Smith’s poem “Skinhead,” for example, is a persona piece written from the perspective of a white nationalist, but the poem clearly condemns the speaker’s beliefs.

Thus, perspective writing also works as a poetry exercise and an essay writing practice exercise . If you’re stuck in your own head, try writing in someone else’s!

Write Metaphor Lists

All creative writers need figurative language. While metaphors, similes, and synecdoches are more prominent in poetry , prose writers need the power of metaphor to truly engross their reader. Among both exercises to improve writing skills and fun writing exercises for adults, writing metaphor lists is one of the best writing exercises out there.

A metaphor list is simple. On a notebook, create two columns. In one column, write down only concrete nouns. Things like a pillow, a tree, a cat, a cloud, and anything that can be perceived with one of the five senses.

In the other list, write down only abstract ideas. Things like love, hate, war, peace, justice, closure, and reconciliation — anything that is conceptual and cannot be directly perceived.

Now, choose a random noun and a random concept, and create a metaphor or simile with them. Delve into the metaphor and explain the comparison. For example, you might say “Love is like a pillow — it can comfort, or it can smother.”

Once you’ve mastered the metaphor list, you can try the following ideas to challenge yourself:

• Create a coherent poem out of your metaphor list.
• Turn your metaphor list into a short story.
• Try making lists with a different figurative language device, such as personification, pathetic fallacy, or metonymy.

Any free creative writing exercise that focuses on figurative language can aid your writing immensely, as it helps writers add insight and emotionality to their work. This is an especially great creative writing exercise for beginners as they learn the elements of style and language.

Daily Journaling

Of course, the best way to improve your creative writing skills is simply to write every day. Keeping a daily journal is a great way to exercise your writing mind. By sitting down with your personal observations and writing without an agenda or audience, a daily writing practice  remains one of the best writing exercises , regardless of your genre or level of expertise.

Consider these ideas for your daily journal:

• Track your mood and emotions throughout the day. Write those emotions in metaphor — avoid commonplace adjectives and nouns.
• Write about your day from the second- or third-person.
• Journal your day in verse. Use stanzas, line breaks, and figurative language.
• Write about your day backwards.
• Write about your day using Freytag’s pyramid . Build up to a meaningful climax, even if nothing significant seemed to happen today.

Learn more about keeping a journal here:

How to Start Journaling: Practical Advice on How to Journal Daily

Writing Exercises: Have Fun with Them!

Many of these writing exercises might feel challenging at first—and that’s a good thing! You will unlock new ideas and writing strengths by struggling through these creative challenges. The main point is to have fun with them and use them to explore within your writing, without indulging too many monologues from your inner critic.

Are you looking for more exercises to improve your writing skills? Our instructors can offer prompts, illuminating lectures, one-to-one feedback, and more to help you improve your craft. Check out our upcoming creative writing courses , and let’s put these skills to practice.

Sean Glatch

Thank you for this. I’ve been stuck for months—more than that, actually, and you’d think that a pandemic stay-at-home would be the perfect time to do some writing. But no. I’m as stuck as ever. In fact, the only time I seem able to write consistently and well is when I’m taking one of your classes! I’m still saving my pennies, but these exercises will hopefully get me writing in the meantime. Thanks again!

Hi Kathy, I’m glad to hear some of these tips might spark your creativity 🙂 I feel the same way, I was hoping the stay-at-home order might spark some creativity, but we shouldn’t push ourselves too hard – especially in the midst of a crisis.

The best part about writing: all you have to do is try, and you’ve already succeeded. Good luck on your writing endeavors!

Bravo….!What a great piece! Honestly I learnt a lot here!

I picked interest in poetry just a week ago after reading a beautiful piece which captivated my mind into the world of writing. I’d love to write great poems but I don’t know anything about poetry, I need a coach, a motivator and an inspiration to be able to do this. This piece really helped me but I will appreciate some more tips and help from you or anyone else willing to help, I am really fervid about this.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for your comment! I’m so excited for you to start your journey with poetry. We have more advice for poetry writing at the articles under this link: https://writers.com/category/poetry

Additionally, you might be interested in two of our upcoming poetry courses: Poetry Workshop and How to Craft a Poem .

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at [email protected] . Many thanks, and happy writing!

[…] 24 Best Writing Exercises to Become a Better Writer | writers.com  […]

Hi, kinsey there. Thanks for giving information. it is a very informative blog and i appreciate your effort to write a blog I am also a writer and i like these type of blogs everyone takes more knowledge to check out my essay writing website

As a writer, I often struggle to break free from the chains of writer’s block, but this blog has gifted me with a map of inspiration to navigate through those creative storms. It’s like being handed a box of enchanted writing exercises

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises

by Joe Bunting | 50 comments

Want to become a better writer? Perhaps you want to write novels, or maybe you just want to get better grades in your essay writing assignments , or maybe you'd like to start a popular blog .

If you want to write better, you need practice. But what does a writing practice actually look like? In this post, I'm going to give you everything you need to kick off your writing practice and become a better writer faster.

What Is Writing Practice?

Writing practice is a method of becoming a better writer that usually involves reading lessons about the writing process, using writing prompts, doing creative writing exercises , or finishing writing pieces, like essays, short stories , novels , or books . The best writing practice is deliberate, timed, and involves feedback.

How Do You Practice Writing?

This was the question I had when I first started The Write Practice in 2011. I knew how to practice a sport and how to practice playing an instrument. But for some reason, even after studying it in college, I wasn't sure how to practice writing.

I set out to create the best writing practice I could. The Write Practice is the result.

I found that the best writing practice has three aspects:

Deliberate . Writing whatever you feel like may be cathartic, but it's not an effective way to become a better writer or build your writing skills. You'll get better faster by practicing a specific technique or aspect of the writing process each time you sit down to write.

This is why we have a new lesson about the writing process each day on The Write Practice, followed by a practice prompt at the end so you can put what you learned to use immediately.

Timed . It's no secret writers struggle with focus. There are just too many interesting distractions—Facebook, email, Kim Kardashian's Instagram feed (just kidding about that last one, sort of)—and writing is just too hard sometimes.

Setting a timer, even for just fifteen minutes, is an easy and effective way to stay focused on what's important.

This is why in our writing practice prompt at the end of each post we have a time limit, usually with a link to an online tool egg timer , so you can focus on deliberate practice without getting distracted.

Feedback . Getting feedback is one of the requirements to deliberately practice writing or any other craft. Feedback can look like listening to the reactions of your readers or asking for constructive criticism from editors and other writers.

This is why we ask you to post your writing practice after each lesson, so that you can get feedback from other writers in The Write Practice community. It's also why we set up The Write Practice Pro community , to provide critique groups for writers to get feedback on each finished piece of writing.

Our 100+ Best Creative Writing Practice Exercises and Lessons

Now that you know how we practice writing at The Write Practice, here are our best writing practice lessons to jumpstart your writing skills with some daily writing exercises, for beginner writers to even the most expert writers:

All-Time, Top 10 Writing Lessons and Exercises

These ten posts are our most viewed articles to boost your writing practice:

1. What is Plot? The 6 Elements of Plot and How to Use Them . Great stories use similar elements in wildly different ways to build page-turning stories. Click here to read what they are and learn how to start using them !

2. Top 100 Short Story Ideas . Here are over a hundred writing prompts in a variety of genres. If you need ideas for your next story, check this out!

3. How To Use Neither, Nor, Or, and Nor Correctly . Even good writers struggle figuring out when to use neither/nor and either/or. In this post, our copy-queen Liz Bureman settles the confusion once and for all. Click to continue to the writing exercise

4. Ten Secrets To Write Better Stories . How does Pixar manage to create such great stories, year after year? And how do you write a good story? In this post, I distill everything I've learned about how to write a good story into ten tips. Click to continue to the writing exercise

5. 35 Questions To Ask Your Characters From Marcel Proust . To get to know my characters better, I use a list of questions known as the Proust Questionnaire, made famous by French author, Marcel Proust. Click to continue to the writing exercise

6. How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life . Creating a scene list changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Includes examples of the scene lists from famous authors. Click to continue to the writing exercise

7. Why You Need to be Using the Oxford Comma . Most people I've met have no idea what the Oxford comma is, but it's probably something that you have used frequently in your writing. Click to continue to the writing exercise

8. Six Surprising Ways to Write Better Interview Questions.  The interview is the most-used tool in a journalist's bag. But that doesn't mean novelists, bloggers, and even students can't and don't interview people. Here's how to conduct a great interview. Click to continue to the writing exercise

9. Why You Should Try Writing in Second Person . You've probably used first person and third person point-of-view already. But what about second person? This post explains three reasons why you should try writing from this point-of-view. Click to continue to the writing exercise

10. The Secret to Show, Don't Tell . You've heard the classic writing rule, “Show. Don't Tell.” Every writing blog ever has talked about it, and for good reason. Showing, for some reason, is really difficult. Click to continue to the writing exercise.

12 Exercises and Lessons To Become a Better Writer

How do you become a better writer? These posts share our best advice:

• Want to Be a Better Writer? Cut These 7 Words
• What I Mean When I Say I Am A Writer
• How to Become a Writer: 3 Simple Steps
• 72% of Writers Struggle With THIS
• 7 Lies About Becoming a Writer That You Probably Believe
• 10 Questions to Find Your Unique Writing Voice
• The Best Writing Book I’ve Ever Read
• The Best Way to Become a Better Writer
• The Creative Writer’s Toolkit: 6 Tools You Can’t Write Without
• Should You Write More or Write Better: Quantity vs Quality
• How to Become a Better Writer in One, Simple Step
• 11 Writing Tips That Will Change Your Life

6 Lessons and Exercises from Great Writers

If you want to be a writer, learn from the great writers who have gone before you:

• 23 Essential Quotes from Ernest Hemingway About Writing
• 29 Quotes that Explain How to Become a Better Writer
• 10 Lessons Dr. Seuss Can Teach Writers
• 10 Writing Tips from Ursula Le Guin
• Once Upon a Time: Pixar Prompt
• All the Pretty Words: Writing In the Style of Cormac McCarthy

12 Genre and Format Specific Writing Lessons and Exercises

Here are our best writing lessons for specific types of writing, including essays, screenplays, memoir, short stories, children's books, and humor writing:

• Writing an Essay? Here Are 10 Effective Tips
• How To Write a Screenplay: The 5 Step Process
• How to Write a Great Memoir: a Complete Guide
• How to Write a Short Story from Start to Finish
• How to Write a Thriller Novel
• How to Write a Children's Book
• How to Write a Love Story
• How to Write a Coming of Age Story or Book
• How to Write an Adventure Book
• 5 Key Elements for Successful Short Stories
• 4 Tips to Write a Novel That Will Be Adapted Into a Movie
• Humor Writing for People Who Aren’t Funny

14 Characterization Lessons and Exercises

Good characters are the foundation of good fiction. Here are our best lessons to create better characters:

• Character Development: How to Create Characters Audiences Will Love
• Writing Villains: 9 Evil Examples of the Villain Archetype
• How NOT to Introduce a New Character
• The Strongest Form of Characterization
• The Most Important Character Archetype
• How Do You Build A Strong Character In Your Writing?
• 75+ Antihero Examples and How to Use Them
• How to Explore Your Characters’ Motivations
• 8 Tips for Naming Characters
• The Protagonist: How to Center Your Story
• Heroes vs. Anti-Heroes: Which Is Right For Your Story?
• The Weakest Form of Characterization
• How to Write With an Accent
• How To Create a Character Sketch Using Scrivener

15 Grammar Lessons and Exercises

I talk to so many writers, some of whom are published authors, who struggle with grammar. Here are our best writing lessons on grammar:

• Is It Okay To End A Sentence With A Preposition?
• Contractions List: When To Use and When To Avoid
• Good vs. Well
• Connotation vs. Denotation
• Per Se vs. Per Say
• When You SHOULD Use Passive Voice
• When Do You Use “Quotation Marks”
• Polysyndeton and Asyndeton: Definition and Examples
• The Case Against Twilight
• Affect Versus Effect
• Stop Saying “Literally”
• What Is a Comma Splice? And Why Do Editors Hate Them?
• Intra vs. Inter: Why No One Plays Intermural Sports
• Alright and Alot: Words That Are Not Words
• The Poor, Misunderstood Semicolon

4 Journalism Lessons and Exercises

Want to be a journalist? Or even use techniques from journalism to improve your novel, essay, or screenplay? Here are our best writing lessons on journalism:

• Six Ways to Ask Better Questions In Interviews
• How Should You Interview Someone? Over Email? In Person?
• What If They Don’t Want to Talk to You?
• Eleven Habits of a Highly Effective Interviewers

16 Plot and Structure Lessons and Exercises

Want to write a good story? Our top plot and structure lessons will help:

• The Ten Types of Story and How to Master Them
• Points of a Story: 6 Plot Points Every Story Needs
• How to Shape a Story: The 6 Arcs
• 7 Keys To Write the Perfect First Line of a Novel
• The Secret to Creating Conflict
• 4 Tips to Avoid Having Your Short Story Rejected by a Literary Magazine
• 7 Steps to Creating Suspense
• 5 Elements of Storytelling
• 3 Important Rules for Writing Endings
• A Writer’s Cheatsheet to Plot and Structure
• Overcoming the Monster
• How to Satisfy Your Reader With a Great Ending
• Pow! Boom! Ka-Pow! 5 Tips to Write Fight Scenes
• The Dramatic Question and Suspense in Fiction
• How to Write a Memorable Beginning and Ending
• How to Write the Perfect First Page

