essay writing workshop activities

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Essay Writing Workshop

Click here to see Essay Writing workshops on the schedule!

Young writers put the Say back in Essay at Writopia Lab!

• Intro to Personal Essay for College Admissions

Homework Help!

Personal essay & memoir, youth essay writing conference, engaging creativity to enhance essays.

• Workshops and Private Sessions  

Through Writopia’s teaching method, students overcome the fear of writing an essay and discover writing as an empowering activity that requires creative thinking and clear expression. Writers learn to research topics, engage in close readings, analyze evidence, craft arguments, and structure and organize their ideas.

We ask young writers to express what they believe and think. Every essay written, be it for school or extracurricular, is a chance to authentically express oneself. We challenge writers to think critically as they develop their ideas and offer them the tools to effectively present and organize their arguments. When students discover personal investment in their writing, along with a refined writers' toolkit, they have a stronger chance at becoming lifelong writers.

Intro to Personal Essay for College Admission

Come practice identifying and crafting the colorful and meaningful stories that helped shape you and illuminate who you are as a person. This workshop is open to high schoolers who want to begin building the foundational skills needed to write a compelling admissions essay.

Our college essay workshops are recommended for writers who are ready to begin or have already started the process of writing their college admissions essay.

If your writer is feeling overwhelmed at school or is looking for general support on their homework assignments, join a Homework Help! workshop. Writers can bring any essays or writing-related projects to receive support, feedback, and guidance from our experienced instructors. Whether writers are just beginning a paper or polishing their final draft, we are here to help through every stage of the process.

At this conference, the next generation of thinkers, writers, and leaders share the ideas and research that they are most passionate about with a panel of their peers and the community at large. The panels form organically from a pool of critical essays we receive from writers ages 12-18 from all over the New York Tri-State area, which serve to underscore the concerns and commentary of the next generation. Click here to find out how to participate!

We highly recommend, and at times require, that students first enroll in a Writopia Lab creative writing workshop before transitioning to essay writing. Students in school often feel disconnected from the essay writing experience and from writing itself. Our fun, student-centered creative writing workshops offer an opportunity for children and teens to become reinvigorated and deeply connected to the writing experience, poised to enter the essay writing workshop with greater enthusiasm. Then, we continue to integrate creative writing activities and culture into our essay writing workshops. Critical and analytical thinking that goes into creative writing helps writers develop skills they need to become strong essay writers. We infuse workshops with creative writing games: 50 percent essay and 50 percent creative. We encourage writers to approach essay writing with creativity, liberty, and their unique personality.

When we promise creativity and joy to our essay writers, we don't mean to suggest that writers should subvert the form of an essay. We give our writers the tools to succeed in middle school, high school, and college. We stress the importance of a thesis statement and clear structure in an essay.

Participants often choose to explore and write on topics including, but not limited to, history, humanities, social sciences, politics, and sciences. They also come to workshop to receive preparation for essay writing on exams, admissions applications, or school assignments.

Come join the Writopia Lab Debate team and explore controversial topics, formulate strong arguments, and debate with your peers. In this workshop, writers will dive deeply into big-picture ideas as they relate to real-world events and learn tools for evaluating topics from various angles. Debaters will be split into teams and prepare written and oral arguments for their side. The debaters will go head to head and toe to toe, hashing out the arguments they’ve developed and ideas they’ve championed, in a friendly, competitive, and joyous final debate on the last session, where families are invited to watch.

In Personal Essay & Memoir Workshops, writers will practice the art of storytelling about themselves and what is most important to them. We recommend these workshops for freshmen and sophomores interested in practicing their writing for admissions. Our workshops introduce writers to creative non-fiction genres and increase their comfort and confidence in writing about themselves.

Workshops and Private Sessions

Students can receive essay writing instruction at Writopia through the Essay Writing Workshop or Private Sessions. Workshops have a maximum of six participants. Essay writing programs are only available to students who are 10 and older.

The goal for each writer is to develop an essay with a coherent and meaningful argument. Sessions are peppered with original and vibrant writing exercises, but focus primarily on exploring essay topics, drafting, completing, revising, and polishing essays. When coming up with project ideas, writers can choose subject matter that interests them.

In the interdisciplinary essay writing workshops, writers brainstorm ideas, explore material, work to use fluid language as opposed to stilted language, and discuss the logic of various structural choices and the virtues of applying key literary tools.

“Our teen is thoroughly enjoying Writopia, and we are seeing it translate into better work at his school. His teachers are commenting on how good his writing is this year, and he seems to be much more confident in his abilities... so thank you!” Mother of 13-year-old

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• Enroll now in a full school year of workshops (Fall, Winter, and Spring trimesters) and receive two free private sessions !
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Weekly Trimester-Long Workshops

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Summer Workshops and Camps

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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.

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Teaching with Jennifer Findley

Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

Types of Writing Lessons (Writing Workshop Ideas)

I recently spoke with a teacher who asked me what writing program I use to teach writing. When I told her I didn’t use a program, she was a little shocked and wanted to know how I knew what to teach.

As I explained to her how I generate my lesson topics, I realized this might be something useful to share on my blog. Keep reading for three types of writing lessons, how I generate those lessons, and tips for how you can do the same.

Management Writing Mini-Lessons:

Management writing lessons are basically the procedures and expectations you want the students to follow during writing time. I teach the bulk of these lessons in the first month of school and then revisit them (or new ones) as needed based on my students’ writing behaviors.

Here are some examples of management writing lessons:

• Materials and how to use them
• Using writing forms
• Using the computer to publish
• Expectations during independent writing
• Expectations for self evaluation of writing
• Peer conference procedures and expectations
• Procedures for editing and the different ways to edit (partner, self, teacher)
• Using editing and revising checklists
• Procedures for requesting a conference
• Ways to publish drafts
• Any other areas of concern based on your students’ writing behaviors

Here is an example of my writing expectations for independent writing time. For the lesson, I have this particular anchor chart prepared ahead of time. The students and I go over each expectation, discuss why it is important, and how we can ensure we meet those expectations.

Where do I get more ideas for management writing mini-lessons?

To get more ideas for management writing lessons, I observe my students during writing time and look for behaviors that need to be stopped or procedures that need to be put in place. Here are some ideas:

• Do your students constantly ask you how to spell words? Teach a mini-lesson on spelling strategies for unknown words.
• Do your students get off-task frequently? Teach a mini-lessons showing them how to stay on-task during writing time.
• Do your students not know what to do when they finish a writing draft? Teach a mini-lesson of the necessary procedures for when students finish a draft.

Craft Mini-Lessons:

The craft mini-lessons are the lessons aligned to my standards. These lessons are how I actually explicitly teach my students genres of writings and the craft of writing in each genre.

Here are some craft mini-lesson ideas that I do in the first month to generate ideas for writing:

• What do I write about?
• Using seed notebook for ideas (Click here to read about how we use writing lists to help generate writing topics)
• Updating seed notebook
• Pulling from personal experiences for writing
• How do writers choose topics?
• Why do writers write?
• Expanding ideas from seed journal

Here are some craft mini-lessons that I do throughout the year for the genres I teach:

• Writing for specific audiences
• Writing from specific points of view
• Writing for specific purposes
• Small moments
• Adding details
• Sequencing ideas
• Leads and conclusions
• “Show, Not Tell”
• Transitions
• Developing characters
• Adding voice
• Strong descriptions
• Word choice
• Adding figurative language
• Adding sound devices
• Research skills
• Adding research into writing
• Writing in different genres

Where do I get more ideas for craft writing mini-lessons?

One strategy that I use to come up with craft mini-lessons is to analyze released writing samples from my state assessment. As I analyze the writing samples, I take note of what the students did well in the samples that my students are not doing well.

Another strategy is to use your student writing to reflect on what the students need to include in their writing to advance their writing to the next level. For example, one year I had students who were constantly making lists in their writing. After noticing this, I taught the students a mini-lesson on how to avoid making lists and instead expand on the details (or leave them out if they are not relevant to advancing the plot).

Conventions Mini-Lessons:

Convention mini-lessons are just what they seem: lessons you teach your students to improve their writing conventions, such as:

• Spelling Patterns
• Paragraphing
• Grammar Rules
• Punctuation
• Capitalization

For a more detailed list of ideas for convention mini-lessons, click here to grab the checklist of ideas shown below.

Where do I get more ideas for conventions writing mini-lessons?

To get ideas for my convention lessons I use my students’ writing to guide me and my language/writing standards. As you are reading/grading your students’ writing, look for patterns in their errors. If you see something that the majority of your students are doing incorrectly or not even doing at all, jot down a note and add that to your mini-lessons for the next week.

While I am reading my students’ essays, I use this printable to help me jot down ideas for convention lessons. Click here to grab a copy.

Do you use a writing workshop model to teach writing? Do you have other strategies for generating writing lesson ideas than the ones I use? Let me know in the comments!

Share the Knowledge!

Reader interactions.

December 31, 2016 at 5:08 am

Thank you so much for all the wonderful ideas. There is always so much to teach and do, it is awesome to have organized way of teaching like yours that will definitely help me and I am sure many orhers too.

December 31, 2016 at 11:36 am

Hi Nagihan, Thank you for your comment! I am so glad this will help you! It really helped streamline my writing instruction for sure.

August 27, 2017 at 8:13 pm

I was wondering if you had the lesson plans and printables for all your lessons. I would like to purchase.

September 2, 2017 at 4:35 pm

Thank you so much! I’m teaching writing for the first time to and I’ve loved all of your posts! They are so detailed and specific, when you spoke on a previous post about the specificities of your 9 week units I got a much better sense of what to do, making planning so much easier! I was hoping I could see more about how you ask students to organize their mini lesson section in their notebooks, mine always seem so messy and hard to find. Do you use a table of contents? Thank you again for everything!

September 18, 2017 at 9:22 pm

This is my first year ever teaching ELA (5th Grade) and this blog is saving my life!

October 24, 2017 at 7:40 am

thanks for the information is very helpful to be read and known

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Welcome Friends!

I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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Writing Workshop Checklist

Teaching a writing workshop can be scary, but this list of eight things you’ll need will help you get started.

I’ll admit that I was terrified to teach writing in a workshop format. Even after I successfully and happily conducted reading workshop with my classes, it took me another eight years to give writing workshop a try. There are some common problems that you might encounter , but in the end, writing workshop isn’t that difficult.

How to Go About It

Here are eight things you’ll need—some physical objects and some ideas and attitudes. 

