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exercise

Write As If You Were Dying

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People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Strange seizures beset us.

Why do you never find anything written about the idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

—Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, 67–68. [Emphasis mine.]

Take Annie Dillard’s final paragraph as an instruction.

Shifting Perspective

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(Based on an exercise by Maggie Anderson, which she calls “In a dark room.”)

Find a photograph and “interrogate” it by asking and answering the questions listed below. This is my favourite exercise because it challenges you to write from different perspectives and in different voices. It will take you outside of yourself which is sometimes a good thing. You can do this exercise over and over again—especially useful when you are stuck for something to write about. Ask questions of, say, family photographs. Or old postcards. Or pictures in newspapers and magazines. You can respond in poetry or prose. Write as much or as little as you like. But try to answer all the questions. Have fun.

  1. Describe the photograph
  2. Write in the voice of someone or something in the photograph
  3. Write as someone or something in the photograph addressing the photographer
  4. Write to say something to someone you know who has not seen the photograph
  5. Write about the photo as the photographer
  6. Address someone in the photograph
  7. Describe what happened just before the photo was taken
  8. Describe what happened just after the photo was taken
  9. Describe what was happening outside the camera’s range just as the photo was being taken
  10. Write as if you found the photo 50 years after it was taken

Unsavoury Characters

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As a writing instructor, I’ve noticed that students usually have an easier time creating “likeable” characters than unlikeable ones, which are sometimes glossed over and written superficially. Here’s a simple exercise I’ve used in the classroom to help emerging writers give unsavoury characters more depth and humanity:

Choose a scene from a story-in-progress in which you think you have given short shrift to a disagreeable character. Rewrite that scene so that the character continues to hold our attention but also arouses our sympathy or understanding, at least to some degree.

Single Word Inspiration

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The writing exercise I would recommend to anyone is to set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes. Choose a random word from a handy book, start the timer and write, inspired by this word, without stopping or crossing out until the timer goes off. Read it out loud. This is a good way to tap into what’s going on in your unconscious and to also have the freedom to write without the pressure of being good or perfect. It’s an exercise from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.

Inanimate Object

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Write a monologue from the point of view of an inanimate object. Doll, tree, garbage can, iPhone, hockey stick . . . the choices are endless. What does the object grapple with? Think of its wants and needs. What does the object experience through the senses? For example, in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” we discover the following:

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.

Inhabit the world of the inanimate and bring its hidden voice to life.

Playing with Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

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I have found that many writers—both those just starting out and those I feel ought to know better—are allergic to the very idea of outlines. The criticisms (or prejudices, as a good number of those who bash outlines have never tried them) tend to focus on the loss of spontaneity or sense of play that results from thinking too much about a writing project in advance.

My answer to them is that outline-making in itself is an opportunity for wild and boundless creativity. Far from straitjacketing the story to a “formula,” it allows you to conceive and re-conceive an idea without the penalty of wasting your time writing it out only to find your enthusiasm exhausted, caught in a dead end with no way out.

Outlines have many benefits I could trumpet, but for the purposes of this exercise, I will focus on only one: the order of things. Specifically, the way we arrange the events of a story will largely determine a reader’s level of engagement (and our own). Playing with beginnings, middles and ends is one way to build suspense, or create surprises, or deepen emotional involvement, where telling it in a straight chronological sequence might not.

The Exercise

Take an Idea for a Story. It could be a short story, a comic, an epic trilogy—the genre or length or form doesn’t matter. Now take the time to write out the beats of the story on index cards, each card limited to a single turn or pivotal scene or even smaller nuggets such as a joke or bit of dialogue you think is worthwhile. Don’t rush—really spill out all the thoughts and ideas the story needs, the sparks it inspires. Try to answer the question “What happens next? ” every time it arises, along with “How did we get here? ”

When you’ve drained out the entirety of your brain, spread the index cards out over a table and just scan them for a time. Then start putting them in order. That order doesn’t have to be in a chronological “start” to “finish”—indeed, it probably shouldn’t be. Order the beats and scenes in ways that feel right. Start in the middle. Start at the end. Reveal something a third of the way through that doesn’t make sense, but will make sense two-thirds of the way through. Tell the story backwards.

I’ll bet you’ll find that this exercise—which is really just one way to outline—is involving and useful and fun. You’ll find ways to jump right into the heart of your story that gets around a potentially dull set-up. The main thing is, it will help reveal your own priorities and preferences. Goofing with the order of things will make the story yours.

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