6 Lessons and Exercises to Beat Writer's Block

Writer's block is real, and it can completely derail your writing. Here are six lessons to get writing again:

• How To Write Whether You Feel Like it Or Not
• This Fun Creative Writing Exercise Will Change Your Life
• When You Should Be Writing But Can't…
• What to do When Your Word Count is Too Low
• 7 Tricks to Write More with Less Willpower
• When You Don’t Know What to Write, Write About Your Insecurities

7 Literary Technique Lessons and Exercises

These writing and storytelling techniques will teach you a few tricks of the trade you may not have discovered before:

• 3 Tips to “Show, Don’t Tell” Emotions and Moods
• 3 Reasons to Write Stream of Consciousness Narrative
• 16 Observations About Real Dialogue
• Intertextuality As A Literary Device
• Why You Should Use Symbolism In Your Writing
• 6 Ways to Evoke Emotion in Poetry and Prose
• 3 Tips To Write Modern Allegorical Novels
• Symbol vs. Motif: What’s the Difference

3 Inspirational Writing Lessons and Exercises

Need some inspiration? Here are three of our most inspiring posts:

• Why We Write: Four Reasons
• You Must Remember Every Scar
• 17 Reasons to Write Something NOW

3 Publishing Blogging Lessons and Exercises

If you want to get published, these three lessons will help:

• The Secret to Writing On Your Blog Every Day
• How to Publish Your Book and Sell Your First 1,000 Copies
• How to Get Published in Literary Magazines

11 Writing Prompts

Need inspiration or just a kick in the pants to write. Try one of our top writing prompts :

• Grandfathers [writing prompt]
• Out of Place [writing prompt]
• Sleepless [writing prompt]
• Longing [writing prompt]
• Write About Yourself [writing prompt]
• 3 Reasons You Should Write Ghost Stories
• Road Trip [writing prompt]
• Morning [writing prompt]
• The Beach [writing prompt]
• Fall [writing prompt]
• How to Use Six-Word Stories As Writing Prompts

Is It Time To Begin Your Writing Practice?

It's clear that if you want to become a writer, you need to practice writing. We've created a proven process to practice your writing at The Write Practice, but even if you don't join our community, I hope you'll start practicing in some way today.

Personally, I waited  far  too long to start practicing and it set my writing back years.

How about you? Do you think practicing writing is important?  Let me know in the comments section .

Choose one of the writing practice posts above. Then, read the lesson and participate in the writing exercise, posting your work in the Pro Practice Workshop . And if you post, please give feedback to your fellow writers who also posted their practices.

Have fun and happy practicing!

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

50 Comments

You have THE BEST content for writing on this blog!!

Thank you, Kristen. This made my morning. 🙂

Thanks Mitch. 🙂

I can’t remember when I started following this website. I have to look in my notebooks because that’s where I did these practices. I didn’t have access to a computer when I did them, so I wrote them out, setting the time limit. But even when I do get to a computer, I have my reservations about putting my practices on the page. even though it’s practice, I want them to be the best, almost perfect. But I know it won’t be. I’ve gotten feedback before that says so. It still gets to me that I didn’t put something together that not everyone liked. I need to get over it. After all, that is what these practices are about: to learn and improve on our craft.

I don’t know either, George, but it’s been several years. Perfectionism is something so many of us face, and it’s made worse when you don’t have a critique community as warm and encouraging as ours is. I hope you and everyone here are always willing to try something new, even if it comes out a little messed up, because you know we’ll support you and try to make you better.

What a great share! Thanks so much!

You’re so welcome, Elizabeth. Thank you for commenting.

when I ran writing classes I wrote. when I am “a member of writing classes” the teacher/leader/facilitator is NOT MY AUDIENCE and so I don’t write as well/as much. I don’t get the feedback I need from fellow students because most of them have never run their own writing projects/workshops. So many people expect you to write their story for them. I’ve actually got quite a few stories of me own. I have finally decided I like owning them. 😉

It sounds like you need a new critique group, Patience! Hope you can find a place where you get the feedback you need.

Wow! Terrific round-up of resources. 🙂

Thanks Stephanie. 🙂

Practice is necessary, period. It doesn’t matter what you want to learn. If you want to improve, practice is vital.

It’s odd. I’ve known and applied that principle for years on a variety of things. Painting. Drawing. Blogging. Gardening. Laundry.

But never writing.

Like you, I had the notion that just writing every day was all it took to improve. Why not the same level of dedication to writing?

Perhaps it’s time to change that!

I can relate, Carrie. It’s easy to confuse the craft of writing with journaling, thinking that you can just write whatever you feel like and you’ll get better, write something worth reading. The truth is that writing interesting things to read is a skill, but the good news is that you can get better at it with practice. Thanks for practicing with us! 🙂

I love these suggestions , and have set Writing Practice as my homepage so the first 15 minutes of my day is spent writing, whether its a practice or exercise here or another that is sprinkled through out this site, Thank you for all you do everyone here at The Write Practice

This is great Debra. I want to write the first 15 minutes of my day too!

I agree with Joe, Do it. Could be your to do list… ( that could lead to something else story wse later)

I love that, Debra. Such a good way to start your day.

Thanks Joe!

The best! Thank you so much for this.

You’re very welcome!

I simply LOVE all the tips and suggestions given on this blog. They are super helpful!

THANK you. We love sharing them with you. 🙂

Hi! You forgot the link to How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide.

Thanks a lot for your work! This post is amazing.

It’s a great post Thiago. Definitely one of our most shared. Thanks for mentioning it! BTW here’s the link:

https://thewritepractice.com/a-story-a-week/

Wow!! There are so many exercises…. I just love it..! I am gonna really enjoy it..!

Awesome! Thank you for reading and practicing with us. 🙂

I only read halfway , My tootie is jumping all over me, and typing this is a struggle when a 3yr old wants his Toy Story movie on Youtube in this computer. Thank you for this article, will come back later to finish reading.

I know the feeling! Good luck!

Can’t wait to get stuck in with this! 🙂

Very helpful! Thank you!

I’ve just bookmarked this page. Thanks for this wonderful list.

This is awesome! So many helpful tips. I will be coming back to this often. Thanks for posting this!

Wow, so many goodies! Thank you for always providing such amazing content!!

I have enjoyed all these articles. Thank you for the help an inspiration to get my writing on its way. My creativity is boosting with confidence. Tootle loo.

Amazing contents for beginners like me Joe. I am highly inspired by your commitment. Thank you.

Hey, thanks!

Although I have only read half of thisc article, the practice exercises are excellent. Some of them are exactly what a beginning writer like myself needs. I am committing to at least try ALL of them. Thanks Joe!!

very helpful! thank you..

Amazing articles! Thanks so much for sharing!

My god this article made me love this site . You know it’s kinda hard for a beginner writer, who don’t know where to start and fixing goals, even samll ones give us a direction . A place to go , an aim for our creativity so thanks you , this community and this site. Love you all . At your pens ! 😉

Wow. This is great. I find all your posts informative, but this one is the best for me to use as a guide to get my self starting to write….Thank you.

I’m an old lady who wants to publish one more book before I die — have published several, all non-fiction, and done two under contract to a major publisher (reference books). So help me, the BIGGEST problem I have all along, is keeping track of the damned paper work and research that goes into a book!!! Yet I never ever see articles on something as simple as “How to file” — Oh I know, there’s wonderful software these days so probably I will never find a way to get paper organized — everybody will use software and do it on the computer. I’m too old for that — just one look at the learning curve for software, even putting the damned stuff into computer files is even MORE frustrating than paper!! Oh well, somehow I managed in the past to get books published, I may be able to do it one more time.

you enjoy writing more than anything else and you do indeed care to help others write. I love writing but translation from Arabic into English and English into Arabic is taking all of my time from the early hours of the morning till the evening. I will soon get all of your books in order to read them as soon as possible. One thing I am sure of. You know what you are doing very well. Hamzah

Excellent! Many useful tips. Many thanks!

Liz and Joe, I have only looked at a few exercises. Already, I am convinced that your site is one of the best sites out there. Thank your for sharing your wisdom.

Wow, these are the best lessons and exercises for writing. Actually i’m participating in a compitition this wendsday. so, i’m quite nervous and exited. this helped me a lot

Magnificent post ever I have read. This article will help me a lot to write a right way. Thank you.

i need your help to improve to become a better writer please. i think i usually commit moist of these errors and i don;t pay attention to many advices too.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• OTR Links 08/17/2015 | doug — off the record - […] 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises […]
• Join the Wacky Writing Prompt Scavenger Hunt (and win silly prizes) - […] Looking for more awesome writing prompts? Find our top 100 writing prompts and writing exercises here » […]
• 5 Hacks to Create a Good Writing Habit - […] To keep yourself focused as you write, consider writing with a timer. […]
• The Only Habit You Need as a Writer - […] It’s the same formula for writing: practice, practice, practice. […]
• Last Week Links For 11/2-11/7 | B. Shaun Smith - […] 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises […]
• 9 blogs per a amants de l’escriptura creativa | Raquel Picolo - […] 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises […]
• 5 Out-of-the-Box Writing Prompt Sources by Emily Wenstrom | ARHtistic License - […] Fortunately, you don’t have to just sit there and take it—there’s ways to take matters into your own hands…
• 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises | dkstevens327 - […] https://thewritepractice.com/writing-practice […]
• 10 Short Story Ideas - […] share it with a friend or join a writing critique group. Feedback is the most important piece of a good…
• 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises - I'm a Writer! - […] Source: 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises […]
• Prompted again… – My Journal-Blog - […] I’ve decided to not go to The daily post to get prompted for my blog post. Instead, I went…
• Writing | Writing in the Real World - […] Here is a link to some practice exercises to help you start writing: Practice! […]
• Writing Exercises for Authors | Writing Prompt Contests - […] for their informative articles and writing exercises, The Write Practice has another list of ten of writing exercises to…
• Frankfort Writers Center » Want to Be a Better Writer? Practice Writing - […] Bunting’s website, The Write Practice, especially this post which features 100 Top Writing Practice Lessons and Exercises, is loaded with tips…
• Want to Be a Better Writer? Practice Writing - Charity Singleton Craig - […] Bunting’s website, The Write Practice, especially this post which features 100 Top Writing Practice Lessons and Exercises, is loaded with tips…
• How to Practice Writing Like Van Gogh Practiced Painting | Creative Writing - […] or describing a person we’ve seen, or building an image of a place we’ve been, we practice writing and…
• What’s Really Keeping You from Writing? | Creative Writing - […] wants to succeed and be good at what they do. But we don’t become the best at something without…
• Intro – Site Title - […] to play at least 20 minutes a day. Essay: I am a very slow writer, so I challenge myself…
• Top 20 of Best Writing Blogs Recommended Most Times by Writing Pros - Consultants 500 - […] Handy Resources: JK Rowling’s 8 Rules of Writing Want to Be a Better Writer? Cut These 7 Words 7…
• Ultimate Guide on How to Be an Author - Author LaVera Edick - […] Learning good writing practices from the experienced authors is one of the best way to acquire sufficient knowledge in…
• 5 Tips to Transform Your Loneliness Into Self Reflection – everydaypower-com - […] your head by free writing for 10 minutes. Just write down whatever is on your mind. Afterwards, be a…
• Your First Writing Practice - […] how fifteen minutes of creative writing each day could change your life. Fifteen minutes of writing practice a day, and…
• Writing Workshop: Can a Workshop Help You Become a Better Writer? - […] Lessons on the creative writing process. […]
• Writing Workshop: Can a Writing Workshop Help You Become a Better Writer? – Books, Literature & Writing - […] Lessons on the creative writing process. Structured time to plan your writing piece and brainstorm story ideas Structured writing…
• Writing Prompt: Two Reasons to Write About Departures - […] or a job in a new city, departures can be stressful, exciting, and full of conflict. Use this prompt…
• Two Reasons to Write About Departures – Lederto.com Blog - […] or a job in a new city, departures can be stressful, exciting, and full of conflict. Use this prompt…
• Two Reasons to Write About Departures | Blog Writing Services - […] or a job in a new city, departures can be stressful, exciting, and full of conflict. Use this prompt…
• What’s the most useful marketing tip you’ve found from this post? - […] or a job in a new city, departures can be stressful, exciting, and full of conflict. Use this prompt…
• 5 Writing Tips for Beginners | Become a Writer Today - […] a good idea to devote time to practice writing about different topics. You can start by discussing simpler and less…
• Best Content Writing Tools Recommended Most Times by the Pros - Consultants 500 - […] Handy Resources: JK Rowling’s 8 Rules of Writing Want to Be a Better Writer? Cut These 7 Words 7…
• The 4pm Blowjob – Buy Free Stuff - […] clarify to your peers what exactly it is that you do. If you adore travel and you have a…
• Satisfy Any Sweet Tooth With These Favorite Candy Bars - My live Posts - Best Place for Bloggers - […] to dⲟ something wߋrk-wise tһat made mｅ һappy, [HP fuel tank ԛuickly remarked that іt was writing. Ⴝo that’s…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Submit Comment

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts :

Popular Resources

Book Writing Tips & Guides Creativity & Inspiration Tips Writing Prompts Grammar & Vocab Resources Best Book Writing Software ProWritingAid Review Writing Teacher Resources Publisher Rocket Review Scrivener Review Gifts for Writers

Books By Our Writers

Now, Take Your Idea and Write a Book!