1. Freewriting prompts or other prewriting activities. Instructing students to just start writing a draft is a great way to end your experience with writing workshop very quickly. Instead, spend more time than you think you’ll need on prewriting. Get students going in a low-pressure way with freewriting prompts, research, brainstorming, or analyzing evidence or a primary source.

2. A clipboard or other method of keeping track of student progress daily. Walking around the room and checking in with students is a great way to keep a writing workshop on track. Checking specific process points off as students work is also much easier than dealing with multiple drafts and revisions at the end of the workshop. I also found it useful to write down students’ topics, in case I forgot. Create a process checklist and update as you go.

3. A willingness to stop micromanaging every part of the day. This was such a tough one for me. What if students start talking, and then they start talking more loudly, and then they break out the chips and party decorations and I have lost complete control of the room... The truth is that conducting a great writing workshop means letting go a little. Sometimes writers need breaks. It’s really difficult for teens to stay productive for an entire hour, so I had to work on being OK with not controlling every minute.

4. The ability to share documents in the moment. When I started, I’d have formal due dates for drafts, collect a huge stack of papers, and slowly work through them one by one. Eventually I switched to reading drafts as we went, during class time. This is easiest with Google Docs or another electronic means of sharing, but you can do it with paper copies too—computers are not a necessity. I could skim a draft in three minutes and let a student know if their main idea wasn’t clear or if the third paragraph needed more description. It made for some very busy classes, but it also cleared my desk of a giant stack of papers. Having that clipboard to keep track of whose drafts I’d read played a key role here.

5. Strategies to push students who resist revision. So many students are used to typing that last word and exclaiming, “Done!” But finishing the first draft is only a small part of the process of writing. Especially when kids are used to getting by with the bare minimum, it’s not easy to get them to go back to work that they see as already finished. Having specific suggestions for revision makes that process easier.

6. Examples of great writing. Save student work and look for published articles, essays, opinion pieces, poems—anything and everything you can find, so that when you need examples of smooth transitions, or conclusions that don’t say “in conclusion,” or grabbers that don’t ask cheesy rhetorical questions, you’ll have lots to choose from. For me, this was also a great excuse to read newspapers and magazines—you never know when you’ll find your next example.

7. Lots and lots of excitement for students’ ideas and experiences and voices. I’ve found that reluctant writers often feel like no one really cares about their experiences or ideas, so having lots of genuine excitement for students’ stories is important. Ultimately, their writing gave me a glimpse into what mattered to them, so it wasn’t hard to get excited about reading an essay about the school musical or the Brazilian wandering spider.

8. At least three more class days than you think you’ll need. Just about every teacher I’ve ever met feels a pressure to get through lots of material. But sometimes writing workshop just takes time. Some students might stare at their screen for three days and then write two pages in one burst, some might spend 20 minutes discussing the third sentence of their second paragraph in a peer conference, and some might need to describe every detail of the night before an event before they can actually get to writing about the real topic of their essay. Writing takes time, so make sure to leave plenty of space in your writing workshop schedule.

When I think back to my experiences with teaching writing workshop, I can remember students’ pieces and the excitement they felt when they figured out what their topic was or how to end their essay or the perfect word to describe the emotion they felt on the day in question. For me, the best reason to attempt writing workshop isn’t that it will help students become better writers—which it will—it’s that it will help them know themselves better.

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Workshop Topics

Learn more about our workshop offerings by reading these brief topic descriptions. Some of our workshops also have associated videos, which are provided here and available on our YouTube channel.

If you would like to register for an upcoming writing workshop, visit our Workshops and Events page .

Academic Writing Clarity and Style

The goal of any piece of writing is to communicate one’s ideas clearly. Increasing cohesion between sentences and coherence among paragraphs increases both clarity and readability in any piece of writing. This workshop will provide self-editing techniques and practice to refine your writing from any discipline.

We have recorded versions of this workshop available:  Creating Easy-to-Read Sentences Video Workshop and Creating Easy-to-Read Paragraphs Video Workshop. 

This workshop will help you write clear, concise, strong sentences. You will learn how to avoid using weak verbs, and instead, you'll be able to replace them with strong, muscle verbs that carry more meaning. You will also learn how to avoid two stylistic issues that occur when using weak verbs: nominalization and passive voice.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Muscle Verbs for Good Writing Video Workshop.

As academic writers, we need to learn how to write more complex sentences to achieve an "academic tone." Having a good variety and rhythm creates that tone and keeps our readers engaged and interested. Most students are never taught how to create rhythm, so we made this workshop expressly to teach how to use the four elements of rhythm: length, structure, word choice, and advanced punctuation.  

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Sentence Variety and Rhythm Video Workshop .

Citing, Quoting, and Paraphrasing

APA style is required in many majors, not just psychology. This workshop provides basic information on the title page and abstract, in-text citation formats, and reference lists to ensure that your paper will be in compliance with the latest guidelines.

Paraphrasing is an important but tricky skill to master. When does something stop being plagiarism and start being paraphrasing? This workshop provides a range of examples for participants to spot the difference and practice paraphrasing a variety of texts, including materials from STEM and social science.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available:  Un-Blurring Plagiarism and Paraphrasing Video Workshop.

Have you had an instructor comment that your essay has excellent content, but your writing is weakened by too many serious grammar errors? In this workshop, we will review some of the most common grammar and punctuation errors in student writing, including run-ons, comma splices, and general punctuation misuse.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Common Grammar and Punctuation Errors Video Workshop.

Clear writing is presenting information so that it is easy for everyone to read and understand. Generally writing is considered clear and direct when there are identifiable subjects and verbs. This workshop will provide a step-by-step guide to untangling and revising unclear or convoluted sentences. We will focus on turning abstract nouns into concrete subjects and presenting crucial actions in verbs in order to make your writing clear and concise.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available:  Revising for Clarity: Subjects and Their Verbs Video Workshop.

Have you ever read a sentence and felt like there were way too many words in it? Here's an example: "For the first and earliest time in his short young life, Michael was experiencing and feeling the sensations commonly associated with love, an emotion he had never felt before.” It's a common misconception among beginning writers that using more words makes one's writing sound more intelligent. The opposite is true. The trick to good writing is to say as much as you can in as few words as possible. Keep the good stuff, let the rest go. This workshop will explore strategies for recognizing and removing wordiness from your writing.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Writing Concisely

Essay Organization

Learn how to write well-developed, well-written body paragraphs that support a thesis statement and clearly explain quotes or other arguments. You will receive an accompanying packet of handouts on essay form.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Body Paragraphs Video Workshop. 

Introductions are critical aspects of a paper because their contents and quality can compel a reader to either read or pass over an academic paper and open or close a reader's mind to the contents within it. An introduction influences the way a reader will understand a paper's contents by hinting at a paper’s purpose and content, providing context for understanding the writer’s train of thought, and establishing relationships between ideas that are forthcoming. A strong introduction will pique a reader's interest and make them eager to read your paper. This workshop will offer techniques for writing and revising compelling introductions.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Crafting Compelling Introductions .

Do you need to improve your essay organization? This workshop teaches students how to create cohesion between sentences and paragraphs by using common transition words and highlighting key phrases.

Essay Planning

Discuss? Illustrate? Explain? Developed with multilingual students in mind but open to all, this workshop will help break down the “thinking verbs” commonly used in prompts. By creating a graphic representation of each verb, you will be able to better understand exactly what you need to discuss and how to incorporate your own research as your organize the structure of your paper.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Deconstructing the Prompt Video Workshop . 

In-class essay writing is intimidating for many students; however, successful in-class writing depends not only on your composition skills but also on your ability to analyze the prompt and manage your time properly. This workshop will focus on two interrelated topics: (1) understanding and critically analyzing essay prompts, and (2) using time management strategies for the various stages of the in-class, timed writing process (pre-writing, composing the essay, and editing/revising).

When reviewing outside sources for a research paper or analytical essay, how do you decide what information to include? And then, how do you go about integrating this material into your writing without the quotations appearing clunky, overwrought, or out of place? This workshop will help you learn how to select and integrate source material into formal writing assignments by exploring how to evaluate and introduce quotations and how to make analysis both clear and insightful.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Selecting and Integrating Source Materials Video Workshop.

Professional Writing

All emails are not created equal. An email to a job interviewer or faculty member should be written in a different style and tone than one to a friend. How can you be polite over email? You want to get it right the first time! This workshop will teach you about professional and academic emails and appropriate "net etiquette."

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Emailing Netiquette Video Workshop . 

Scholarships and applications often ask students to submit paragraph or essay answers to personal questions, such as "what do you value the most?" or "what is your career goal?". These personal statements have real stakes, so it is valuable to learn how to approach them. In this workshop, you will learn how to create a plan of attack, review successful essay examples, and practice writing a short scholarship prompt.

Research Papers and Projects

Writing is hard for all new graduate students--no one comes in already understanding how to write at a graduate level in a new discipline. Undergraduate writing is a good foundation, but it does not fully prepare you for graduate school writing, which involves a new set of skills. This workshop will give you perspectives and specific tools that can be implemented immediately to ease the learning curve as you enter a graduate-level program. (Note that this workshop is intended for early career graduate students or upper-division undergraduates intending to enter graduate school.)

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Graduate Writer Mindset Video Workshop . 

The research paper is a common type of writing in academics and in the professional world; like all genres, it has certain conventions. Readers expect a research paper to have certain parts--an abstract, an introduction, a literature review, methodology, etc.--but those parts can be unclear if you haven't written many research papers already. This workshop aims to demystify the parts of a research paper so you can recognize those parts when you see them (e.g., in academic journal articles) and so you can produce those parts yourself. (Please note that this workshop is intended for advanced/upper-division undergraduates or graduate-level students.) 

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Recognizing the Parts of a Research Paper Video Workshop. 

Almost every academic publication today starts with a short summary called an abstract. These abstracts are especially helpful for lengthy scientific research papers with many key findings. This workshop is geared toward STEM students, and it will cover how to break down, evaluate, and construct a scientific abstract.

We also have a recorded version of this workshop available: Scientific Abstracts Video Workshop .

Home › Blog ›

Fun Writing Workshop Activities and Ideas for Different Groups

Posted by Chinny Verana on Friday, October 13th, 2023

Writing is hard, but it is a necessary skill that can be learned and improved. Good writing skills translate to better communication skills. When good communication skills exist, projects move, problems get solved, people build relationships and many more. One way to improve your writing skills is to engage in fun writing workshop activities. 