Enter your email to get a free 3-step worksheet and start writing your book in just a few minutes.

You've got it! Just us where to send your guide.

Enter your email to get our free 10-step guide to becoming a writer.

You've got it! Just us where to send your book.

Enter your first name and email to get our free book, 14 Prompts.

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months . Learn more →

✍️ 100+ Creative Writing Exercises for Fiction Authors

This curated directory of creative writing exercises was conceived thanks to a collaboration between the top writing blogs of 2024. Use the filters to find and practice specific techniques — and show that blank page who’s boss!

We found 119 exercises that match your search 🔦

The Hammer and the Hatchet

A stranger walks into the general store and buys a hammer, a hatchet, some rope, and an apple. What does he do with them?

Writer's Block

Picket fence.

Describe your house - or the dream house you hope to get some day.

Telephone Directory

It is commonly known that a telephone directory might be the most boring text in the entire world. Here is your challenge: write a page of a telephone directory and figure out SOME way to make it interesting.

NEW VIDEO COURSE

Your story matters. Unlock your potential with daily video lessons from bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley, and finish your first draft in just 3 months. Learn more →

Pick a fiction book from your shelf. Go to page eight and find the eighth sentence on the page. Start with that sentence and write an eight-line poem that connects in some way to your work-in-progress. For instance, write from the POV of a character, or set the poem in a story setting. Don't worry about poetry forms. Just write eight lines of any length that flow and explore some aspect of character, setting, or theme.

• Why are you grumpy? I have a hangover.
• Why do you have a hangover? My friend was in a bad accident and I thought he might die?
• Why did you think he might die? His girlfriend lied to me about how serious the accident was.
• Why did she lie about that? She's jealous of our relationship.
• Why? I think she's insecure and has trust issues.

Character Development

The ellen degeneres show.

A talk show is scripted to promote the guest and discuss topics with which the guest is comfortable. Imagine your protagonist on the Ellen Degeneres Show (or The Late Show With Stephen Colbert - whichever show you're familiar with). What questions would be asked of your protagonist? What funny anecdotes would your protagonist share? Write down the reactions of both your protagonist and the host.

• You could say it began with a phone call."
• Michael had watched them both for weeks."
• She remembered the way it was the first time she saw the prison."
• Midsummer, no time to be in New Orleans."
• With the dawn came the light."

Thank you to all our contributors: Almost An Author, Alyssa Hollingsworth, Anne R. Allen, Bang2Write, Christopher Fielden, Darcy Pattinson, Elizabeth S. Craig, Flogging The Quill, Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips, Helping Writers Become Authors, Katie McCoach, Lauren Carter, Insecure Writer’s Support Group, Mandy Wallace, NaNoWriMo, Nail Your Novel, Novel Publicity, One Stop For Writers, Pro Writing Aid, PsychWriter, re:Fiction, The Journal, The Writer’s Workshop, Well-Storied, Women On Writing, writing.ie, Writing-World.com!

Find the perfect editor for your next book

Over 1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

We have an app for that

Build a writing routine with our free writing app.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

Get 25% OFF new yearly plans in our Spring Sale

• Features for Creative Writers
• Features for Work
• Features for Higher Education
• Features for Teachers
• Features for Non-Native Speakers
• Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Events FAQ
• Grammar Guide

14 Creative Writing Exercises to Improve Your Writing

Allison Bressmer

Whether writing is a hobby or a career for you, developing consistent writing habits is key to becoming a better writer.

Blank pages are intimidating. Commit to writing every day to conquer that page and develop your writing skills and style.

By engaging in intentional writing exercises daily, you’ll hone your skills and develop a creative mindset.

These creative writing exercises will get you started immediately!

14 Best Writing Exercises to Try (For Beginners AND Pros)

How do you improve your writing skills, 1. practice freewriting.

To freewrite , set your fingers on your keyboard and start writing; don’t worry about mistakes. Your freewriting is for your eyes only and your goal is simply to get words on the page.

Stuck for a topic? Choose an object you can see—your coffee cup; your sofa; the beat-up (or not) car across the street.

Now, write about the object. You might describe it, tell a story about it, analyze its usefulness—anything is fine. Allow your stream of consciousness to flow and bring ideas to the surface.

The endgame of this writing exercise isn’t to produce great writing about boring objects; it’s to work your writing muscles.

As you search for ways to make these objects interesting, you’ll find unexpected ideas, word choices, and wordplays.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, calls freewriting exercises “Morning Pages” and advises all writers to practice freewriting every day, first thing in the morning, right after waking up.

2. Use Story Starters

Story starters or writing prompts are creative writing exercises that can help you escape a creative rut.

A writing prompt can be anything—a single sentence, a short paragraph, a word. You could even use the first line of a favorite book or newspaper article and take the story in a new direction.

Try building a story from one of these prompts:

• I opened the window.
• We disagreed.
• “It was a pleasure to burn.” (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 )

There are many places to find story starters and writing prompts online, such as Daily Prompt .

3. Write a “Dear Younger Me” Letter

What would you like to say to yourself five, ten, 20, or 50 years ago? Go ahead and write a letter to that younger self!

Maybe you’ll offer advice or reassurance, relive a special moment with them, or tell them how you’ve changed, or haven’t, since you were “their” age.

Another option: imagine what someone else in your life would say to you at a particular time and write from that person’s perspective.

This activity is a great creative writing exercise and a way to tap into your emotions.

4. Do a Point of View (POV) Switch

Take a segment from a favorite book. Rewrite that segment from a different character’s point of view.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is written in third-person limited POV. A third-person narrator tells the story, but focuses on Harry’s thoughts and feelings.

In your rewrite, focus on Hermione’s POV. What does she see that Harry doesn’t? What is she feeling and thinking?

As you write, notice how the story changes. Chances are, it will take on a distinct form and tone and may inspire an idea for a new story of your own.

Or rewrite the segment from an entirely different point of view. If the original is told from first-person POV, recreate it with a third-person narrator.

Note what other changes you’ll have to make because of that switch.

Should you include more or less sensory detail ? Should you adjust what’s revealed about each character thinks or feels?

This writing exercise can help you determine what POV you like writing in best and demonstrate how a single story can be told in several ways.

5. Put Yourself in the Middle of the Action

Take a story that resonates with you.

Rewrite the story as if you’re the main character.

Now that you’ve got eyes “inside” the story, can you expand on the details to make a situation more intense or to convey your feelings more fully? Can you think of ways to make the story more engaging?

As you generate ideas you’ll likely find a creative direction for a new story.

6. Eliminate Empty Words

Sentences contain working words and glue words. Working words tell your reader key information, convey emotions, and provide meaning. Glue words hold the working words together.

Streamline your phrasing to only use necessary glue words. Unnecessary glue words are empty words that clutter your sentences and slow your writing down.

There are, there is, there are, in, on, of, this, just are common glue words that can become empty.

In this sentence, “There are two birds sitting on the roof,” the only purpose of the words “there are” is to make the sentence complete. A better strategy is to use a stronger, more specific verb. For example, “Two birds perch on the roof” or “Two birds idle on the roof.”

ProWritingAid’s Sticky Sentences Report highlights sentences with too many glue words. With rephrasing and editing, you can streamline those sentences and keep your work moving fluently.

To practice, review a scene in your manuscript and restructure sentences to eliminate glue words.

Replace weak verbs with stronger ones and be economical with your word count. Don’t be afraid to cut; you can always go back and add details as needed.

You’ll find yourself choosing more precise words and constructing leaner, clearer sentences.

7. Outline Dialogue-Heavy Scenes

To create a natural back-and-forth exchange between characters, outline the dialogue in dialogue-heavy scenes first.

Don’t worry about writing descriptions, dialogue tags , or body language cues. Just write the basic dialogue.

Then, go back and evaluate what you need to add to express the characters’ tone, feelings, and personality more fully.

Tip: only use dialogue tags when the speaker’s identity isn’t clear. When they’re needed, it’s best to stick with said and asked . If the exchange needs intensity, add action beats—a telling glance or gesture to heighten the moment.

8. Replace Adjectives with Descriptions

Adjectives are powerful. However, they only tell what’s happening; they don’t give the reader an experience. In this sentence, the adjective tells us Peter’s feelings:

• Watching the movie, Peter was scared!

Replacing this with a description allows the reader to experience fear along with Peter:

• When the headless bleeding corpse slithered out from the box in the attic, Peter screamed and ducked behind the sofa!

Now you try.

Review your draft. Look for adjectives you can replace with descriptions.

Use sensory words so your reader can experience the smells, touches, sights, sounds, or tastes you describe.

ProWritingAid’s Sensory Report helps you balance sensory details by analyzing the emphasis you put on each sense. For example, in this sample, my writing has a heavy sight-emphasis.

The report measures 67% of the sensory words as appealing to sight, letting me know I might want to make adjustments and create a more balanced experience.

9. Blog Every Day

Blogging every day encourages regular writing habits and is great practice for any writer.

You can consult online resources for tips on how to find a blog topic or niche.

For example, you might decide to focus on food, on being a teacher, on being a millennial, on parenting, or on being a millennial who is a teacher and a parent!

Focus on a different aspect of that topic each day—even if you simply write a “Day in the Life of a _ _ _ _ _” series.

This limited focus provides a framework, but leaves plenty of room for creativity. Explore within that framework as you develop your voice and style.

For an extra challenge, limit the number of words you write. On slower days, the number will serve as a target. On days when ideas flow, it will help you ensure that each word matters.

10. Write a 500-Word Story

In the writing world, a 500-word story is an example of “ flash fiction. ”

Flash fiction includes all the elements of plot, conflict, and character development, but since it’s so short, every word counts.

Want to try? Write a fully formed story that includes these three words: rose, glass, forbid . Add no more than 497 additional words of your choice!

This exercise will help you focus on story structure, word choice, and powerful imagery.

11. Set a Captivating Mood

Readers should be intrigued by the story and drawn into the setting so they can feel for and with your characters. To make that happen, create a mood.

In Creating Short Fiction , Damon Knight suggests imagining you’re a character in a room. Describe what’s happening in that room and how the character sees, experiences, and responds to those surroundings.

Put the exercise into practice. Imagine an enemy from your past just called you, saying, “I’m outside your door.”

Now describe the space around you. Do everyday objects become potential weapons? Is the air heavy with dread or charged with fear or filled with fury?

12. Be Observant

Pay close attention to your own reality and the emotions you experience in response.

Let’s imagine you’re sitting on a beach. Engage your senses and observe your emotions.

What do you see, hear, taste, smell? What does it feel like to sit in the sun and sand?

Are you feeling excited? Tranquil? Contemplative? What’s triggering that emotion?

Perhaps the roaring waves make you feel small and insignificant—or invigorated! Maybe the ocean is quiet, and the small waves’ gentle rhythm soothes you,

Capture those details and feelings in a journal (or on your phone!). Later, write a scene based in that setting, using those captured details to create sensations and evoke emotions.

13. Practice Empathy

Being sensitive to the feelings of others and seeing the world through their eyes will help you create well-developed characters .

Imagine a mother struggling with a stroller and shopping bags on the bus. Her kids are loud, they press the stop button repeatedly, and she has to take a phone call. Passengers are obviously annoyed.

Write the scene from the mother’s perspective, considering her feelings and frustration. Does she notice the passengers’ anger? Who is calling her? Where is she trying to go?

This exercise also works when you make it personal, though it may be emotionally challenging.

Rewrite a part of your life from the perspective of someone you hold negative feelings about—an ex, an enemy, a boss. Consider their feelings and tell “their side.”

14. Group Writing Exercises

Groups can trigger creative writing ideas.

Give each member time to write one or two themes (one sentence each) for a holiday story.

Shuffle those submissions and redistribute them randomly.

For online groups, post the themes in chat and have everyone use the entry following their own.

Set a timer for ten minutes, during which each writer creates a story fitting their assigned theme.

Then, share your stories! Keep the exercise going with a story swap. Have a new author continue each narrative.

Stephen King once observed:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Reading and observing the work of other writers is essential to developing your skills, but isn’t enough on its own.

You must give your writing skills a workout—and these 14 creative writing exercises provide the perfect starting point.

You don’t have to work alone! Professional bloggers, novelists, copywriters, and other writers use ProWritingAid to receive personalized feedback on their work.

It’s a one-stop tool to help you evaluate, edit, and improve your writing. Try it out today.

Do you want to know how to build a world your readers won’t forget? Download this free book now:

World-Building 101: How to Construct an Unforgettable World for Your Fantasy or Sci-Fi Story!

This guide is for all the writers out there who want to construct an unforgettable world that your readers can’t help but get lost in, learn how to invent species, gods, monsters and more in our immersive guide..

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Allison Bressmer is a professor of freshman composition and critical reading at a community college and a freelance writer. If she isn’t writing or teaching, you’ll likely find her reading a book or listening to a podcast while happily sipping a semi-sweet iced tea or happy-houring with friends. She lives in New York with her family. Connect at linkedin.com/in/allisonbressmer.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

11 Creative Writing Exercises To Awaken Your Inner Author

I believe there’s a writer inside of all of us.

Even if you don’t think you write well, you do have something to say.

You have a story to tell, knowledge to impart , and experiences to share.

You’ve lived a full life that’s packed with observations and adventures, and you shouldn’t exit this Earth without chronicling them in some way.

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, your life is the laboratory for creating a great book or story.

If you can talk, you can write — even if you need to brush up on grammar and spelling. You’ll naturally become a better writer the more you write.

You’ll learn how to organize ideas, make smooth transitions, and expand your vocabulary.

Reading also improves your writing, so if you have the tiniest desire to write well, read a wide variety of books in different genres.

You can accelerate your writing competence with some simple writing exercises.

Your inner creative muscle needs exertion to stay fit and strong — but writing exercises don’t need to be drudgery.

They can be fun and exciting as you see how much creative juice you have just waiting to be squeezed.

These creative exercises should be practiced without self-judgment, inner filters, or concern about what a reader might think.

The purpose is to allow your creative mind complete freedom to cut loose.

You don’t have to show these writing exercises to anyone if you don’t want to.

It’s a good weekly practice engage in writers exercises to what catches your imagination and awakens your inner author .

1. Answer 3 questions.

2. write a letter to your younger self., 3. use writing prompts., 4. write about your expertise. , 5. write a stream of consciousness page., 6. write a story told to you., 7. pretend to be someone else. , 8. write about something or someone who changed your life., 9. describe your surroundings., 10. pick a number., 11. describe a dream of yours — or the life of your dreams., what are creative writing exercises.

“Perfect” writers don’t exist. Even Ernest Hemingway and Alice Walker honed the craft right up to their waning days. Growth, improvement, and experimentation are the clarion calls of professional and aspiring scribes. And those who succeed put in the work.

That’s where creative writing exercises come in, as they’re designed to help you play with words in a non-judgmental environment.

Common “craft-sharpening” writing games and tools include:

• Prompt prose
• Timed freewriting
• Stream-of-consciousness exercises
• Vocabulary teasers / mad libs
• Restricted writing (i.e., every sentence must start with a verb, certain words cannot be mentioned, et cetera)

Serious writers — and people serious about becoming better writers — are perpetually composing pieces that will never see the light of day. But just as a tennis player hits thousands of serves during practice sessions, writers scribe thousands of short language exercises. To continue the sports analogy: Writing exercises are the equivalent of an athlete stretching before a game or match.

Here are 11 creative writing exercises to get you started:

In this exercise, you’ll use three questions to stimulate creative thought. You can write these questions yourself, but I’ll give you some examples to show you what to do.

You want to answer the questions as quickly as you can, with whatever ideas pop into your mind.

Write as much or as little as you wish, but just allow the words to flow without pondering too much what you want to say.

• Who just snuck out the back window?
• What were they carrying?
• Where were they going?
• Who is Ethan?
• Why is he crying?
• What is he going to do about it?
• Whose house is Julia leaving?
• Why was she there?
• Where is she going now?

In this exercise, you are writing to yourself at a younger age. It can be your childhood self or yourself just a few years back.

You can offer advice, compassion, explanation, forgiveness, or praise.

Or you can simply recount an experience you had and how it impacted you as your adult self now.

Try to see this younger self as a real and separate person when you write the letter. This exercise helps you think about your reader as a real person with emotions — a person who can be moved and inspired by your writing.

Again, try not to overthink this exercise. Spend a few minutes deciding the core message of the letter, and then just start writing without filters.

A writing prompt is an idea that jumpstarts the writing process.

The prompt can be a short sentence, a paragraph, or even a picture, but the purpose is the same — to ignite your creativity so you’ll begin writing.

Writing prompts can help you when you feel stuck while writing your book.

If you take ten minutes to work on a writing prompt, you can go back to your book writing primed to get down to business. It stimulates ideas for a writer and releases the creative process.

Here are a few prompts you can use:

Think about something you know how to do well. It can be anything from washing the dishes to selling stocks.

Write a few paragraphs (or more if you wish) explaining some aspect of how to do what you do.

Assume your reader is completely ignorant about the subject.

This writing shouldn’t sound like a dry instruction manual. Try to write in a conversational style, as though you’re verbally explaining the process.

Break down the steps in a way that makes the reader understand exactly what to do, without using business jargon or buzzwords.

This is an easy and fun exercise. You want to write it in longhand rather than typing on your computer, as handwriting slows down the process and allows more time for your creative brain to do its work.

Grab a pen and blank pad and simply start writing. Write down whatever comes into your brain, no matter how nonsensical or disjointed.

There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages — they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow.

In this exercise, you want to recount a story told to you by another person.

It can be a story one of your parents or grandparents shared about something that happened many years ago, or it can be a more recent event a friend or family member recounted.

Or you can tell a story you learned in school or through reading about a well-known person or event.

The story can be funny, sad, or educational — but it should be interesting, entertaining, or engaging in some way.

Whether your book is fiction or non-fiction, readers love stories.  They enjoy relating to the lives and experiences of other people.

When you share stories in your writing, you humanize your writing and take your readers on a small journey.

In this exercise, you’ll practice writing from another person’s perspective. You can choose a person you know well, or you can write from the point of view of an imagined character.

Put yourself in this person’s shoes, see things through their eyes, and react the way they would react.

Choose one situation, encounter, or setting, and write what you see, hear, think, and feel about the scenario. Get inside of this person’s brain, and try to be as descriptive as possible.

You can write a paragraph or several pages if you’re inspired.

In this exercise, rather than telling the story of someone else or pretending to be another person, you want to share your story from your perspective.

Write about a person or event that has profoundly impacted you and changed your life.

Rather than simply recounting the situation, talk about how it made you feel, what your reactions were, and how you were changed on the inside as well as the outside.

Pour your heart into this writing. Remember, you don’t have to show it to anyone, so be completely vulnerable and real in this exercise.

More Related Articles

27 Powerful Writing Tips For Your First Book

252 Of The Best Writing Prompts For All Writers

17 Things to Write About For Your Next Nonfiction Book

Simply write a paragraph or two about your surroundings.

You can write in first person (“I am sitting at my desk, which is littered with papers and old coffee cups.”), or write in third person, simply describing what you see (“The room is bleak and empty except for one old wooden chair.”).

Challenge yourself to use descriptive language to set the scene.

Rather than saying, “The light is shining through the window,” you might say, “The morning sun is streaming through the window, spotlighting a million dancing dust particles and creating mottled shadows on my desk.”

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction , you want to write intriguing descriptions that invite the reader into the setting so they can “see” what you see.

Even numbers can serve to inspire writing. This exercise combines numbers with something else you probably have at your disposal.

Pick a random number between 1 and 30. We’ll call it number n. Then look to your bookshelf (real or virtual) and choose the nth book.

( Note: If you have more than 30 books on your shelf, you can choose a bigger number).

Then you’d open that book to the nth page and go to the nth sentence on that page.

Write that sentence down and make it the first sentence of a new freewriting exercise. Just write whatever comes to mind for the next sentence and the one after that, and so on.

Write at least as many sentences as the number you chose.

Think of a dream you remember and describe it in as much detail as you can recall.

From there, you can take that dream and turn it into a story or play with possible interpretations — serious or just for fun.

Or you can write about the life you dream of living. Describe a perfect day in that life, from the time you wake up to the time you lie back down.

Describe the home in which you live or the places you want to go. Imagine you’re living there in the locale of your choice for as long as you wish.

Don’t bother trying to make it sound realistic.

Just let the words flow, and enjoy the ride. Part of the fun of learning how to practice writing fiction is letting your imagination take over — without any heckling from your inner editor.

How These Exercises Can Make You a Better Writer 

At first explanation, writing exercises may sound a tad tedious. But people who do them improve by leaps and bounds. 

For starters, it all comes down to the human brain’s wiring. In short, every thought and idea we have is conducted by electrical impulses that torpedo around our nervous systems. When we practice something, the associated “circuits” grow myelin, a biological cushion that protects nerves. The added shielding optimizes the relevant electrical paths, rendering them more efficient. 

In other words: The more you do something, the better you’ll get. It doesn’t matter if you have an IQ of 80 or 180. Practice yields results. With writing, the more you do it, the better work you’ll produce. 

Specifically, creative prose lessons also:

• Keep your creativity muscles limber
• Help exercise your vocabulary
• Present opportunities to think about ideas and situations from different perspectives
• Help writers workshop characters, plots, and ideas

Final Thoughts

No matter how experienced you are as a writer, you can always improve and tap deeper into the wellspring of your own creativity.

You can always learn new ways to express yourself and delight your reader.

View these writing exercises as a means to opening doors of insight and imagination and enjoy the process of becoming a better writer.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

.

, , , .

, , .

• Kindle Unlimited Free Books
• Writing Piggy Monk Square
• Piggy Monk Square – Book Reviews
• Practical Creative Writing Exercises Book
• Authors Notes – Writing Fiction Street
• The Sunshine Girl
• Kindle Unlimited eBooks for Children
• Writing About Ballyyahoo
• Free Stories For Kids
• The Witch Of Ballyyahoo
• A Story For Cats And About Cats.
• Bonkers In Ballyyahoo
• The Little Book Of Swinging On A Gate
• Free as a Ladybird
• The Tree Hugger
• Football Mad – A Funny Children’s Story
• Football Crazy
• Creative Thinking
• Creative Writing – Flow
• Walking and Inspiration
• Dream a Little Dream
• How To Increase Your Creativity in Five Easy Steps
• On Confessing To Depression
• Giving up the Day Job to Write
• Don’t tell me nobody wants to read my stories.
• Political Satire – Funny or Not?
• Talking To Strangers
• Go Set A Watchman – Her Choice?
• Writing For The Market
• Why Women Writers Use Initials
• Ten worst things about social networks.
• How Not To Deal With Criticism
• Transparency and The Irish Film Board
• What Do I Know About Bullying?
• Valentine’s Day And My Green Heart
• Too Many Experts
• Be True To Yourself
• The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
• Small Great Things – Jodi Picoult
• Just Friends – Elizabeth Grey
• The Woman Who Walked Into Doors – Roddy Doyle
• Cookie Policy

Creative Writing Exercises

Don’t know where to start?

Suffering from writer’s block?

Short of ideas?

Many of us get stuck when faced with the blank page.

But what if you didn’t ever have to face that blank page again?

Creative writing exercises can eliminate those blocks and get your creative juices flowing immediately.

As a writer, I firmly believe in the power of creative writing exercises.

Why? Because this is how I started myself – using random words and phrases to stimulate ideas and get me past that intimidating blank page.

The Power of Exercise

I have worked with creative writing students of all ages and background and using this experience I began to devise, develop and tweak my exercises.

From their response, I was able to judge which exercises worked best and I added to my collection over the years.

My book, Practical Creative Writing Exercises is the result and I am so happy to be able to say many writers have used the book to great success and I am sure you will too.

The exercises don’t just trigger ideas but are specifically designed to be visual.

Visual exercises help you overcome your mental editor.

BEAT YOUR  MENTAL EDITOR

Each of us has our own mental editor.

The mental editor is frequently triggered when you start something new and creative.

It usually takes the form of a critical voice, plaguing you with nagging doubts about your own ability – the last thing you need when you want to focus on writing a story .

Ultimately, your mental editor can stop you writing.

It used to happen to me before I discovered how to switch it off with writing exercises.

Use the exercises in the book and you’ll soon forget you ever had a mental editor.

EXPERIENCE FLOW

One of the joys of writing is being in a state of flow.

Flow is a state of mind which occurs naturally.

It happens when you are so focused on your story that the real world disappears.

Time flies, you enjoy your work and the words mount up.

Believe me, being in flow is one of the most wonderful creative experiences you can ever have and creative exercises will help you to experience this too.

My practical creative writing exercises are descriptive and carefully designed to help you see the images and ideas in your mind.

Further questions then enable you to see your story, rather like a movie running through your head as you write.

Get Practical Creative Writing Exercises now and find that story you always wanted to write.

Never Be Stuck Again!

 get ebook from amazon.com ,  get ebook from amazon.co.uk, share this:, 31 responses to creative writing exercises.

Thanks Stephanie, glad you liked them. Let me know how you get on! Grace

I have spent most of this afternoon allowing my mind to wander and creating some really interesting characters/ situations….Thank you for this webpage it was exactly what I needed to motivate and inspire me. From this day forth my mindless scribblings will have a more structured purpose to them, and I am sure, as a result my stories will far better because of it. Merci beaucoup!!!!!

Hi Anthony – it was great to get your comment and I am so glad you found motivation and inspiration from the exercises. Come back soon and tell me how your writing developed – I’d love to know. Grace

Amazing read. I’m looking to start a small web series or a writing website to expand on my writing ideas and to practice creative writing.

Thanks Dana, best of luck with your writing. Keep in touch and let me know how it goes for you. All the best, Grace

I was trying to look up good exercises for my Creative Writing Club group and after finding this website I realize that I have found some great ones! I can’t wait to use some of these and to get them on this website and writing. Thank you so much for compiling this and sharing it with us. Absolutely amazing!

Hi Maggie, thanks for your comments. I am very glad you found the exercises helpful and hope your group find them helpful also. I am soon going to be bringing out a book of exercises and I think you will find it very useful. Best wishes Grace

As someone who wants to make videogames and always loves new ways to strengthen my imagination, I am really thankful that you have put together all of these exercises. I hope through them I can become a more creative writer and bring deep stories to my games. So far I like the abstract and dramatic exercises the best.