Aside from the many productive benefits of writing, people can express themselves best when they develop good writing skills. Writing can serve as an outlet to process and express their emotions. Additionally, it promotes critical thinking skills because it encourages people to organize and structure their thoughts coherently and logically. 

This article contains fun writing activities that can serve as a reference for those who want to develop a writing workshop for their community. 

Article Outline

What are writing activities?

Benefits of writing activities, story chains, picture prompts, diary entry, rewriting activity, the art of interviewing, one problem, multiple solutions, story mashups, house of metaphors, make your own comic strip, hero creation activity, choose your ending, build your biography, story reversal, different scenario reactions, different voices, mysterious character formation, writing for marketing, news writing, more fun writing activities for adults, host your writing workshop with event espresso.

Writing activities are tasks and exercises that give opportunities for participants to gather, form, and translate their thoughts into written form.

Some examples of writing activities are essay writing, journaling, creative writing, script writing, email correspondence, content creation, and more. 

No one becomes a good writer overnight. However, anyone can train to be an efficient writer with proper writing practice and training. Fun writing activities are one helpful way to quickly develop one’s writing skills or practice writing because they make writing fun.

Oftentimes, people talk about their desire to write but end up stuck because they don’t know what to write about. Creative writing prompts like the items listed below can help kickstart writers with fresh ideas and inspiration. 

In the context of this article, we have gathered helpful ideas that can get participants to start thinking and writing. The activities listed here push writers to expand their skills by trying different writing approaches.  

Furthermore, these creative writing activities help attendees to reflect, develop their creativity, and give a variety of topics if they are still unsure of what to write about.

Writing can be an overwhelming experience, especially for new writers. By participating in writing activities in a workshop, attendees can enhance their creativity and practice organizing their thoughts.  Furthermore, people learn best from learning from the feedback of fellow writers. 

Creative writing activities can make writing fun for reluctant writers. Students learn about the writing process, expand vocabularies, learn grammar, practice sentence structure, and expand their minds while having fun.

Research and critical thinking are also important skills that people develop when they enhance their writing skills. Writing exercises usually touch on different topics that require participants to do research. 

Aside from skills development, writing activities can also be a form of self-care and relaxation. There is something about the act of filtering through your thoughts and turning them into words. Writing helps a person stop with the wave of thoughts and focus on the organization of their thoughts. 

Therefore, whether you’re a reluctant writer, an aspiring writer, or an expert, you can benefit from these fun writing prompts and activities.

Creative Writing Activities for Kids

Kids will finish this fun writing activity giggling. The activity “Story Chains” is about starting a story with a sentence and letting participants continue the next sentences of the story. What makes this writing game exciting is how the flow of the story is dependent on the group. 

Here are some fun writing prompts to start:

• You found an old book from a library that was a best seller in the 1940s and opened the book. 
• The main character touches a painting in a museum and is magically transported to the scene. 
• A girl you meet is sitting alone at a park and sad. You approach her and ask her a question.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This writing game encourages participants to let the words flow. The moderator can present a series of pictures as prompts. Choose photo cards that are vague and open to interpretation. These pictures serve as writing prompts as students write a few paragraphs or a short story based on their interpretation of the pictures.  

Writing a diary is one of the creative writing exercises that keeps a student writing. Encourage reflection and self-awareness when you ask participants to write about a specific event in their lives.

Make this a fun writing activity by giving some writing prompts like gratitude, goals and aspirations, favorite memories, letters to your future self, and more. Furthermore, you can add variety to this activity by asking participants to write a diary entry from the context of different characters in a story or movie. A diary entry workshop activity not only develops one’s writing skills but also helps build bonds among participants. 

Choose a specific story or book that the group is interested in. Ask them to rewrite a part of the story – it can be the climax, the setting, or the ending. This creative writing activity forces participants to get into the story and think of the story from a new angle while maintaining the overall theme of the book. 

A good writer is a good listener. Ask the kids to do a feature article of their choice. It can be a person they know or a person they admire. Task them to gather questions to achieve an angle for their article.

Additionally, the facilitator can provide a transcript of an interview, and workshop participants will use the information from the interview to create an article. Interviewing article sources helps build reading comprehension and empathy which are important traits of a good writer. 

Present a problem or scenario to the workshop participants. Ask them to write different solutions to the problem – the more creative the better. After writing, participants can read aloud their writing. Finding multiple solutions to one problem opens up different perspectives and ways of thinking among peers.

To give an example, here are some problems that can be used as writing prompts:

• Share a personal or professional challenge you’ve encountered and ask attendees to share their different take on it
• Cite a PR or celebrity issue and ask participants to write how they can solve it
• Play a famous movie clip with the main problem and ask participants to write a script on how the next scenes will unfold. 

Pick out two different stories that your participants are interested in. Ask them to collide both worlds in their versions. To create a seamless mashup, participants have to carefully understand and observe each of the book characters’ characteristics and backgrounds. 

Present a scenario where attendees can showcase their expertise in using metaphors. In this scenario, a moderator can ask kids to describe specific rooms or portions of their house using only metaphors. After presenting their writing, participants can explain their choice of metaphors for their houses. 

Creating comic strips is one way to make writing fun for kids. Encourage students to think of a short story and convert it into their comic strip.

Another way to do this fun writing activity is by providing pictures of a comic strip and letting students practice their creative thinking and fill up the speech bubbles of the comic strip.

Creative Writing Exercises and Activities for Adults

Every story needs a hero. Having a good character in your book is directly related to how you please your readers. Teach every attendee the value of having a hero in every storytelling technique because it equips them to be better storytellers. 

A hero is a big factor in the overall flow of a story because it is who your audience can resonate with the most. Make the hero relatable and interesting so your readers will have a hard time putting your book down. 

Compile famous classic stories like Cinderella or even modern ones like a popular movie. Ask participants to write their endings using the same circumstances from the original story. Challenge them to adapt their choice of ending depending on the intent of the original author. 

Provide a piece of text to participants and let them read the text. Choose a specific and important element in the story that will be swapped with something else. Let their creativity flow and let them have fun writing their version of their story after the word swap.

Swapping words is a writing activity that exercises participants’ vocabulary and imagination skills as they try to transform and enhance a story. 

Writing is the most common way to preserve history and legacy. Introduce students to the important elements of a biography and practice writing one for themselves or their loved ones. 

List down specific aspects of one’s life to get started. Prepare students to gather information on one’s early life, education and career, life milestones, passion and hobbies, challenges and triumphs, and more. 

A Story Reversal writing activity is the act of reframing your story by reversing character roles, settings, and story endings. An idea for this workshop activity is that students choose characters from the story that they will reverse. The hero becomes the villain, the villain becomes the hero. The brave become weak, and the weak become brave. 

Present different scenarios to workshop participants and have them write the different possible reactions of the characters. Quickly present creative writing prompts like the following: 

• You stumble upon a lost diary in a park, and it contains a secret that could change someone’s life.
• You met a person who is color blind and he is asking you to explain the experience of seeing colors to him. 
• A lawyer and a doctor describe what they do in their day-to-day jobs. Make it interesting. 

Let participants explore different voices like professional, fun, quirky, mysterious, firm, gentle, etc. Have attendees read out their writing and take constructive feedback from each other. 

Aside from this, attendees can explore writing in the first person, second person, third person, and journalistic narrative. 

Train attendees to develop their writing that captures the reader’s attention. One helpful exercise is to develop a mysterious character in your existing story or narrative. 

Establish the character’s background while still maintaining mystery. Define the character’s backstory, establish motivation and goals, develop secrets, plot hidden agendas, and more. This fun writing activity enhances participants’ descriptive writing skills as they attempt to convey the vibe of the character to the reader.

A writing workshop can be incorporated into corporate workshops for employees. Writing is a major skill for marketing and sales professionals to be able to do their jobs well. Hire a marketing professional or expert to conduct training sessions on the different writing principles that can be used for marketing. 

Topic examples for writing for marketing include: writing for social media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) writing, writing for headlines and hooks, direct response writing, crafting effective emails, and more. 

Writing objectively like news is something people are interested in. You can invite a journalist to teach the attendees techniques and principles of news writing. The workshop may include exercises where participants are given plain information about an event and they must organize and write it in a news article format.

• Write about your own love story from the perspective of your best friend
• Write about the most vivid dream you have and change the ending
• Describe your dream destination. It can be real or imaginary.
• Write a paragraph about the following words: “Fair”, “Eccentric”, “Turbulence”, and “Myth”.
• Think of one of the most memorable events of your life and turn it into a news script
• Create a narrative about different materials or items (Examples: a red plastic hairbrush, a broken oven, a scrapbook from the 70s)
• Develop a specific distinct character with one detail (Example: Someone who loves to gossip, someone who escaped prison, etc.)
• Craft a dialogue between two characters arguing about a silly story
• Narrate a story of a main character on a fairy tale quest
• Write a letter to your future self
• Write two-sentence horror stories
• Develop a story that is derived from one word only. 
• Draw out a story map for a short story

A writing workshop business can bring a lot of profit when done right. The overhead costs for writing workshops are very low. All you need is a credible and skilled workshop facilitator and creativity is the limit. 

Start by identifying the target audience you aim to serve. Then the next step is to develop a writing curriculum for your workshop. Set up your workshop event with reliable platforms like Event Espresso and Event Smart . 

Event Espresso is a ticket-selling and registration platform for WordPress users while Event Smart is the choice for non-WordPress users. Both offer secure payment collection and unlimited ticket selling at $0 commission fees for higher margins for planners. 

Host a successful writing workshop now. Check out our live demo or our 14-day free trial now. 

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In-Class Writing Exercises

If you find yourself wishing your students would write more thoughtful papers or think more deeply about the issues in your course, this handout may help you. At the Writing Center, we work one-on-one with thousands of student writers and find that giving them targeted writing tasks or exercises encourages them to problem-solve, generate, and communicate more fully on the page. You’ll find targeted exercises here and ways to adapt them for use in your course or with particular students.

Writing requires making choices. We can help students most by teaching them how to see and make choices when working with ideas. We can introduce students to a process of generating and sorting ideas by teaching them how to use exercises to build ideas. With an understanding of how to discover and arrange ideas, they will have more success in getting their ideas onto the page in clear prose.

Through critical thinking exercises, students move from a vague or felt sense about course material to a place where they can make explicit the choices about how words represent their ideas and how they might best arrange them. While some students may not recognize some of these activities as “writing,” they may see that doing this work will help them do the thinking that leads to easier, stronger papers.