Hi Jeremy, thanks for your comments. Keep in touch I would be very interested to hear how you get on with your video games. Best wishes, Grace

Thanks alot, I found it very useful, because im a student that has an essay tomorrow and my English isnt very good. I just have to tell my friends about this page. Thanks A MILLION

I am glad it helped. Best of luck with your work. Grace

What do you call it when a story just refuses to be picked up from a point? Its like, I get inspired and start writing and if I stop, that’s the end of it! I don’t feel inspired same way and the story feels offended if i resume it half-assed. It is so frustrating. Do you have any help for hopeless people like me?

Hi Subhadra, This is a problem for a lot of writers also. It is always easier to stay fresh and inspired at the start of a story. The problems start when that flush of enthusiasm fades a little. There are two things you can try. First always end your writing session at a point where you are sure you know where you going and still feel good. If you know what is going to happen next just make a quick note about it. Then when you begin your next writing session you are starting at a high point – not a low.

The other suggestion I have is to plan your story first – even just few notes. If you have a fairly good idea of where you are going you will find it much easier to keep writing. Remind yourself that a lot of writers get frustrated and that the more you write the easier it will get. Best of luck with it and don’t forget to come back and tell me how you get on. Grace

Thanks a lot……. I am always thinking to write but I hesitate to do so. now on finding your website, I got much enthusiastic about writing, I will definitely love to be in touch with you.

Hi Emm Jay, Great to hear you are feeling enthusiastic – keep going! Best wishes Grace

Hi Grace, we used one of your exercises for our writing group and enjoyed the creativity that it inspired. Thank you! Karen

Hi Karen, I am so glad it worked and that you and your group enjoyed it. Thanks for letting me know – good luck with your writing. Grace

You have an excellent site Grace. Thanks so much for the writing exercises. They really do provide a jump-start for lagging creative energy.

Kind regards, Craig

Hi Craig, Thanks a million for that – warms my heart to hear it. Best of luck with your writing. Grace

Another cute lil start out technique:

Ape the sure hand of the sure master. Step into the shoes of F Scott Fitzgerald, Nabokov, Bulgakov, Hemmingway, Faulkner, Shakespeare (yes, you can!) and spend a few moments imitating their style/s.

Try on their ways if capturing a scene and emotion:

Driving through the “green echoes” of Nabokov

Wear the “Wet hair like a blue daub of paint” of Fitzgerald

Imagine “A cat of great size that rides the tram by himself” by Bulgakov

Ask “What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse…?” (Shakespeare).

Catch the tail of the wind… Let your pictures narrow down into a telling single feature (one or two features, maybe).

you go to a store. Afterwards, how do you know you have been there? Because you remember every item on every shelf? No, no. And who wants to read that? We all have been to stores. Let’s go to your store. Mine is a foot-aching place with a hospital-white floor of dubiously high polish… etc etc… Whatever becomes important – hone in on that. There is more to be said by saying less.

“A fire of red roses” (my own).

“I blathered on and on, as one drunk to another does, telling my tale of a short prude, a tall miser and a well-developed adolescent sylph and her dog of mixed eye color…” (my own again).

Catch it – and let the reader catch it. That’s all that is necessary. The hard work, when you are beginning to frame a scene is to give the telling feature. Too much is always too much. Words bloat.

Avoid adjectiving the black, white, fat, short, tall, happy, sad reader who drives a red car with a red steering wheel to their slow death. Drive, plot, mastermind, dear god do it- and keep your readers in suspense.

Write for yourself, but write like the world is listening. Hook into what they know. Assume they have as much life experience as you.

And so it ends. Wa laum.

Thanks for this Kris – beautiful quotes and suggestions. All the best Grace

Hello ! i am a student of English Language. I have to write a short story by myself at topic ‘In a winters night’ . I have to write exposition means the biggning of the story. I am thinking to write at a universal theme but i have no idea still. Can you help me ?The information you shared i really found it helpfull. Thank you

Hi Urwa ‘In a Winters Night’ is quite a broad topic so you have many options. Start by thinking of location and character for your story. Write down all your ideas – then pick the one you like the best. Think about what might happen to change your character’s life and write down these ideas also. Pick the best and start. Remember the only way to write is to write. Best of luck. Grace

Hello ! i am a student of English Language. I have to write a short story by myself at topic ‘In a winters night’ . I have to write exposition means the biggning of the story.

Hi Grace, I Am good in writing but but I went to take it to a professional level .i need advice please

Hi Godfrey, Thanks for the comment. As it happens I am glad you mentioned this because I am now taking new clients for writing coaching. You will find the details here: https://www.practicalcreativewriting.com/writing-coaching/

Looking forward to hearing from you. Grace

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

[…] Creative Writing Exercises – set your imagination free. […]

[…] https://www.practicalcreativewriting.com/creative-writing-exercises/ […]

[…] other great pages for you to visit are creative writing exercises and abstract creative writing exercises. I have not only used these many times myself I have also […]

[…] Creative Writing Exercises | Practical Creative Writing […]

Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Email (will not be published) (required)

Notify me of new posts by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

5 Creative Writing Exercises to Get Your Creativity Flowing

• 6-minute read
• 2nd February 2023

Whether you’re suffering from writer’s block or you just want to hone your talent, we’ve got five creative writing exercises to help improve your skills and inspire your creativity for your next novel , short story , or poem .

The Benefits of Creative Writing Exercises

Writing is like any skill: the more you practice it, the better you’ll get. Creative writing exercises are a way to flex your writing muscles. These tasks can help you:

●  Look at your writing from a different perspective

●  Expand your vocabulary

●  Practice certain skills, such as writing dialogue or developing characters

●  Generate ideas for longer pieces of writing

Writers of any level, from beginner to advanced, can use writing exercises. We’ve designed the five examples provided below to help you improve your skills, wherever you are in your writing journey.

1. Free Writing

Before you dive into some more specific exercises, why not try a bit of free writing?

This exercise involves writing down your thoughts and feelings as they come and acts almost like a stream of consciousness .

Here’s one way to try out free writing:

• Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Typing on a computer gives you more time to think about and edit what you’re writing – that’s not what you want to do here!
• Choose one of these prompts to start from:

●  Who are you?

●  How do you feel?

●  What can you see?

●  What are you thinking about?

●  Why are you writing?

• Set a timer for however long you want to write. If you’re new to free writing, we recommend starting with ten-minute periods.
• Write nonstop until your time is up.

The idea of free writing is to get your brain and body into the writing mind-set. It’s also a good tool for producing ideas naturally without censoring yourself or interrupting the flow by editing what you’ve written.

You might even find that your piece of free writing has turned up a few gems that you can use for your next work!

2. Describe an Object

Description can make up large portions of a story and helps ground the reader in the world you’re creating while also providing important details.

If you want to sharpen your descriptive writing skills, we’ve got three variations of the Describe an Object exercise to try.

First, choose an object near you. Now challenge yourself by writing a description of that object that meets one of the following criteria:

• Doesn’t use the name of the object (for example, if you chose a chair, you can’t use the word chair in your description)
•  Doesn’t use the word very (for example, use huge instead of very big )
• Uses only similes (for example, The chair is like a throne for a very poor king .)

If you’re looking to push yourself even further, you could try writing a description using all three rules at once!

You can also use this exercise to practice describing other things, such as people, places, or emotions.

3. The Truth Potion

Here’s a fun exercise to try if you want to practice your character-writing skills: imagine your character has accidentally drunk a truth potion and now can’t lie!

Write about what happens next and answer these questions:

●  How does the character feel about having to tell the truth?

●  What unexpected secrets are they forced to reveal?

●  How do the other characters react to learning these things?

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

You can use one of your own characters for this exercise or borrow one from your favorite book.

By forcing a character to be honest in this way, you can explore their backstory, motivations, and potential development while also considering what details you would normally hide from other characters (and your readers).

4. An Alternate Universe

The plot of a novel or short story often hinges on a series of events or decisions. So what would happen if one of those events happened differently?

This question is the basis for our next exercise.

Choose a piece of your own writing or a scene from one of your favorite books and identify what happens to trigger the next stage of the plot.

For example, in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring , icy weather conditions force the protagonists to enter the mines of Moria, where a deadly battle later takes place.

Once you’ve identified the catalyst in your chosen scene, either remove it or change it. Then write an alternate version of what follows, exploring what direction the plot might now take.

Using our above example, we could write about the Fellowship’s peaceful journey through a sunny mountain pass – but would a change in weather trigger new dangers, such as melting ice?

When you make your change, think about what new obstacles it will introduce to the story and how these will affect the plot going forward.

5. Talk It Out

Dialogue can play a key part in telling a story. But it can be difficult to write dialogue that feels natural and engaging while remaining relevant to the events that unfold.

For this exercise, we challenge you to write a scene using just dialogue – that means no narration, description, or dialogue tags !

You’ll need to take two characters, then write a conversation between them.

If you’re struggling for ideas, here are some first lines you can use as a starting point:

●  I should have known it was you.

●  Where are you going?

●  This can’t wait any longer.

●  What happened last night?

●  We might have a problem.

●  I need to confess to something.

●  Do you like surprises?

As you’re writing, think about how you can tell a story and convey information about characters using only the things they say – or the things they don’t.

These are just a few examples of the many types of creative writing exercises you can use to improve your writing skills and explore new ideas.

The most important thing is to find exercises that interest you and inspire you to write.

Each exercise is designed to work on a specific aspect of writing, so it’s important to practice a variety of exercises to become a well-rounded writer.

Expert Proofreading for Authors

We hope our exercises will help you break through writer’s block and free your creativity!

If we’ve inspired you to write your next masterpiece , don’t forget to get it proofread. Our team of proofreaders is here to help 24/7 and can even offer a free proofreading sample .

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

3-minute read

What Is a Content Editor?

Are you interested in learning more about the role of a content editor and the...

4-minute read

The Benefits of Using an Online Proofreading Service

Proofreading is important to ensure your writing is clear and concise for your readers. Whether...

2-minute read

6 Online AI Presentation Maker Tools

Creating presentations can be time-consuming and frustrating. Trying to construct a visually appealing and informative...

What Is Market Research?

No matter your industry, conducting market research helps you keep up to date with shifting...

8 Press Release Distribution Services for Your Business

In a world where you need to stand out, press releases are key to being...

How to Get a Patent

In the United States, the US Patent and Trademarks Office issues patents. In the United...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

ThinkWritten

7 Creative Writing Exercises For Writers

Need a creative lift as a writer? Try these 7 creative writing exercises for writers to boost your writing skills.

We may receive a commission when you make a purchase from one of our links for products and services we recommend. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for support!

Sharing is caring!

Has your creative well run dry? Are you struggling to find inspiration for your next written work? Creative writing exercises could be the answer.

Just like any other skill, the art and craft of writing will benefit from the frequent working and reworking of your practices and habits. Creativity exercises for writers could unlock that writer’s block that you have been struggling to overcome and spur you on to new and exciting creative directions. 

What are Creative Writing Exercises?

Creative writing exercises can take on many forms and can mean different things to different people. However, certain elements are common to most examples of creative writing exercises.

They are often produced in short, intense bursts, for one thing, and they are often entirely improvised. Improvisation is one of the earmarks of the creative writing exercises employed by many writers.

One other factor that most creative writing exercises have in common is that they often encourage the exploration and expounding of familiar subject matters in novel ways.

Many classes and guides that focus solely on developing creative writing techniques involve adopting short and spontaneous approaches. 

How often should writers practice creative writing exercises?

Regardless of what form a creative writing exercise takes, it is smart for writers to adopt these practices and incorporate them into their daily routines. The goal is to expand their writing skills and develop the ability to tell the same story in as many different ways as possible. 

Start by writing a few lines once or twice a week, spending only a few minutes each session. Gradually increase the length of each session and how many times you sit down to write per week.

Eventually, you could work up to about ten minutes per session, performing these exercises several times throughout the week. 

Here are 7 Creative Writing Exercises for Writers

If you feel like taking a break from a writing assignment or are between projects, you can try your hand at these creative writing exercises. They can also serve as inspiration for your next opus or strengthen your creative muscles. 

1. Follow your stream of consciousness.

Many writers have become conditioned to feel a great deal of stress or worry about being confronted by a blank page. This exercise will help you address this fear head-on. 

Get a piece of paper and start writing the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t even think about what you are writing or edit your thoughts. This type of writing is known as “free writing”. Author Julia Cameron referred to this as the “morning pages” in her award-winning book, The Artist’s Way . 

2. Work with different points of view.

If you find yourself struggling with expressing yourself, try switching up your point of view. Take a chapter from your favorite book, or even just a scene if you want to start slow. Write everything that takes place from the point of view of another character. The goal here is to communicate the story in another way. 

You could also vary this exercise by writing as if you are the main character by changing their point of view. If the story is written in the first person, try writing it from the third person. Be aware of the details that are omitted when you switch viewpoints. This frequently leads to an interesting new twist to the story. 

3. Take advantage of writing prompts.

Writing prompts or story starters can be invaluable writing tools that could encourage you to explore unfamiliar but interesting creative directions. These are sentences or short passages that could serve as springboards for writing spontaneous stories. 

We have many writing prompts lists here at ThinkWritten you can use for inspiration, including 365 Creative Writing Prompts , 42 Fantasy Prompts , and 101 Poetry Prompts .

4. Have a Conversation With Yourself

See what it’s like to write a letter or converse with yourself. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with your younger self, this is the perfect opportunity to do so.

You can choose any subject you want, from a significant social or political event or some words of wisdom to your younger version. Try to be as honest and as forthcoming as possible. The results might surprise you.

5. Try Writing Flash Fiction

Try to crank out a piece of flash fiction. As with other creative writing exercises, don’t spend too much time at it. Simply sit down in front of the computer or a piece of paper, and begin writing. Flash fiction doesn’t usually go beyond 500 words, so try to keep it short.

Note: It might be helpful to differentiate flash fiction from the freewriting exercise discussed earlier. While freewriting involves generating words and ideas in an unbridled stream of consciousness, flash fiction is more about writing within a set of guidelines. In this particular exercise, try incorporating structural elements such as plots, conflicts, and character development, all in the goal of developing a logical story arc. 

6. Practice writing fake ads

Writing fake advertisements is another potentially useful exercise. Few tasks can flex your creative muscles than trying to sell a product, person, company, or idea. You don’t need a lot to get started either. All you have to do is to select a word at random from a magazine or newspaper and get started writing an ad for it. 

It might help to write one ad in a more formal tone, similar to the classified ads published in newspapers. This exercise will train you in using a few words effectively to sell your subject. You can then write another ad in a style similar to that published in online marketplaces, which allow for longer text. In both exercises, try to convince your readers to purchase the product in as definitive terms as possible. 

7. Rewrite someone else’s story

Consider adopting a story from someone else and making it your own. Unlike the exercise that involves writing a story from another point of view, this one involves telling the same story from the same viewpoint but using your own words.

It could be any story you want to write about, from something a family member told you about or an urban legend that has long made the rounds of your town.

Whichever story you choose, try to write it as if it happened to you. If certain details are missing–which is often the case with old stories–don’t hold back from adding your own touches. You could even take a well-known story and write it as if you were there when the events took place. 

There are only a few of the creativity exercises for writers you can try. There are many more variations that you could use to help you get back into the pattern of writing creatively.

If you ever find yourself stuck and unsure of what your next step should be, consider taking some time off and working on some creative writing exercises instead. After some time, you might find yourself becoming more eager to get back into it and more inspired than ever. 

Tell us what you think! Do you enjoy creative writing exercises? Do you have any additional ideas for ways writers can continue to build and work on their writing skills? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Eric Pangburn is a freelance writer who shares his best tips with other writers here at ThinkWritten. When not writing, he enjoys coaching basketball and spending time with his family.

Similar Posts

108 Romance Writing Prompts & Love Story Ideas

42 Fantasy Writing Prompts & Plot Ideas

300 Fun Writing Prompts for Kids: Story Starters, Journal Prompts & Ideas

101 Poetry Prompts & Ideas for Writing Poems

365 Creative Writing Prompts

The article was inspirational but I wish that there was a place to show case our writing. I have written a novel and will love to have someone read and edit it.

Yeah, I agree.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Creative Writing for Beginners: 10 Top Tips

These creative writing for beginners tips can help with a short story, poem or novel .

Writing is a great pursuit, but many first-time writers find that it’s not as easy as they think. If you are dabbling in creative writing activities or fiction writing for the first time, you will likely discover that writing courses and writing exercises fall short in helping you truly develop characters and overcome writer’s block.

Thankfully, you can take some steps to embrace your inner author and write your first short story or novel. Whether you have an end product in mind or are simply looking to start your writing journey, these writing tips will help you get started.

1. Dig Deep to Choose Your Topic

2. spend time reading, 3. write daily, 4. tackle writing exercises, 5. consider a writing course, 6. keep it unique, 7. practice, practice, practice, 8. try a different medium, 9. embrace your critics, 10. write first, perfect later, the final word on creative writing for beginners.

Living Writer contains time-saving templates for authors and novelists. iOS and Android apps available

First, determine what you will write about. Your starting point will guide character development and your overall plot. If you’re having trouble finding a topic, consider using these starting points:

• Start with a story — If you have a compelling storyline or main character in mind, start there.
• Use personal experiences — Something that happened in your life can help you start a story. Taking our own stories and transforming them into fiction writing can create true masterpieces because the feeling in the writing is personal.
• Consider a hot topic — Is there a political or social issue that is important to you? Weave that into compelling prose to start your story.

Starting with these ideas, you should be able to settle on a basic idea for your story.

Creative writers are usually readers. Reading helps you learn about the nuances of written language, storytelling and character development.

Read a wide range of genres too. While novels are always helpful, non-fiction writing and short stories will teach you as well.

Set aside time every day to write . Make it part of your daily routine, and protect that time as much as you can. By having it scheduled into your day, you can overcome the frustration and delays of writer’s block.

During your writing time, limit distractions. Let your housemates or family members know you aren’t available during that time. Write, even if you don’t think what you’re writing is high quality, just to keep the words flowing.

By having daily writing time, you will start to improve your writing skills . Soon you will see a quality piece of writing coming together as you work your way towards your next bestseller.

If you find that getting started with creative writing is hard for you, consider some basic writing exercises. Creative writing prompts to get your ideas flowing can be the start of compelling writing as you create your own writing style. Writing exercises can help you learn the importance of the first sentence of your story or the development of your characters.

Sometimes writing exercises do not lead to a final product that you would publish, and that’s fine. The goal isn’t always to create something to share. Sometimes the goal is simply to gain writing experience and hone your craft.

Writing courses can be a great jumping-off point for creative writers. Writing courses teach structure, character development and overall writing techniques.

In a writing course, you will have writing exercises to perform each week and accountability for those assignments. This combination can help many first time writers start writing. Over time the writing skills build up and the writing becomes more natural.

When it comes to creative writing, uniqueness is a key component. To capture readers, you need something that hasn’t been done before, or you need to approach a story from a new perspective.

To give you a source for creative ideas, take time to brainstorm . Keep a journal where you can jot down ideas as they come or explore storylines. Soon you will find a unique twist to take your characters on.

Writing is a creative process , but that does not mean that practice is futile. Practicing daily gets your creativity flowing. You will polish your writing skills and learn more about how brainstorming works for you.

Today’s writers rarely put pen to paper, but rather finger to keyboard. Sometimes, a different medium may make the creativity flow.

Ernest Hemingway knew this. He wrote all of his manuscripts on paper with pencil, only typing them for the final drafts. This gave him the chance to edit during the final typing, and he felt that writing longhand spurred his creativity.

If you’re struggling with writer’s block , channel your inner Ernest Hemingway and try writing with pencil and paper instead. It just might get you over that hump.

A good writer can make an interesting story out of nothing. A great writer can do the same thing, then learn from critics to make the writing even better. Whether in a writing class, on social media or in the proofreading stages, have people read and critique your writing.

Accept criticism and use it to grow. Sometimes, you will gain new insight into how you can make your writing better. Sometimes, you will ignore the critics and allow your writing to stand.

Either way, critics will help you polish your art and learn how to craft a story that you are proud to call your own.

When writing a book or short story, don’t focus on perfection at the start. Get your ideas down and polish your storylines and character development, not necessarily the writing and grammar. This comes later when you proofread your work.

Your first draft is the place to get the story going. After you complete that draft, go back and edit it. Make it more powerful, fix your shortcomings and try to perfect it, but only after the main ideas are complete.

Remember, striving for perfection with the first draft is sure to create writer’s block . Move past it by understanding you can perfect later.

Creative writing for beginners can feel daunting. You know you have good ideas, but getting those ideas on paper feels like an overwhelming task. By scheduling time to write every day, brainstorming your ideas and not striving for perfection at first, all while taking advantage of writing exercises and writing classes, you can succeed in becoming a creative writer.

Want more? Check out out list of writing tips .

Nicole Harms has been writing professionally since 2006. She specializes in education content and real estate writing but enjoys a wide gamut of topics. Her goal is to connect with the reader in an engaging, but informative way. Her work has been featured on USA Today, and she ghostwrites for many high-profile companies. As a former teacher, she is passionate about both research and grammar, giving her clients the quality they demand in today's online marketing world.

View all posts

• Online Course

16 Creative Writing Exercises for Beginners

Have you heard the best advice for new writers? Keep practicing your writing skills daily!

The number of creative writing exercises for beginners can be overwhelming. To save you time, and help you  kickstart your career as a freelance writer , here’s a list of the best ones for you to try. You don’t need to spend hours doing these exercises. As little as ten minutes a day will be enough to get those creative juices flowing. Your creative writing style will improve before you know it.

Fun and Easy Creative Writing Exercises for Beginners:

1. as easy as abc.

Use the alphabet to spark creativity. You could start by writing a story containing a word that begins with each letter of the alphabet. Or, if you are looking for an extra challenge, try writing a poem . Each line of your poem could begin with a different alphabet letter. This will encourage you to think more creatively about sentence structure. It will stretch your vocabulary too, so grab those thesauruses and get started!

2. Use Prompts

If you lack inspiration, plenty of writing prompts are available online. You could also use the world around you as prompts. Pick a sentence, or headline, from a magazine, or use a line from your favorite book. You could even use your dreams. Keep a notepad beside your bed so you can jot down your dreams when you wake up. Those notes are the perfect prompt for a short story . Don’t worry about making them realistic, just go with it.

3. Freestyle Writing

Some creative writing exercises for beginners are less structured. If this appeals to you, you could try freestyle writing. You just sit down and write. Don’t think about what you are writing, just write. It will become a stream of consciousness but don’t worry about whether it makes any sense. You might even find some interesting ideas come from this exercise. You can develop them later. Julia Cameron calls these ‘morning pages’ in her blog The Artist’s Way. It doesn’t matter what you write, the important part is that you are writing. Isn’t that freeing? It’s almost the same as what some artists do when they doodle on their sketchpads. They draw random figures until inspiration or idea comes to compose those sketches into a masterpiece.

4. Change the Narrator

Take a piece of writing and change the person telling the story. If it is written in the third person, rewrite it in the first person. How does this change the story? Think about the information that is included/excluded by a change in the narrator. This is a very useful exercise to make you think about the techniques of writing in the first or third person. It will help you understand the impact of both methods and when you might want to use them.

5. Different Points of View

One of the most common creative writing exercises for beginners is writing from a different point of view. Using a book or story you are familiar with, write a new story with one of the peripheral characters as the main character. That’s exactly how spin-offs are made. Take, for example, the 1993 blockbuster movie The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford. The screenwriters used Tommy Lee Jones’s character Deputy Marshal Gerard from that film and created a spin-off called U.S. Marshals, released in cinemas in 1998. You could even write from the point of view of an animal or inanimate object. As a beginner, you will find this a useful exercise to encourage you to tell a story differently.

6. Journaling

Journaling is a great way to create a habit of writing daily. You could write about your day or your hopes for the future. You don’t need to show anyone what you write so you are free to be as open, or imaginative, as you like. Journaling about a specific part of a day is also possible. For instance, you could focus on one of your meals and describe it in detail. What did you eat? Who were you with? What could you see or smell around you? For all you know, this could lead to a flourishing career as a freelance food writer .

7. Blogging

This is like journaling in that you should commit to posting articles regularly. The difference is that you make your blog available to others. Pick a subject that you are knowledgeable about and get started with your blog. Not only will this help you practice your writing, but it is also a great way to build up a portfolio . If you want to make a career out of writing, you will need to show examples of your work. A blog will help you achieve that.

8. Write to yourself

Is there advice or information you wish to give your younger self? Do it! This is one of my favorite creative writing exercises for beginners. You can write a letter to your younger self. Pass on that advice you wish you had at the time. Tell yourself things will work out in the end. It is a great opportunity to develop your writing skills . You might also find it therapeutic!

9. Advertise

Writing in a different style from normal is a great way to flex that creative muscle. Pick an object around your home and write an advert for it. How would you sell that bottle opener? What selling points does that chair have? You can also try writing in different advertising styles. For instance, you could write the script for a TV or newspaper ad. You could even try writing a listing for a Facebook marketplace. If you have time, try writing the same copy in various styles, and see how your writing changes.

10. Instructions

Pick a task or activity that you do every day. Write instructions on how to do it for someone who has never done it before. I’m not suggesting you write an instruction manual with lots of technical jargon. Just write a simple and easy-to-understand step-by-step procedure for carrying out that activity. Writing in this different style will help you think in non-traditional ways. It also encourages you to practice writing detailed descriptions.

One great way to develop your story is to read it to children (provided it’s appropriate for their age) chapter by chapter like a continuing saga.

11. Tell Someone Else’s Story

Think of a tale that has been told to you and use this as your starting point. You might find details missing or parts you can’t remember. Don’t worry about that. Flesh these out with your imagination. Remember, a lot of bestselling fiction novels were inspired by true stories. The authors just invoke their proverbial creative licenses to make those tales more epic.

12. Flash Fiction

Writing flash fiction can be a fun and challenging exercise. In this exercise, aim for around 500 words. Use the same structure and include the usual elements of a story as much as possible. You should have a strong plot and some conflict and take the time to develop your characters. This won’t be easy with such a small word count. You will learn to be concise and deliberate with your words, though!

13. Use Images

You can also take inspiration from images and pictures around you. For example, take a few images from different pages of a magazine. Think about how you might link them and what story brings them together. Write that story. Did you know that a box of old black-and-white photographs inspired Ransom Riggs’ bestselling novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children? This book was even adapted into a major film.