Brainstorming

In order to write a paper for a class, students need ways to move from the received knowledge of the course material to some separate, more synthesized or analyzed understanding of the course material. For some students this begins to happen internally or through what we call “thinking,” unvoiced mulling, sorting, comparing, speculating, applying, etc. that leads them to new perspectives, understanding, questions, reactions about the course material. This thinking is often furthered through class discussion and some students automatically, internally move from these initial sortings of ideas into complex, logical interpretations of material at this point. But, for more students, their thinking will remain an unorganized, vague set of ideas referring to the subject. Many will have trouble moving beyond this vague sense or simple reaction toward ideas that are more processed, complex, or what we often call “deep.” We can foster that move to a deeper understanding by providing opportunities to externalize and fix their ideas on paper so that they may both see their ideas and then begin to see the relationships between them. The following activities will help students both generate and clarify initial responses to course material:

• Free-writing. Find a clock, watch, or timer to help you keep track of time. Choose a topic, idea, question you would like to consider. It can be a specific detail or a broad concept-whatever you are interested in exploring at the moment. Write (on paper or on a computer) for 7-10 minutes non-stop on that topic. If you get stuck and don’t know what to say next, write “I’m stuck and don’t know what to say next…” or try asking yourself “what else?” until another idea comes to you. Do not concern yourself with spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Your goal is to generate as much as you can about the topic in a short period of time and to get used to the feeling of articulating ideas on the page. It’s ok if it’s messy or makes sense only to you. You can repeat this exercise several times, using the same or a variety of topics connecting to your subject. Read what you have written to see if you have discovered anything about your subject or found a line of questioning you’d like to pursue.
• Clustering/Webbing. Find a clock, watch, or timer to help you keep track of time. Put a word you’d like to explore in the center of a piece of paper and put a circle around it. As fast as you can, free-associate or jot down anywhere on the page as many words as you can think of associated with your center word. If you get stuck, go back to the center word and launch again. Speed is important and quantity is your goal. Don’t discount any word or phrase that comes to you, just put it down on the page. Jot words for between 5-10 minutes. When you are finished you will have a page filled with seemingly random words. Read around on the page and see if you have discovered anything or can see connections between any ideas.
• Listing. On a piece of paper list all the ideas you can think of connected to subjects you are considering exploring. Consider any idea or observation as valid and worthy of listing. List quickly and then set your list aside for a few minutes. Come back and read your list and do the exercise again.
• Cubing. This technique helps you look at your subject from six different points of view (imagine the 6 sides of a cube and you get the idea). Take your topic or idea and 1) describe it, 2) compare it, 3) associate it with something else you know, 4) analyze it (meaning break it into parts), 5) apply it to a situation you are familiar with, 6) argue for or against it. Write at a paragraph, page, or more about each of the six points of view on your subject.
• Journalistic questions. Write these questions down the left hand margin of a piece of paper: Who? What? Where? When? How? And Why? Think about your topic in terms of each question.
• What? So What? Now what? To begin to explore an idea first ask yourself, “What do I want to explore?” and write about that topic for a page or more. Then read what you have written and ask “So what?” of the ideas expressed so far. Again, write for a page or more. Finally ask yourself, “Now what?” to begin to think about what else you might consider or where you might go next with an idea.
• Defining terms. Although this suggestion is simple and may seem obvious, it is often overlooked. Write definitions for key terms or concepts in your own words. Find others’ articulations of the terms in your course readings, the dictionary, or in conversations, and compare these definitions to your own. Seek input from your instructor if you can’t get a working definition of a term for yourself.
• Summarizing positions. Sometimes it’s helpful to simply describe what you know as a way to solidify your own understanding of something before you try to analyze or synthesize new ideas. You can summarize readings by individual articles or you can combine what you think are like perspectives into a summary of a position. Try to be brief in your description of the readings. Write a paragraph or up to a page describing a reading or a position.
• Metaphor writing. Metaphors or similes are comparisons sometimes using the words “like” or “as.” For example, “writing is like swimming” or the “sky is as blue as map water” or “the keyboard wrinkled with ideas.” When you create a metaphor, you put one idea in terms of another and thereby create a new vision of the original idea. Sometimes it may be easier to create a metaphor or simile may help you understand your view of an idea before you can put it fully into sentences or paragraphs. Write a metaphor or simile and then explain to someone why your metaphor works or what it means to you.
• Applying ideas to personal circumstance or known situations. Sometimes ideas come clearest when you can put them in a frame that is meaningful to you. Take a concept from your reading assignments and apply it so a situation in your own life or to a current event with which you are familiar. You may not end up using this application in your final draft, but applying it to something you know will help you to understand it better and prepare you to analyze the idea as your instructor directs.

Once students have something on the page to work with, they can begin the decision-making process crucial to developing a coherent idea or argument. At this point, students will choose which ideas most appeal to them, which ideas seem to fit together, which ideas need to be set aside, and which ideas need further exploration. The following activities will help students make decisions as they shape ideas:

• Drawing diagrams. Sometimes it helps to look for the shape your ideas seem to be taking as you develop them. Jot down your main ideas on the page and then see if you can connect them in some way. Do they form a square? A circle? An umbrella with spokes coming down? A pyramid? Does one idea seem to sit on a shelf above another idea? Would equal signs, greater or less signs help you express the relationships you see between your idea? Can you make a flow chart depicting the relationships between your ideas?
• Making charts or piles. Try sorting your ideas into separate piles. You can do this literally by putting ideas on note cards or scraps of paper and physically moving them into different piles. You can do this on the page by cutting and pasting ideas into a variety of groups on the computer screen. You can also make charts that illustrate the relationships between ideas. Common charts include timelines, authors sitting around a dinner table, and comparison/contrast charts.
• Scrap pile. Be prepared to keep a scrap pile of ideas somewhere as you work. Some people keep this pile as a separate document as they work; others keep notes at the bottom of a page where they store scrap sentences or thoughts for potential use later on. Remember that it is sometimes important to throw out ideas as a way to clarify and improve the ones you are trying to develop along the way.
• Shifting viewpoints (role-playing). When you begin to feel you have some understanding of your idea, it sometimes helps to look at it from another person’s point of view. You can do this by role-playing someone who disagrees with your conclusions or who has a different set of assumptions about your subject. Make a list or write a dialogue to begin to reveal the other perspective.
• Applying an idea to a new situation. If you have developed a working thesis, test it out by applying it to another event or situation. If you idea is clear, it will probably work again or you will find other supporting instances of your theory.
• Problem/Solution writing. Sometimes it helps to look at your ideas through a problem-solving lens. To do so, first briefly outline the problem as you see it or define it. Make sure you are through in listing all the elements that contribute to the creation of the problem. Next, make a list of potential solutions. Remember there is likely to be more than one solution.
• Theory/application writing. If your assignment asks you to develop a theory or an argument, abstract it from the situation at hand. Does your theory hold through the text? Would it apply to a new situation or can you think of a similar situation that works in the same way? Explain your ideas to a friend.
• Defining critical questions. You may have lots of evidence or information and still feel uncertain what you should do with it or how you should write about it. Look at your evidence and see if you can find repeated information or a repeated missing piece. See if you can write a question or a series of questions that summarize the most important ideas in your paper. Once you have the critical questions, you can begin to organize your ideas around potential answers to the question.
• Explaining/teaching idea to someone else. Sometimes the most efficient way to clarify your ideas is to explain them to someone else. The other person need not be knowledgeable about your subject-in fact it sometimes helps if they aren’t familiar with your topic-but should be willing to listen and interrupt you when he or she doesn’t follow you. As you teach your ideas to someone else, you may begin to have more confidence in the shape of your ideas or you may be able to identify the holes in your argument and be more able to fix them.
• Lining up evidence. If you think you have a good idea of how something works, find evidence in your course material, through research in the library or on the web that supports your thinking. If your ideas are strong, you should find supporting evidence to corroborate your ideas.
• Rewriting idea. Sometimes what helps most is rewriting an idea over the course of several days. Take the central idea and briefly explain it in a paragraph or two. The next day, without looking at the previous day’s writing, write a new paragraph explaining your ideas. Try it again the next day. Over the course of three days, you may find your ideas clarifying, complicating, or developing holes. In all cases, you will have a better idea of what you need to do next in writing your draft.

As students have been working with their ideas, they have been making a series of choices about their ideas that will lead them to feel “ready” to put them in a more complete, coherent form; they will feel “ready to write” their ideas in something closer to the assignment or paper form. But for most, the tough moments of really “writing” begin at this point. They may still feel that they “have ideas” but have trouble “getting them on the page.” Some will suddenly be thrust into “writing a paper” mode and be both constrained and guided by their assumptions about what an assignment asks them to do, what academic writing is, and what prior experience has taught them about writing for teachers. These exercises may ease their entry into shaping their ideas for an assignment:

• Clarify all questions about the assignment. Before you begin writing a draft, make sure you have a thorough understanding of what the assignment requires. You can do this by summarizing your understanding of the assignment and emailing your summary to your TA or instructor. If you have questions about points to emphasize, the amount of evidence needed, etc. get clarification early. You might try writing something like, “I’ve summarized what I think I’m supposed to do in this paper, am I on the right track?
• Write a letter describing what the paper is going to be about. One of the simplest, most efficient exercises you can do to sort through ideas is to write a letter to yourself about what you are planning to write in your paper. You might start out, “My paper is going to be about….” And go on to articulate what evidence you have to back up your ideas, what parts still feel rough to you about your ideas. In about 20 minutes, you can easily have a good sense of what you are ready to write and the problems you still need to solve in your paper.
• Write a full draft. Sometimes you don’t know what you think until you see what you’ve said. Writing a full draft, even if you think the draft has problems, is sometimes important. You may find your thesis appears in your conclusion paragraph.
• Turn your ideas into a five-minute speech. Pretend you have to give a 5 minute speech to your classmates. How would you begin the speech? What’s your main point? What key information would you include? How much detail do you need to give the listener? What evidence will be most convincing or compelling for your audience?
• Make a sketch of the paper. Sometimes it helps to literally line up or order you evidence before you write. You can do so quickly by making a numbered list of your points. Your goal is something like a sketch outline—first I am going to say this; next I need to include this point; third I need to mention this idea. The ideas should flow logically from one point to the next. If they don’t-meaning if you have to backtrack, go on a tangent, or otherwise make the reader wait to see the relationship between ideas, then you need to continue tinkering with the list.
• Make an outline. If you have successfully used formal outlines in the past, use one to structure your paper. If you haven’t successfully used outlines, don’t worry. Try some of the other techniques listed here to get your ideas on the page
• Start with the easiest part. If you have trouble getting started on a draft, write what feels to you like the easiest part first. There’s nothing magic about starting at the beginning-unless that’s the easiest part for you. Write what you know for sure and a beginning will probably emerge as you write.
• Write the body of the paper first. Sometimes it’s helpful NOT to write the beginning or introductory paragraph first. See what you have to say in the bulk of your draft and then go back to craft a suitable beginning.
• Write about feelings about writing. Sometimes it’s helpful to begin a writing session by spending 5-10 minutes writing to yourself about your feelings about the assignment. Doing so can help you set aside uncertainty and frustration and help you get motivated to write your draft.
• Write with the screen turned off. If you are really stuck getting starting or in the middle of a draft, turn the monitor off and type your ideas. Doing so will prevent you from editing and critiquing your writing as you first produce it. You may be amazed at the quantity and quality of ideas you can produce in a short time. You’ll have to do some cleanup on the typos, but it may be well worth it if it allows you to bang out a draft.
• Write in alternatives (postpone decision-making). You may need to test out more than one idea before you settle into a particular direction for a paper. It’s actually more efficient to spend time writing in several directions i.e. trying out one idea for awhile, then trying out another idea, than it is to try to fit all of your ideas into one less coherent draft. Your writing may take the form of brief overviews that begin, “If I were going to write about XYZ idea, I would…” until you are able to see which option suits the assignment and your needs.
• Write with a timer. Sometimes what you need most is to get all of your ideas out on paper in a single sitting. To do so, pretend you are taking an essay exam. Set a timer for an appropriate amount of time (1 hour? 3 hours?) depending on the length of your draft. Assume that it will take you approximately 1 hour per page of text you produce. Set a goal for the portion of your draft you must complete during the allotted time and don’t get up from your seat until the timer goes off.

As students use language to shape ideas, they begin to feel the need to test their ideas or move beyond their own perspectives. Sometimes we have ideas that make good sense to us, but seem to lose or confuse readers as we voice them in conversation or on the page. Once students have a complete draft of a paper, they need ways to share their ideas to learn points where their ideas need further development. With feedback from an audience, students are better able to see the final decisions they still need to make in order for their ideas to reach someone. These decisions may be ones of word choice, organization, logic, evidence, and tone. Keep in mind that this juncture can be unsettling for some students. Having made lots of major decisions in getting their ideas down on the page, they may be reluctant to tackle another round of decision-making required for revising or clarifying ideas or sentences. Remind students that ideas don’t exist apart from words, but in the words themselves. They will need to be able to sell their ideas through the words and arrangement of words on the page for a specific audience.

• Talk your paper. Tell a friend what your paper is about. Pay attention to your explanation. Are all of the ideas you describe actually in the paper? Where did you start explaining your ideas? Does your paper match your description? Can the listener easily find all of the ideas you mention in your description?
• Ask someone to read your paper out loud to you. Ask a friend to read your draft out loud to you. What do you hear? Where does your reader stumble? Sound confused? Have questions? Did your reader ever get lost in your text? Did ideas flow in the order the reader expected them to? Was anything missing for the reader? Did the reader need more information at any point?
• Share your draft with your instructor. If you give them enough notice, most instructors will be willing to read a draft of a paper. It sometimes helps to include your own assessment of the draft when you share it with a teacher. Give them your assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the draft, as you see it, to begin a conversation.
• Share your draft with a classmate. Arrange to exchange papers with a classmate several days before the due date. You can do so via email and make comments for revision using Word’s comment function.
• Look at your sentences. Often you will need to analyze your draft of the sentence level. To do so, break your paper into a series of discrete sentences by putting a return after each period or end punctuation. Once you have your paper as a list of sentences, you can more easily see and solve sentence level problems. Try reading the sentences starting with the last sentence of the draft and moving up. Doing so will take them out of context and force you to see them as individual bits of communication rather than familiar points.
• Discuss key terms in your paper with someone else. After you have completed a draft, it’s sometimes helpful to look back at the key terms you are using to convey your ideas. It’s easy, in the midst of thinking about an idea, to write in loaded language or code in which certain key words come to have special meaning for you that isn’t necessarily shared by a reader. If you suspect this is the case, talk about your key terms with a friend, and ask them to read your draft to see if the idea is adequately explained for the reader.
• Outline your draft. After you have a complete draft, go back and outline what you have said. Next to each paragraph write a word or phrase that summarizes the content of that paragraph. You might also look to see if you have topic sentences that convey the ideas of individual paragraphs. If you can’t summarize the content of a paragraph, you probably have multiple ideas in play in that paragraph that may need revising. Once you have summarized each paragraph, turn your summary words into a list. How does the list flow? Is it clear how one idea connects to the next?
• Underline your main point. Highlight the main point of your paper. It should probably be (although it will depend on the assignment) in one sentence somewhere on the first page. If it’s not, the reader will likely be lost and wondering what you paper is about as he or she reads through it. Your draft should not read like a mystery novel in which the reader has to wait until the end to have all the pieces fit together.
• Ask someone without knowledge of the course to read your paper. You can tell if your draft works by sharing it with someone outside of the context. If they can follow your ideas, someone inside the class will be able to as well.
• Ask a reader to judge specific elements of your paper. Share your draft with someone and ask them to read for something specific i.e. organization, punctuation, transitions. A reader will give more specific feedback to you if you give them some specific direction.

Implementing exercises

Many of these exercises can be used in short in-class writing assignments, as part of group work, or as incremental steps in producing a paper. If you’ve assigned an end-of-semester term paper, you may want to assign one or two activities from each of the four stages-brainstorming, organizing, drafting, editing-at strategic points throughout the semester. You could also give the students the list of exercises for each stage and ask them to choose one or two activities to complete at each point as they produce a draft.

If you’d like to discuss how these exercises might work in your course, talk about other aspects of student writing, contact Kimberly Abels [email protected] at the Writing Center.

• 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.

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• Colleges & Universities

Essay Workshop for Students

If you’re an educator or event organizer for an institution, hosting an essay workshop for students in 2024 is a great way to cover several topics and share important information with students. . When students are preparing for college or graduate school, they’ll benefit from reviewing more than just standard essay formats, college essay introduction examples or understanding the importance of error-free work. While a college application may contain several components, a personal essay is an opportunity for each student to stand out, but it’s something that many students struggle with! An essay workshop, hosted by a professional service at your institution, can provide students with an exciting opportunity to learn and thrive when writing future essays!

Note: If you are a university, business, or student organization representative and want to partner with us, visit our partnerships page .

Article Contents 13 min read

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got 10 students, 100, or even 1,000 who potentially interested in attending an essay workshop, there are plenty of ways you can organize and execute a successful essay workshop for students who plan to attend or already matriculated at your institution! Essay workshops for students can be organized internally or offered externally through university partnerships . If you’re unsure as to how many of your students would attend a workshop, you can consider explaining the benefits to students, and striving to make your workshop inclusive and enticing for all, even those who feel they’re already great essay writers. Essays are an inevitable portion of many post-secondary programs, and learning how to craft well-written personal essays, as well as how to write an effective statement of intent , and how to approach college essay topics can be overwhelming for students…and counselors/faculty! Nevertheless, this knowledge is required for most admissions processes, as well as in general for those students who are unsure of their future academic path. A workshop is a great, organized and exciting way to present valuable information to your students.

Interested in organizing essay workshops for your students? Partner with BeMo's university students benefits program. Students have access to top admissions experts and coaches who can provide free, unlimited academic support, including essay writing workshops. Learn more on our university partnerships page.

• For most, essay skills are not inborn, but are learned through practice, and through acquiring proper guidance and feedback! Whether you’re a high school counselor or department head who is looking to host a workshop to help your students prepare for post-secondary, or, you’re in a position to host one at a college or university, know that many students will benefit from learning more about essays.
• Essays come in many shapes in sizes, and knowing how to properly structure and format an essay is a great life skill for your students to have, even if they aren’t sure if an undergraduate degree or any additional higher education is in their future. For students who are planning on attending an undergraduate program , or, who are currently attending one, essay workshops can help them understand admissions essays, and other essays that may be requested as a part of the admissions process to specific programs, such as nursing , law , medicine , and graduate school .
• Attending an essay workshop can help students organize their application process, and give them the necessary tools and confidence they need in order to craft a well-written, engaging admissions essay. Many may not have previously had the opportunity to access tools that are intended to help them perfect their essays, nor may they have had the chance to receive feedback, or even learn how to properly write a personal essay that speaks to their character and strengths, and appeals to the admissions teams.

Essay workshops are a great way to help students prepare for both academic and personal/admissions essays that they may be required to write in their near future. Being able to understand, with confidence, what makes a great personal essay, and how to structure and write a compelling essay in general, is an invaluable skill that students can utilize through their professional and academic careers.

Workshops can be organized in a variety of ways, and can cover a lot of material in a short period of time. Whether you’re hoping to host a 3-hour workshop, or, one that spans over several days and includes several learning activities, your students will have the opportunity to acquire essay-specific knowledge and put what they’ve learned to practice. Workshops can also be self paced and virtual, should you and your students find this to be more effective.

A huge benefit of workshops is that they can summarize and teach specific pointers and tips in a short period of time. If your workshop is to be about general essays, or, admissions essays, for example, you can opt to only include vital information and the best tips. Prior to the workshops, students may have only acquired essay writing knowledge through English classes, educational material or online tutorials that often contain a lot of additional information. In your workshop, you can be specific, and offer your students a lot of value.

Workshops are also beneficial because they can help in instances where the number of students requiring essay help is greater than the number of supports, that is, teachers, faculty, advisors or counselors. If your student-to-leader ratio isn’t the best, a workshop is a great, efficient and organized way to provide all students with tools, resources, and experiences when individualized attention and private counseling isn’t always an option. And, if you decide to hire a professional service, such as BeMo Academic Consulting , to supply materials and conduct your workshop, you’ll be able to rest-assured that your students will be learning vital information from experts who have helped thousands of students, and who focus on academic and admissions essays, interviews, and applications every day. Workshops are a unique learning experience that add tremendous value, as well as an element of excitement! Students will be eager to learn skills through a new form of delivery, whether you decide to host an online workshop, one in-person, or, have a combination of self-directed and collaborative activities. You may also opt to offer follow up activities and resources to keep student’s motivated through their writing experience, and this is another reason why a professional service can benefit students and organizers alike Should students require additional support and attention, it can be arranged through the company you hire to conduct your workshop—either as an extended portion of the workshop, or, for a discounted rate for those who attended the initial workshop.