14. People Watching

This is a game I like to play sometimes when I’m sitting in a car or inside a café. Look around at the people walking past or standing nearby. Make up a back story for them and think about what happens next. Consider the next week in their lives. What events will happen? How will they react? The inspiration is all around you – you can even do this when you are traveling . Grab a notebook and get started.

15. The Benjamin Franklin Method

Benjamin Franklin wanted to improve his writing technique, just like you. He came up with this method, which proved to be very effective. Begin by reading a passage from a book. Take short notes as you go to summarize the gist of what you read. Then, in a day or two, look at your notes and try to recreate the original passage. You, almost certainly, won’t get it exactly right, but that is part of the method. You then compare your writing to the original and consider the differences. This will highlight where you could improve your sentence structure and word choice. You will be a better writer as a result.

16. Change the Rules

This exercise will test your creativity to the hilt. Think about some of the societal rules we follow every day. For instance, we get dressed before we leave home…what would happen if we didn’t? Write a short story set in a world where we don’t follow that rule. Consider what would change as a result and how your characters would deal with it.

I hope these creative writing exercises for beginners give you some inspiration. It doesn’t matter which exercise or combination of exercises you choose; the important thing is that you write daily if you can. The more you practice, the better you will become. Next, you may want to check how to become more creative in general .

Digital marketing course: Join my full AI Marketing course, with over 6h and 30 minutes of video lessons and 5 bonuses and learn the skills necessary to thrive as a marketer in the digital era.

Rafal Reyzer

Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

13 Writing Exercises for Beginners in English 2024 

Writing is not just a skill; it’s an art that evolves with practice. For beginners, embarking on the journey of writing can be both exciting and daunting. This article will guide you through various writing exercises for beginners, ensuring a gradual and enjoyable development of your writing prowess.

Benefits of Writing Exercises for Beginners

Enhancing creativity.

Engaging in writing exercises sparks creativity by encouraging you to think outside the box. Whether it’s inventing characters or describing imaginary worlds, these exercises push your creative boundaries.

Improving Writing Skills

Consistent writing exercises refine your language and storytelling skills. From constructing compelling sentences to organizing thoughts, each exercise contributes to your overall improvement as a writer.

Boosting Confidence

As a beginner, building confidence is crucial. Writing exercises provide a safe space to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. This boosts your confidence to tackle more complex writing challenges.

People also ask

Types of Writing Exercises for Beginners

Prompts and inspiration.

Start with prompts that ignite your imagination. These can be single words, images, or even phrases that serve as a springboard for your writing journey.

Freewriting Sessions

Allow your thoughts to flow freely without the constraints of structure or grammar. Freewriting helps overcome self-doubt and encourages a more spontaneous writing style.

Creative Constraints

Setting limitations, such as word count or specific themes, challenges you to be inventive within defined parameters. This sharpens your ability to convey ideas concisely.

Tools for Writing Exercises

Digital platforms.

Explore online writing communities, where you can find prompts, share your work, and receive feedback. Digital platforms also offer writing apps tailored for various exercises.

Pen and Paper

The simplicity of pen and paper can be liberating. Use this traditional method to disconnect from screens and tap into a more tactile writing experience.

Writing Apps

Discover a plethora of writing apps designed for exercises, offering features like timers, prompts, and progress tracking. These apps can make your writing routine more organized and enjoyable.

Creating a Writing Routine

Consistency is key.

Establish a consistent writing routine. Whether it’s daily or weekly, regular practice is essential for skill development and maintaining momentum.

Finding the Right Time

Identify when your creative energy is at its peak. Some writers thrive in the early morning, while others find inspiration in the quietude of the night.

Setting Realistic Goals

Set achievable writing goals. It could be a specific word count, completing a short story, or experimenting with a new writing style. Realistic goals foster a sense of accomplishment.

Connecting with Writing Communities

Online forums for worksheet sharing.

Join online writing forums where beginners can share their completed worksheets . This collaborative approach fosters a sense of community and shared learning.

Virtual Writing Circles with Worksheets

Organize virtual writing circles where participants can discuss their worksheet experiences . This interactive format enhances engagement and motivation.

Worksheet Challenges and Competitions

Host worksheet challenges or competitions within writing communities. This not only adds a fun element but also motivates beginners to excel in their exercises.

Measuring Progress with Worksheets

Worksheet portfolio.

Encourage beginners to maintain a worksheet portfolio. This collection showcases their journey, serving as a tangible representation of progress.

Self-Assessment Worksheets

Include self-assessment sections in worksheets. Beginners can evaluate their performance, identify areas for improvement, and set goals for future exercises.

Certificate of Completion

Recognize the completion of a set of worksheets with certificates. This acknowledgment boosts confidence and acknowledges the effort put into the learning process.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Embracing imperfection.

Accept that not every piece of writing will be perfect. Embracing imperfection allows you to move past the fear of creating subpar work.

Taking Breaks

When faced with a creative block, taking short breaks can be rejuvenating. Stepping away and returning with fresh eyes often leads to breakthroughs.

Seeking Inspiration

Explore various sources of inspiration, from nature walks to reading diverse literature. External stimuli can reignite your creativity.

Guidelines for Effective Writing Exercises for Beginners

Consistency in practice.

Emphasize the importance of consistent practice with worksheets. Regular engagement leads to gradual improvement in writing skills.

Review and Reflection

Encourage beginners to review completed worksheets periodically. Reflection on their progress enhances self-awareness and encourages continuous learning.

Variety in Exercises

Provide a variety of writing exercises with corresponding worksheets. Diverse tasks keep learning interesting and challenge beginners to explore different aspects of writing.

Online Forums

Join online writing forums where you can share your exercises, receive feedback, and engage with fellow writers. Connecting with a community fosters a supportive writing environment.

Local Writing Groups

Explore local writing groups or workshops. Personal interactions with fellow writers can provide valuable insights and encouragement.

Workshops and Events

Participate in writing workshops or events. These platforms offer opportunities to learn new techniques, receive guidance, and network with experienced writers.

Measuring Progress

Tracking word count.

Monitor your word count to track your progress over time. Witnessing tangible growth in the number of words you produce is motivating.

Assessing Improvement

Regularly assess your writing skills. Compare your recent work with earlier pieces to identify improvements and areas that need further development.

Celebrating Milestones

Celebrate milestones, whether it’s completing a challenging exercise or receiving positive feedback. Acknowledging achievements keeps you motivated.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Procrastination.

Combat procrastination by setting deadlines and breaking down exercises into manageable tasks. Consistent effort is key to overcoming this hurdle.

Overthinking

Avoid overthinking your writing. Trust your creativity, and remember that perfection is a journey, not a destination.

Fear of Criticism

Embrace constructive criticism as a tool for growth. Overcoming the fear of criticism is essential for evolving as a writer.

Famous Authors and Their Writing Exercises

Stephen king’s daily routine.

Explore Stephen King’s disciplined writing routine, emphasizing the importance of consistent practice and a dedicated writing space.

J.K. Rowling’s Writing Habits

Learn from J.K. Rowling’s commitment to her craft, including her perseverance through rejection and the value of embracing failures.

Incorporating Feedback

Seeking constructive criticism.

Actively seek feedback from peers, mentors, or writing groups. Constructive criticism helps refine your writing style and address blind spots.

Revising and Editing

Master the art of revising and editing. A well-edited piece showcases your commitment to quality and attention to detail.

Writing Exercises for Various Genres

Experiment with character development, plot structures, and creating immersive settings. Fiction exercises allow you to unleash your imagination.

Here are five beginner-friendly fiction writing exercises to help kickstart your creative journey:

Character Snapshot:

Create a brief character sketch for a protagonist. Include details like name, age, occupation, and one unique trait or quirk. Consider what motivates this character and how they might react in different situations.

Setting Exploration:

Develop a vivid description of a fictional setting. Consider the time period, climate, and the overall mood of the place. Think about how the setting can influence the characters and the events in your story.

Dialogue Challenge:

Write a dialogue-only scene between two characters. Focus on conveying emotions, tone, and character relationships through their spoken words. Avoid using any narration or description.

Flash Fiction Sprint:

Set a timer for 10 minutes and write a complete story in that time frame. Focus on a single, impactful moment or event. This exercise encourages brevity and creativity within a limited timeframe.

Plot Twist Experiment:

Take a familiar fairy tale or classic story and give it a modern or unexpected twist. How would the narrative change if the roles or outcomes were different? This exercise helps in understanding the impact of unexpected plot elements.

Delve into the world of poetry with exercises focusing on rhythm, metaphors, and expressing emotions through carefully crafted verses.

Here are five poetry exercises for beginners to help you explore the beauty of language and express your thoughts and emotions:

Free Verse Experiment:

Try writing a free verse poem, which doesn’t follow a specific rhyme scheme or meter. Allow your words to flow naturally, expressing your thoughts and feelings without the constraints of structure.

Concrete Poetry Challenge:

Create a visual poem where the arrangement of words on the page reflects the theme or subject of the poem. Use the shape of the words to enhance the meaning.

Persona Poem Exercise:

Write a persona poem where you adopt the perspective of an object, an animal, or even an abstract concept. Explore the world through the eyes of your chosen persona.

Ekphrastic Poetry Task:

Choose a piece of visual art, whether it’s a painting, photograph, or sculpture, and write a poem inspired by the artwork. Capture the emotions or stories that the art evokes.

Non-Fiction

Hone your non-fiction writing skills by tackling topics with clarity and precision. Practice crafting engaging narratives based on factual information.

Here are five non-fiction writing exercises for beginners to help you explore the world of factual writing and storytelling:

Personal Narrative:

Write a short personal essay about a memorable experience or event in your life. Focus on conveying your emotions and reflections on the situation, creating a vivid and engaging narrative.

Interview and Profile:

Choose someone you find interesting, whether a friend, family member, or acquaintance, and conduct a brief interview. Use the information gathered to create a profile or character sketch, highlighting the individual’s unique qualities and experiences.

How-To Article:

Select a skill or hobby you are knowledgeable about and write a step-by-step guide on how to do it. This exercise helps you practice explaining concepts clearly and concisely.

Research and Report:

Pick a topic you are curious about and conduct some research. Write a short report summarizing the key findings. Practice presenting information in a structured and informative manner.

Opinion Piece:

Express your opinion on a current event, social issue, or topic of interest. Support your viewpoint with logical arguments and evidence. This exercise helps develop your ability to articulate thoughts persuasively.

Resources for Writing Exercises

Explore books dedicated to writing exercises, offering a wealth of prompts, techniques, and advice from seasoned authors.

Online Courses

Enroll in online courses that guide you through structured writing exercises, providing expert-led instruction and valuable feedback.

Writing Challenges

Participate in writing challenges hosted by various platforms. These challenges often come with prompts and time constraints, pushing you to think on your feet.

Embarking on the journey of writing exercises is a transformative experience for beginners. Embrace the diverse exercises, stay consistent, and celebrate the small victories. Remember, the path to becoming a proficient writer is paved with exploration, resilience, and a love for the written word.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

How often should i do writing exercises as a beginner.

It’s advisable to start with a manageable frequency, such as a few times a week. Gradually increase as you become more comfortable with the routine.

What if I don’t like the genre suggested in a writing exercise?

Feel free to modify the exercise to suit your preferences. The goal is to enjoy the process and explore your creativity.

Can writing exercises help me overcome writer’s block?

Yes, engaging in different exercises can stimulate creativity and break through writer’s block by introducing new perspectives.

Are there writing exercises specifically for improving grammar skills?

Yes, some exercises focus on grammar improvement. However, it’s essential to balance grammar practice with overall writing development.

How do I join an online writing forum for feedback?

Search for reputable writing forums, create an account, and start engaging with the community by sharing your work and providing feedback to others.

Related posts:

15 Writing Exercises to Enhance Your Creative Writing Skills

When it comes to honing your fiction writing skills, there are two ways that outperform most others: the first one is reading a lot of fiction, the second one is doing creative writing exercises.

But the latter is particularly effective because it forces you to “write outside the box” so you get to develop new techniques and approaches that you might not have discovered by writing in a self-directed way.

And this is not something that’s reserved for beginners — pros like Stephen King, Julia Cameron and Margaret Atwood swear by this practice too.

In this article, we’ll discuss why creative writing exercises are essential for fiction writers and offer 15 creative writing exercises to help you take your fiction skills to the next level.

Why Are Creative Writing Exercises Important?

Here are a few reasons why writing exercises are so important for your development as a fiction writer:

They’ll help you sharpen your writing skills

Writing exercises will help you sharpen your fiction skills by challenging you to write in different styles, genres, and formats.

For example, you may be asked to write a short story in the style of a specific author, create a scene using only dialogue, or describe a setting you’ve never written about before.

By completing these exercises, you’ll learn how to write more concisely, how to convey emotion through your writing, and how to use language in creative ways.

You’ll also become more comfortable experimenting with different writing techniques, which will ultimately make you a better writer.

They’re great at sparking creativity

Creative writing exercises can also help spark your creativity by giving you new ideas and perspectives to explore that you might not have tried otherwise.

For example, if you’re struggling to come up with original ideas, doing a writing exercise or two may help you get your creative juices flowing again.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Finally, writing exercises can help you overcome writer’s block by giving you a specific task to focus on.

When you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed, having a concrete goal to work towards can help you get back on track and start writing again.