As mentioned above, your workshop may be hosted on an afternoon for a few hours, online, or, over the span of several sessions and include online and in-person learning materials! Deciding how you’ll host your workshop, and how often (this could be a bi-annual event, for example) can depend on whether or not you’re a secondary or post-secondary institution, and how many students you have in attendance.

Components of an essay workshop can include:

Student can be welcomed with a light hearted ice breaker to get them excited! It doesn’t matter if your workshop is a virtual, self-paced workshop, or an in-person one with a crowd present. Opening with a story or testimonial, or even asking questions to the students to get them excited about learning how to improve their essay skills is a great way to get everybody excited about the workshop. Then, jumping into providing them with an agenda, as well as an overview of the workshop’s intended goals and outcomes is a good way to merge into the important content.

2. Encourage students to work with their strengths, and identify their weaknesses

It’s important to understand, and ensure your students understand, that the skills they already have should be utilized, but that they should strive to recognize their weaknesses and work with them. The purpose of a workshop is to improve a skill, and in this case, these will be skills specific to essay writing. You may have students attending who don’t understand how to format and write an essay whatsoever, but more than likely (especially with post-secondary) students will be looking to improve their skills for a particular type of essay, such as an admissions essay that is a mandatory component of their college or graduate school application..

Writing a personal essay is confusing for many, and quite daunting. There is no thesis or thorough analysis necessary, but, the essay still requires structure. When writing about their lives, their intent, or their passion for a particular program, many students struggle to tell their story in a way that is formatted well. Personal essays still require a clear introduction, body, and conclusion, with a key ‘point’ or takeaway, such as a defining moment or important quality that is meant to be the focus of the essay. Asking students to make note of what their strengths are, and what their biggest weaknesses, or, concerns are about their current essay writing ability is a good way to ease into this topic. Understanding what areas need improvement early-on will help students hone in on specific portions of your workshop, and will encourage self-awareness and criticism, which is necessary for writing a personal college essay.

3. Review how to structure and format an essay

Formatting and structuring essays well is crucial, so even if you feel your students may already understand how to format, workshops should always review styles, formats, best practices, and the structure of the essay. This can be reviewed through a presentation, and/or through a handout or another self-paced reading material that students can refer to later on when they’re writing their essay. In general, students should be taught that, when focussing on personal, professional essays, they should never add fancy formats or fonts, and should try to keep their spacing at either 1.5-2.0 so it’s legible. Additionally, students must always adhere to wordcounts. Most college admissions essays are about 500-600 words in length, however, students should always double check their instructions as this can vary! Sometimes, students struggle to sum up a detailed essay in less than 1000 words, so this is another reason workshops that focus specifically on essays and writing for an admissions team can be beneficial.

As far as structuring goes, for college admissions essays, students don’t have to adhere to the 5 paragraph ‘hamburger’ structure they may have been taught in high school, that is: Introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Students must have a clear hook/introduction, a clear intent behind their narrative, and a conclusion, but it certainly does not have to follow the 5-paragraph structure…especially with a word count of 500!

4. Review best practices, examples of great essays, and examples of what NOT to say

It’s important for students to see samples of great essays! Many workshops will include comparison exercises where students will get to view mediocre essays alongside excellent ones, and be encouraged to distinguish the key differences either on their own or with a small group in order to understand why one essay is markedly stronger than the other.

The purpose of this exercise isn’t to make students feel as though their writing is bad, but to show them how the right words, structure, format, and essay content can really tell a strong story and encourage them to adopt these best practices and skills. . This is what they’ll want to achieve when they send essays to admissions teams in the future—they’ll want to stand out as unique, and will want to be remembered as a strong candidate. However, some students struggle with telling the story they need to tell in an organized, concise manner.

It’s important that you emphasize that college admissions essays, whether for graduate, professional or undergraduate programs, are not the same as a cover letter, CV, or resume. Depending on how you want your workshop to be structured, it is possible to include some graduate school cover letter examples , or graduate school resume examples in an exercise to help students identify and understand the differences. Often, students will find themselves listing off their accomplishments, or reiterating information that is on their transcripts, and/or included in other admissions documents. In most cases, admissions essays are to be personal, and some may even include a specific prompt.

In order for students to identify the key moments in their lives or qualities they want to express in their essay, students can be asked to reflect on what events in their lives brought them to that exact moment, where they hope to go, what they hope to achieve, and why. Often, inspiration can be drawn from a single childhood event, a defining experience, or even a series of small interactions and moments that when combined, shaped the student to be who they are today! These things may include: experience with a sport or hobby that helped them become a leader or break their shyness, an experience with a mentor or role model, a time period in their life where many changes occurred, volunteering with the less fortunate, or at a hospital, to give back to the community, a course they took that changed their life and taught them some valuable lessons, like dramatic arts, or even growing up in a small, hardworking town with some remarkable friends and family!

Students should be encouraged to identify what story they want to tell, and do so in chronological order. And, they should be able to identify a few of their strongest traits—such as their collaboration skills and empathy for others—and draw on these throughout their narrative. The point of their essay is to tell a story that shows how they got to the position they’re in today, and how these great qualities of theirs, that will surely help them succeed academically and professionally, developed. To illustrate this point, you may even opt to utilize pop culture examples of ‘great character development’ from movies or a series, and ask students to identify the defining moments in a character’s life and note what traits and skills they acquire as a result.

It may feel unavoidable or tempting for students to ‘dump’ information into an essay, especially if they’ve had an eventful life, however, they should be encouraged to stick to only sharing necessary details, and opting to share ones with positive outcomes. It is absolutely okay for a student to include something like, “Watching my grandmother fiercely battle cancer for ten years made me not only appreciate the hard work of the nurses, doctors, surgeons, and caregivers involved, but also, respect and admire the strength of the patient, and the patient journey as a whole. My grandmother passed a few years ago, but she continues to inspire me. She is one of the reasons that I want to work in the medical field.” This may be a sad portion of the essay, but it ultimately had a positive outcome and is key in a student’s development. However, students should avoid adding in details of events that don’t directly impact their academic and career path, or, are too personal. Admissions teams don’t need to know about a crushing family divorce, a broken arm, or a difficult childhood phase, unless these events directly contributed toward the development of key qualities and inspiration the student currently has!

Overall, teaching students to keep their essays brief, concise, and flowing from points A, to B, to C is essential. A strong ‘hook’ of an introduction, followed by a great story and a conclusion that wraps it all up is what students should focus on. Encouraging students to check their spelling and grammar several times before submitted their essay is key, and even suggesting that they ask a trusted family member, teacher, or counselor to review their work is advised. Writing several drafts is a great way to achieve a fantastic final product! Lastly, students should be encouraged in the workshop to write in their own unique voice, and even use a bit of humor if they see fit! While they should not be overly casual, and should avoid bad language or abbreviations, students do not need to write in a serious or neutral tone.

Offering your students any additional tips about essay writing, such as making several drafts, or talking breaks when they’re feeling writer’s block can help with normalizing the struggles of the writing process. This can put student’s minds at ease and help them work through their essay knowing that it’s normal to hit roadblocks, and that they will overcome any issues they face! Additionally, your workshop should include the opportunity for students to practice what they’re learned and write either a first draft of a college admissions essay or, a roadmap to their essay where they plan out their key development points and identify their traits they wish to discuss in the essay.

Giving feedback can be tricky if you have hundreds of students, so how you offer feedback can vary. You may wish to have a team of workshop volunteers, comprised of other faculty or teaching assistants, who will be able to review each student submission. Additionally, hiring a professional service can help ensure students receive the appropriate amount of feedback and support as well. For larger groups, you may opt to do a self-assessment with a grading rubric, and with the information they’ve acquired throughout the workshop. . The goal with feedback isn’t to discourage what the student has written, nor is it to ‘get it right’ the first time! Essays require practice, patience, and a lot of planning. During every step of the writing process, students should learn to understand what is valuable and useful on their page, and what needs to be edited or removed in order to keep the essay on-track.

6. Hire a consulting service to help organize and execute the best essay workshop for your students

While it may seem like a do-able undertaking, facilitating an essay workshop for several students requires a significant amount of preparation and expertise…and your job wouldn’t stop once your workshop was organized, either! Students require ongoing support, feedback, and encouragement, and this can be overwhelming for one or two organizers. That’s why hiring an academic consulting service, such as BeMo Academic Consulting, is a great idea if you’re looking to provide your students with valuable information and support from professionals. BeMo has helped thousands of students understand and write admissions essays, and prepare for academic interviews, exams, and application processes. If you’ve got an idea or inspiration for a workshop in mind, BeMo can certainly help you execute it and provide your students with the knowledge, skills, and feedback they require for a successful academic and professional career! And, if there are students who are seeking additional support, you may opt to invite them to another workshop, or suggest they further explore preparatory services like BeMo. BeMo can help students further understand the admissions process, and can offer 1-on-1 consulting and in-depth essay support for students who require it.

Being able to write a great essay, especially a personal one that may be required for college admissions, is an invaluable skill and can help students in their academic careers, as well as their professional ones. Essay skills require a lot of practice, patience, and planning. Even if students have written essays in their high school career, the structure and purpose of admissions essays are quite different.

An essay workshop provides students with the experience to learn about what skills are required in order to comprise a great essay, and what information admissions teams are looking for. Workshops can be hosted for 10 students or 500 students, they can consist of presentations, handouts, and activities, such as listing their own skills, scoring others’, and partaking in mock exercises with their peers. Alternatively, workshops may be self-paced or entirely online. Either way, workshops offer an exciting learning opportunity that can help students further develop and enhance great essay writing skills in a short period of time! Many institutions opt to hire consulting services, such as BeMo Academic Consulting, to conduct their workshops to allow students access to valuable information and tips from proven professionals.

In general, most students will benefit to some degree! However, essay skills workshops that focus on college admission essays are typically best for either grade 11 and 12 students looking to apply to college in the near future, or, undergraduate students who are looking forward to applying to a graduate or professional program to further their education.

As noted, many institutions opt to hire services like BeMo to conduct their workshops, and this means individual costs may vary by school. However, there are always discounts and packages available for institutions who decide to conduct several workshops, or make additional services from BeMo accessible to their students!

Your workshop can cover any number of topics, and can include insight from a professional team, should you hire one. In general, many workshops tend to follow a schedule/outline similar to this one:

• Welcome/ overview of what will be covered
• Discuss strengths and weaknesses students currently have as they pertain to essays
• Talk about the goal of the essay, this is a great time to touch on ‘character development’ to illustrate the point and encourage students to understand their own development before they write
• Structure and formatting do’s and don’ts
• Writing style, word count and spelling
• What not to include in an essay, including examples of other types of writing or poorly written essays
• Offer time to practice and/or a feedback exercise, and give additional resources to keep students motivated and supported through their future essay writing process

They could... but it wouldn't be the same as attending a workshop! Students do learn how to write essays in high school, and this information could be searched online, but many students benefit from a personalized touch and learning experience! Furthermore, college essays are a professional form of writing and do not typically follow the 'hamburger', or, '5 paragraph' structure students are taught when they are young. So, although students could search for this information online or watch a video tutorial, an organized workshop provides an exciting opportunity for students to learn, within a few hours, all that they need to know about college essays, and even have the opportunity to put what they've learned into practice.

Despite their willingness, some students may struggle with writing, or personal writing! That is why encouraging students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses before writing can be beneficial, as can providing feedback (or, the opportunity to structured peer feedback). Additionally, some students may struggle with writing altogether, and this is why it’s important to put an emphasis on key ‘must have’s’, such as a clear structure and format, stress that students adhere to wordcounts, and try to reiterate the importance of writing several drafts, and writing an organized story with details that aren’t included on their resume, transcript, or CV.

It’s common for schools and other institutions conducting workshops for students to hire a professional service or team to conduct their workshop for them. Often, this means that a company comprised of academic experts will take the reigns and conduct the workshop—or, supply the appropriate materials, outlines and additional resources to the staff conducting it! This is a great way to ensure that students are only being taught the best, most concise information available that is relevant to their current essay writing needs and can help enhance their skills. If there are students who are seeking additional support after the workshop you may opt to invite them to another workshop, or suggest preparatory services, such as BeMo Academic Consulting BeMo can help students further organize their applications for college or graduate school/professional school and give them more individualized attention that can help them better understand what is expected of their application and essays.

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43 Creative writing exercises

A selection of fun creative writing exercises that can be completed solo, or with a group. Some are prompts to help inspire you to come up with story ideas, others focus on learning specific writing skills.

I run a  Creative Writing Meetup  for adults and teens in Montpellier or online every week. We start with a 5 to 20 minute exercise, followed by an hour and a half of silent writing, during which each participant focuses on their own project. Every exercise listed below has been run with the group and had any kinks ironed out.  Where the exercises specify a number of people, if you have a larger group, simply split everyone up into smaller groups as appropriate.

The solo exercises are ideal to help stimulate your mind before working on a larger project, to overcome writer’s block, or as stand-alone prompts in their own right. If a solo exercise inspires you and you wish to use it with a larger group, give every member ten minutes to complete the exercise, then ask anyone who wishes to share their work to do so in groups of 3 or 4 afterwards.

Looking for something quick to fire your imagination? Check out these  creative writing prompts for adults .

Writing Retreat in South France

A note on running exercises remotely

While you can enjoy the exercises solo, they are also designed for online writing groups using Zoom, WhatsApp, or Discord.

If you're running a group and follow a ' Shut Up and Write ' structure, I recommend connecting on WhatsApp (for example) first, doing the exercise together, sharing writing samples as needed. Next, write in silence for an hour and a half on your own projects, before reconnecting for a brief informal chat at the end. This works great with small remote groups and is a way to learn new techniques, gain online support, and have a productive session.

If you have a larger online group, it's worth looking into Zoom, as this has a feature called  Breakout Rooms . Breakout Rooms let you split different writers into separate rooms, which is great for group activities. The free version of Zoom has a 40 minute limit, which can be restrictive, but Zoom Pro is well worth it if you're going to use it on a regular basis. In my experience, Zoom has a better connection than Facebook chat or WhatsApp.

A Letter From Your Character To You

Spend ten minutes writing a letter from a character in your novel to  you , the author, explaining why you should write about them. This serves three purposes:

• As you write, it helps you get into the mindset of the character. Ask yourself how they would language this letter and what they would consider important.
• It's motivating to know that your character wants you to write about them.
• If your goal is to publish a complete work of fiction one day, whether it be a novel, a play or a movie script, you will want to contact an agent or publisher. This helps you practice in an easy, safe way.

If you're doing this exercise with a group of teens or adults, and some of the group haven't already started working on their masterpiece, they can instead choose any fictional novel they love. Ask participants to imagine that a character within the book wrote to the author in the first place to ask them to write their story. How did they plead their case?

The Opening Sentence

The opening sentence has to grab the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Many authors achieve this by starting with an action scene. In modern literature, it's best to avoid starting with someone waking up, or a description of the weather. In this exercise the task is to write an opening sentence either to a book you're currently writing, or simply for an imaginary piece of literature.  Here are some of my favourite opening sentences to get you going:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

George Orwell , 1984

The Golem's life began in the hold of a steamship.

Helene Wecker , The Golem and the Djinni

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

Diana Gabaldon , Outlander

You better not never tell nobody but God.

Alice Walker , The Color Purple

The cage was finished.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez ,  Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon

Imagine that you are living your life out of order: Lunch before breakfast, marriage before your first kiss.

Audrey Niffenegger ,  The Time Traveler's Wife

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Douglas Adams ,  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There are a plethora of ways you can start a book, however two ways that help engage the reader immediately are:

• Set the scene in as few words as possible, so the reader immediately knows what's happening and wants to know what happens next.  The scene must be original and create a vivid image in the reader's mind.
• Surprise the reader with an unusual event or usual point of view.

Spend 5 minutes working on your own opening sentence, then share it with the other participants.

Make your protagonist act!

Exercise for 2 writers, or can be done solo.

According to John Gardner:

"Failure to recognise that the central character must act, not simply be acted upon, is the single most common mistake in the fiction of beginners."

Spend 5 minutes writing a scene where the protagonist is passive in a conversation with one other character. It could be that the other character says something dramatic, and the protagonist just listens, or it could be anything else of your choice!

Once the 5 minutes is up, swap papers with another writer. If you're using Zoom, or working online, send it to each other in a private chat. Now the other person spends 8 minutes rewriting the scene to make the protagonist as active as possible. This might include:

Read both scenes together. Which makes you want to keep on reading?

If you're doing this as a solo writing exercise, simply complete both parts yourself.

• Showing the emotion this evokes.
• Getting them to disagree with the other character.
• Showing how they respond physically (whether it's as a physical manifestation of how they feel, or a dramatic gesture to make a point).

Overcoming writer's block

Are you staring at a blank page or stuck for any story ideas? This exercise will help anyone who's experiencing writer's block with a particular piece of writing. If this isn't you, that's great, others will value your input!

If anyone has a particular scene they're stuck with (a pool of blood on the floor they have no explanation for, a reason why the rich lady just walked into a particular pub, etc.) then at the start of the exercise everyone briefly describes their scenes (if working online with a large group, typing it into the chat might be best). Everyone then chooses one scene to use as a writing prompt to write a short story for 10-15 minutes.

Afterwards, split into small groups if necessary, and read out how you completed someone else's writing prompt. As everyone listens to everyone else's ideas, this can be a wonderful source of inspiration and also improves your writing. As an alternative solo exercise, try free writing. With free writing, simply write as quickly as you can on the topic without editing or censoring yourself - just let your creative juices flow. If you're not sure what happens next, brainstorm options on the page, jot down story ideas, or just put, "I don't know what happens next." Keep going and ideas will come.

Writing Character Arcs

There are several different types of character arc in a novel, the 3 most common being:

For this exercise choose either a positive or negative character arc. Spend 8 minutes writing a scene from the start of a novel, then 8 minutes writing a scene towards the end of a novel showing how the character has developed between the two points. Don't worry about including how the character has changed, you can leave that to the imagination.

The point here is to capture the essence of a character, as they will be the same, but show their development.

• Positive  - Where a character develops and grows during the novel. Perhaps they start unhappy or weak and end happy or powerful.
• Negative  - Where a character gets worse during a novel. Perhaps they become ill or give in to evil tendencies as the novel progresses.
• Flat  - In a flat character arc the character themself doesn't change much, however the world around them does. This could be overthrowing a great injustice, for example.

Sewing Seeds in Your Writing

In this exercise, we will look at how to sew seeds. No, not in your garden, but in your story. Seeds are the tiny hints and indicators that something is going on, which influence a reader's perceptions on an often unconscious level. They're important, as if you spring a surprise twist on your readers without any warning, it can seem unbelievable. Sew seeds that lead up to the event, so the twists and turns are still surprising, but make intuitive sense. Groups : Brainstorm major plot twists that might happen towards the end of the novel and share it in a Zoom chat, or on pieces of paper. Choose one twist each. Individuals : Choose one of the following plot twists:   -  Your friend is actually the secret son of the king.   -  Unreliable narrator - the narrator turns out to be villain.   -  The monster turns out to be the missing woman the narrator is seeking.   -  The man she is about to marry happens to already have a wife and three kids.

Write for ten minutes and give subtle hints as to what the plot twist is. This is an exercise in subtlety. Remember, when the twist occurs, it should still come as a surprise.

This is a fun writing activity for a small group. You’ve found a magic potion labelled ‘Cat Chat’ and when you drink it, you turn into whichever animal you’re thinking about; but there’s a problem, it also picks up on the brainwaves of other people near you!

Everyone writes down an animal in secret and then reveals it to the other writers.  The spell will turn you into a creature that combines elements of all the animals.  Each person then spends 5 minutes writing down what happens when they drink the potion.

After the 5 minutes is up, everyone shares their story with the other participants.

If you enjoy this exercise, then you may also want to check out our  Fantasy and Sci-Fi writing prompts  full of world building, magic, and character development prompts..

Joe Brainard wrote a novel called:  I Remember It contains a collection of paragraphs all starting with “I remember”.  This is the inspiration for this exercise, and if you’re stuck for what to write, is a great way to get the mental gears turning.  Simply write “I remember” and continue with the first thing that pops into your head.

Spend 5 minutes writing a short collection of “I remember” stories.

Here are a couple of examples from Joe Brainard’s novel:

“I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn't fall off.”

“I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face.”

Giving feedback to authors

If you're running a workshop for more experienced adult authors and have at least an hour, this is a good one to use. This is the longest exercise on this page, but I felt it important enough to include.