15 Creative Writing Exercises

Without further ado, here are fifteen creative writing exercises that’ll help you develop those fiction writing chops:

1. Write as a stream of consciousness

The idea here is to write down your thoughts and feelings as they come to you uncensored, without worrying about sentence structure or grammar. It’s like giving yourself permission to write freely and without judgment.

This exercise can be particularly helpful for writers who find themselves stuck in a creative rut.

By allowing yourself to write without any constraints, you’ll be able to get quickly unstuck and even uncover new and unexpected directions for your writing that you might not have considered before.

Don’t worry about making sense or writing in complete sentences. Just focus on capturing your thoughts as they arise.

Now, if your mind starts to wander or if you get stuck on a particular thought, that’s okay. Just keep writing, even if you end up writing about the same thing multiple times. Your goal is to keep your pen moving or your fingers typing no matter what!

2. Describe a dream

Describing your dreams in as much detail as possible can take you to unknown worlds, introduce you to new characters, and bring up emotions that you may not otherwise experience in your daily life.

Start by writing down everything you remember from your dream. Focus on the sensory details, such as the colors, sounds, and textures you dreamt about.

Also, think about the emotions you felt during the dream. Were you scared, happy, or confused? Write down everything that comes to mind and use it as a starting point for a new piece of writing.

3. Describe an object in extreme detail

Another interesting creative writing exercise is to describe an object in your immediate surroundings in extreme detail.

Choose an object that you find interesting or that holds special meaning to you. Focus on the sensory details, such as the way it feels to the touch, the sound it makes when it’s moved, and the way it smells.

Also, think about the feelings the object evokes. Does it remind you of a particular time or place? Does it hold sentimental value?

4. Personify an animal

Personification is a fun writing exercise. Choose an animal that you find interesting and write from its perspective as if it was a human being.

In other words, imagine the world through the animal’s eyes, and describe its thoughts, feelings, and actions. This exercise will help you develop your character-building skills.

5. Write a book review

Writing a book review is a great way to practice your critical thinking skills. Choose a fiction book that you’ve recently read and write a review.

Begin by providing a brief summary of the book, then analyze the author’s writing style and arguments. Consider its strengths and weaknesses and provide examples to support your claims.

6. Write an opinion piece

Although not strictly a fiction-writing exercise, writing an opinion piece is an excellent way to practice persuasive writing skills. Choose a current event or issue that you feel strongly about and write an opinion piece on it.

Be sure to back up your argument with facts and evidence. Start by stating your position clearly and then use examples and evidence to support your argument.

7. Write about your day

Writing about your day may seem mundane, but it can also be a great exercise in capturing the small moments in highly descriptive detail.

When describing your typical day, pay attention to your sensations. What did you see, hear, smell, and taste? Use specific language to paint a vivid picture for your reader.

For example, instead of saying I went for a walk , describe the feeling of the sun on your skin, the sound of the dry leaves crumbling under your feet, and the smell of fresh-cut grass.

Don’t forget to include your emotions as well. How did you feel throughout the day? Were you excited, anxious, content, or overwhelmed?

8. Create a character

Creating a character is a fun and creative exercise that can help you further develop your fiction writing skills.

Start by thinking about their personality traits. Are they kind and compassionate or cold and calculating? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Next, consider their backstory. Where did they come from? What kind of childhood did they have? What events in their life have shaped who they are today?

Finally, think about their motivations. What do they want in life? What are their goals and dreams? What drives them to make the choices they do?

Bonus idea! Once you’ve created your character, try writing a short story featuring them. Focus on the details that bring your character to life, like their mannerisms, speech patterns, and thoughts.

9. Describe a fantasy world

Creating a fantasy world is a fun and imaginative exercise that can help you develop your descriptive writing skills. Start by imagining the world you want to create. What is it like? What are the rules of the world? Is it similar to our own world, or is it vastly different?

Once you have a general idea of the world you want to create, start filling in the details. What kind of creatures inhabit the world? What do they look and sound like? What’s the landscape like?

As you describe your fantasy world, consider the emotions it evokes. Does it feel exciting, mysterious, or dangerous? Use descriptive language to convey the mood and atmosphere of your fantasy world.

10. Writing about your surroundings

Writing about your surroundings is a great way to practice fiction writing. Pick a place you know well and have spent time in. It could be your home, your workplace, your school, or even a park or a beach.

Take a few minutes to look around and observe your surroundings. Pay attention to the colors, textures, shapes, and sounds.

When you start writing, focus on the sensory details. Describe what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. This will help bring your writing to life. Use descriptive and vivid language to paint a clear picture.

11. Pretend to be someone else

This can be a fun and creative exercise that allows you to explore different perspectives and points of view. Think of someone you know well, such as a friend or family member. Alternatively, you could choose a fictional character from a book, movie, or TV show.

Put yourself in their shoes and imagine what they might be thinking and feeling in a given situation. What are their goals, fears, and motivations?

To help make the writing feel more authentic, use their voice and style of speaking and make sure the actions and thoughts you describe are consistent with the person or character you’ve chosen.

12. Explore a childhood memory

Childhood memories are often rich with detail, making them a great source of material for fiction writing.

Think of a memory from your childhood that had a strong emotional impact on you. It could be a happy memory, a sad one, or something in between.

First, focus on sensory details: what did you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch? Then, describe your feelings about it. How did it make you feel then, and how does it make you feel now?

13. Describe your favorite travel destination

Whether it’s a city, a beach, or a mountain range, describing your favorite travel destination can be a fun and exciting exercise to hone your writing skills when it comes to developing your settings.

Pick a place you’ve been to and love. It could be a place you’ve visited once or a place you go to often. Describe the destination in full descriptive detail to make your readers feel like they were there themselves.

14. Write a song lyric

Writing song lyrics can be a fun and creative writing exercise even if you don’t consider yourself a musician.

Start by thinking of a theme or message you want to convey. This could be a personal experience, a social issue, or a feeling you have.

Then, pick a song you really enjoy that fits the mood or tone of your theme and come up with your own lyrics.

Finally, find a karaoke version of the song online and sign your heart out!

15. Write about an issue you’re really passionate about

Fiction writing can be a powerful medium for advocating for social justice and change. If there’s an issue that you’re really passionate about, use this exercise to create a story about it.

Start by doing research and gathering facts and statistics that support your point of view. Next, think about your personal connection to the issue. Why does it matter to you? How has it impacted your life or the lives of those around you?

Use your personal experiences to add depth and authenticity to your writing.

Final Thoughts

The exercises provided in this article are just a starting point — there are countless other exercises and prompts available to help inspire your fiction writing (just Google “creative writing exercises” and you’ll see what I mean 🙂

Writing is a craft that requires practice and dedication. By regularly doing writing exercises, you’ll hone your skills and simply become a better writer. The key is to find exercises that work for you so you can easily incorporate them into your writing routine.

So, pick an exercise from the list above and see where it takes you!

Harry  Wallett  is the Founder and Managing Director of Relay Publishing. Combining his entrepreneurial background with a love of great stories,  Harry  founded Relay in 2013 as a fresh way to create books and for writers to earn a living from their work. Since then, Relay has sold 3+ million copies and worked with 100s of writers on bestselling titles such as  Defending Innocence ,  The Alveria Dragon Akademy Series  and  Rancher’s Family Christmas . Harry oversees the creative direction of the company, and works to develop a supportive collaborative environment for the Relay team to thrive within in order to fulfill our mission to create unputdownable books.

Relay Publishing Wants You

If you think you have what it takes to become a brilliant writer, editor, or storyliner, Relay Publishing has a range of exciting opportunities .

Find out more about us , and get in touch . We can’t wait to hear from you!

writing your next book starts here

Creative writing exercises for beginners

Writing tips are easy to come by but it’s a lot more difficult to apply those tips to your writing. With these creative writing exercises for beginners, you can start practising the things you’ve learned straight away.

When you’ve read this post, start using the exercises instead of just taking a screenshot or bookmarking the page! And read all the way to the end to find out how to get a free ebook full of my best writing exercises.

Related posts: The best beginner writing tips – How to start writing without experience – Why writing prompts are useful

Write about your life

If you don’t yet know what to write about, using your own life as material saves you the trouble of waiting for inspiration. As a fiction writer, you also need to have a unique way of looking at everyday life and you need to be able to make the mundane seem interesting. Here are some of the best writing exercises I can give you about your life:

• Write about your coffee cup like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
• What did you do yesterday? Write about it as if you were only two inches tall.
• Look out the window. Write about what you see as if you were seeing everything for the first time.
• Write about yourself as if someone was watching you in case you were about to commit a crime.
• Pick something inconvenient that has happened to you and write about it as if it was the end of the world.
• Write the instructions for living as you.

Create a main character

Creating unforgettable characters is one of the most important skills for any novelist. Even the most mundane plot can be unputdownable if the main character is interesting and can carry the story, and likewise, even an interesting plot will become flat in less than five seconds if the characters are one-dimensional and boring.

I want you to practise creating interesting main characters. They don’t need to be something you would actually want to write a book about, so feel free to come up with romantic cowboys or virtuous vampires even if you wouldn’t even dabble in writing cowboy romances or vampire stories.

A great protagonist doesn’t just have strengths and weaknesses – they need to be the right strengths and weaknesses. That means that they need to be relevant to the story and bring unique obstacles and advantages to your hero. In addition, the best weaknesses are usually the flipside of the character’s strengths. Let’s try doing these exercises:

• Come up with a person (human or supernatural creature, it’s up to you) and give them a name and occupation.
• Give that character a big problem – this is what your story is about. It needs to be something they can’t walk away from and something that they would struggle to overcome.
• Which weaknesses would make it difficult for your character to overcome that problem? Come up with three.
• How can those weaknesses become strengths in the right situations? How will they help overcome the big problem?
• How can your character’s strengths get them in trouble?
• Which strengths and weaknesses will lead to your character making mistakes that only make things worse?

Related reading: Conflict ideas for a story

Exercises for writing descriptions

You’ve probably heard of “show, don’t tell” but you might not know what it really means. Here’s a question that makes that bit of advice a bit more practical: how do you know?

Let’s say your character is angry. How do you know? Your character’s father has always been a bully. How do you know? You need to be able to prove to your readers that this is how things really are, otherwise they’d have to take your word for it. Just like you wouldn’t believe someone that they’re friendly if they’re not showing it to you. Now do these “show don’t tell” exercises:

• Think about your closest friend and tell me three things about them. How would I find out about these things if you never told me and I was hanging out with this person?
• How can you tell that someone has had a very long and hard day?
• If you had a crush on someone and you wouldn’t want them to know, what kind of behaviour would you avoid?
• Come up with a character and write a day in their life after they’ve won the lottery. Then write the same day with same events, except now they’ve lost their job. Highlight all the differences in your descriptions and see how you can add more.
• You’re writing from the point-of-view of one character who has a huge crush on another character. What kind of inner dialogue does your smitten character have about their love interest? How can we really see them?

When it comes to describing your settings, you need to remember that we’re seeing the story world through your characters. That’s why you need to employ all of their senses when you write your story. Try these writing exercises next:

• Close your eyes. What do your other senses tell you about your surroundings? (Maybe don’t taste the computer screen, though.)
• Think about a summer’s day in your childhood. What sights, smells and tastes do you associate with it? What does the day sound and feel like?
• Find a picture of your dream home. We can see what it looks like but now it’s your job to use other sensory details to describe what living there would feel like.
• Write about a really frightening place. What kind of sensory details does it include? How do people act in that place? Then do the same exercise with a comforting place.

Set-ups and pay-offs

Cause and effect is the most important building block of a story that just makes sense. We can believe even the most imaginative tales when they’re set up right and it’s your job as the writer to build logic into the story.

Whatever happens in your story, it needs a set-up so that it makes sense or else you have a plot hole in your hands. Readers also assume – either consciously or subconsciously – that everything you mention is relevant, so you don’t want to have a set-up without a pay-off. You might be worrying that this will make your story predictable, but it doesn’t mean your readers need to be able to see what’s coming. It only needs to make sense in hindsight.

Here are some writing exercises for practising this concept:

• Think about a time in your life when something really surprising happened. Unless it was a literal act of God, there must have been reasons for this incident, perhaps even signs. Tell us what they were and how it totally made sense that it happened.
• Write a paragraph about a person you dislike. Then write a series of events where everything you told us about this person becomes relevant in a dramatic way.
• Write down three most important things that have happened to you today. What happened previously that allowed them to happen today? Where will they lead to next week?

Get even more free writing exercises for beginners

I want you to be the best writer you can be, which is why I created this collection of my best 40 writing exercises. It’s got all the free writing exercises you can find in my blog plus a few extras from my paid products. Because no matter what I teach you about writing, it’s no use to you if you don’t apply it! Get your exercises today and start your journey to becoming an even better writer straight away.

Want to stop reading writing tips and actually become a better writer?

Writing tips mean nothing if you don’t ever use them in your writing. With my collection of 40 writing exercises, you learn to apply all my best tips and you become a better writer before you even know it. Just fill in this form and I’ll send them to you straight away.

You can unsubscribe anytime. For more details, review our Privacy Policy .

Your writing exercises are currently flying to you. Watch out!

Protagonist Crafts is a blog written by Katri Soikkeli. Katri is a published author, creative writing teacher and tiny business owner who writes fiction, poetry, blogs and nonsense. You can find more of her writing in the blog and you can get her best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.

Tell us what you think Cancel reply

Privacy overview.