Give each author the option to bring a piece of their own work. This should be double spaced and a maximum of 3 pages long. If you're running a workshop where not everyone is likely to bring a manuscript, ask everyone who wants to bring one to print two copies each. If someone forgets but has a laptop with them, the reader can always use their laptop.

Print out a few copies and hand them around to everyone in the workshop of the guide on: 'How to give constructive feedback to writers'

Each author who brought a sample with them then gives them to one other person to review. They write their name on the manuscript in a certain colour pen, then add any comments to it before passing it to a second person who does the same (commenting on the comments if they agree or disagree).

Then allow 5 minutes for everyone to discuss the feedback they've received, ensuring they are giving constructive feedback.

The Five Senses

Painting by Giovanni Battista Manerius -  The Five Senses

Choose a scene and write it for 5 minutes focusing on one sense, NOT sight. Choose between:

Hearing  Taste Smell Touch

This can be internal as well as external (I heard my heartbeat thudding in my ears, or I smelt my own adrenaline).

After the 5 minutes stop and everyone reads it out loud to each other. Now write for another 5 minutes and continue the other person's story, but do NOT use sight OR the sense they used.

You can use any sense to communicate the essentials, just focus on creating emotions and conveying the story with the specific sense(s).

If you need some writing prompts, here are possible scenes that involve several senses:

• Climbing through an exotic jungle
• Having an argument that becomes a fight
• A cat's morning
• Talking to someone you're attracted to

Show don't tell

2 or 3 people

A lot of writing guides will advise you to, "Show, don't tell". What does this actually mean?

If you want to evoke an emotional reaction from your reader, showing them what is happening is a great way to do so.  You can approach this in several ways:

Split up into pairs and each person writes down a short scene from a story where they "tell" it.  After this, pass the description of the scene to your partner and they then have 5 minutes to rewrite it to "show" what happened.  If there are an odd number of participants, make one group of three, with each person passing their scene clockwise, so everyone has a new scene to show.  After the 5 minutes, for small groups everyone reads their new description to everyone else, or for large groups, each person just reads their new scene to their partner.

• Avoid internal dialogue (thinking), instead have your protagonist interact with other people, or have a physical reaction to something that shows how s/he feels.  Does their heart beat faster?  Do they notice the smell of their own adrenaline?  Do they step backwards, or lean forwards?
• Instead of using an adjective like creepy, e.g. "Mary entered the creepy house", show why the house is creepy through description and in the way the protagonist responds - "The light streamed through the filthy skylight, highlighting the decomposing body of a rat resting on top of it.  As Mary stepped inside, she felt a gust of freezing air brush past her. She turned, but there was nothing there..."

World building

World building is the art of conveying the magic of living in a different world, whether it's a spaceship, a medieval castle, a boat, or simply someone's living room. To master world building, it's not necessary to know every intricate detail, rather to convey the experience of what it would be like to live there.

Choose one of the above images as a prompt and spend 10 minutes writing a scene from the perspective of someone who is seeing it for the first time. Now, move your character six months forward and imagine they've spent the last six months living or working there. Write another scene (perhaps with an additional character) using the image as a background, with the events of the scene as the main action.

Click the above image for a close-up.

Gossiping about a character as if they're a friend.

Judy Blume says that she tells her family about her characters as if they’re real people. 

Chris Claremont said, "For me, writing the 'X-Men' was easy - is easy. I know these people, they're my friends." 

Today’s exercise has 2 parts. First, spend 5 minutes jotting down some facts about a character you’ve invented that might come up if you were telling your friends about them. Either choose a character in something you’ve already written, or invent one from scratch now.

Answer the questions:

What are they up to? How are they? What would you say if you were gossiping about them?

Then split up into groups of 4 to 6 writers. 2 volunteers from each group then role-play talking about their character as if they were a friend (perhaps another character in the story).  The other participants will role-play a group of friends gossiping about the character behind their back and ask questions. If you don’t know the answer, invent it!

Degrees of Emotion Game

This is based on an acting game, to help actors understand how to perform with different degrees of emotion.

Ask everyone to write the following 4 emotions:

For groups of 5 or less, write down numbers starting with 1 and going up until everyone has a number, then give them out in order. For groups of 6 or more, divide groups into 3's, 4's or 5's.

Each person has to write a scene where the protagonist is alone and is only allowed to say a single word, e.g. "Banana".  The writer with number 1 should write the scene with a very low level of the emotion (e.g. happiness), number 2 increases the intensity a bit and the highest number writes a scene with the most intense emotion you can possibly imagine.

Once each writer has written about happiness, rotate the numbers one or two spaces, then move onto anger, then fear, then sadness.

It can help to give everyone numbers showing the intensity of the emotions to write about at the start of the exercise, in which case you may wish to print either the Word or PDF file, then use the ones corresponding to 3, 4 or 5 writers.

Everyone shares their scene with the other course participants.

Three birds, one line

The first paragraph of a surprising number of best-selling novels serves multiple purposes. These are to:

• Establish a goal
• Set the scene
• Develop a character

Nearly every chapter in a novel also serves all three purposes. Instead of establishing a goal though, the protagonist either moves towards it, or encounters an obstacle that hinders them from achieving it.

Some books manage to meet all three purposes with their opening lines, for example:  

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

J.K. Rowling ,  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone  

A little more than one hundred days into the fortieth year of her confinement, Dajeil Gelian was visited in her lonely tower overlooking the sea by an avatar of the great ship that was her home.

Iain M. Banks ,  Excession  

"We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

George R.R. Martin ,  A Game of Thrones

For this exercise write a sentence or short paragraph that serves all three purposes. If you're already writing a novel, then see if you can do this for the first line in a chapter. If not, choose any combination from the following table:

Blind Date on Valentine's Day (Exercise for Adults)

In pairs one writer spends a minute or two describing a character they're writing about, or alternatively they can describe a celebrity or someone from a work of fiction.  The next writer then describes their character.

The story is that these 2 characters (or in my case, person and alien, as I'm writing a sci-fi) have accidentally ended up on a blind date with each other. Perhaps the waiter seated them in the wrong location, perhaps it's an actual blind date, or perhaps they met in some other fashion the writers can determine.

Now spend 10 minutes discussing what happens next!

A Success (Works best for online groups)

This exercise works best for online groups, via Zoom, for example.  The instructions to give are:

"In a few words describe a success in your life and what it felt like to achieve it. It can be a small victory or a large one."

Share a personal example of your own (mine was watching my homeschooled sons sing in an opera together).

"Once you have one (small or large), write it in the chat.

The writing exercise is then to choose someone else's victory to write about for 10 minutes, as if it was the end of your own book.

If you want to write for longer, imagine how that book would start. Write the first part of the book with the ending in mind."

This is great for reminding people of a success in their lives, and also helps everyone connect and discover something about each other.

Your dream holiday

You’re going on a dream holiday together, but always disagree with each other. To avoid conflict, rather than discuss what you want to do, you’ve decided that each of you will choose a different aspect of the holiday as follows:

• Choose where you’ll be going – your favourite holiday destination.
• Choose what your main fun activity will be on the holiday.
• Decide what mode of travel you’ll use to get there.
• If there’s a 4 th  person, choose what you’ll eat on the holiday and what you’ll be wearing.

Decide who gets to choose what at random. Each of you then writes down your dream holiday destination/activity/travel/food & clothes in secret.  Next spend 5 minutes discussing your dream holiday and add any other details you’d like to include, particularly if you’re passionate about doing something in real life.

Finally, everyone spends another 5 minutes writing down a description of the holiday, then shares it with the others.

A haiku is a traditional Japanese form of non-rhyming poetry whose short form makes it ideal for a simple writing exercise.

They are traditionally structured in 3 lines, where the first line is 5 syllables, the second line is 7 syllables, and the third line is 5 syllables again. Haiku tend to focus on themes of nature and deep concepts that can be expressed simply.

A couple of examples:

A summer river being crossed how pleasing with sandals in my hands! Yosa Buson , a haiku master poet from the 18 th  Century.

And one of mine:

When night-time arrives Stars come out, breaking the dark You can see the most

Martin Woods

Spend up to 10 minutes writing a haiku.  If you get stuck with the 5-7-5 syllable rule, then don’t worry, the overall concept is more important!

See  How to write a haiku  for more details and examples.

Unlike a haiku, which is profound and sombre, a limerick is a light-hearted, fun rhyming verse.

Here are a couple of examples:

A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his beli-can He can take in his beak Food enough for a week But I'm damned if I see how the heli-can.

Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1910

There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She started one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller in  Punch,  1923

The 1 st , 2 nd  and 5 th  line all rhyme, as do the 3 rd  and 4 th  line.  The overall number of syllables isn’t important, but the 3 rd  and 4 th  lines should be shorter than the others.

Typically, the 1 st  line introduces the character, often with “There was”, or “There once was”. The rest of the verse tells their story.

Spend 10 minutes writing a limerick.

Time Travel - Child, Adult, Senior

Imagine that your future self as an old man/woman travels back in time to meet you, the adult you are today.  Alternatively, you as a child travels forward in time to meet yourself as an adult.  Or perhaps both happen, so the child you, adult you, and senior you are all together at the same time.  In story form write down what happens next.

Participants then share their story with other writers either in small groups, or to the whole group.

Focus on faces

Solo exercise.

One challenge writers face is describing a character. A common mistake is to focus too much on the physical features, e.g. "She had brown eyes, curly brown hair and was five foot six inches tall."

The problem with this is it doesn't reveal anything about the character's personality, or the relationship between your protagonist and the character. Your reader is therefore likely to quickly forget what someone looks like.  When describing characters, it's therefore best to:

• Animate them - it's rare that someone's sitting for a portrait when your protagonist first meets them and whether they're talking or walking, it's likely that they're moving in some way.
• Use metaphors or similes  - comparing physical features to emotionally charged items conjures both an image and a sense of who someone is.
• Involve your protagonist  - if your protagonist is interacting with a character, make it personal.  How does your protagonist view this person?  Incorporate the description as part of the description.
• Only give information your protagonist knows  - they may know if someone is an adult, or a teenager, but they won't know that someone is 37 years old, for example.

Here are three examples of character descriptions that leave no doubt how the protagonist feels.

“If girls could spit venom, it'd be through their eyes.” S.D. Lawendowski,  Snapped

"And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war." Maggie Stiefvater,  The Dream Thieves

"His mouth was such a post office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling." Charles Dickens

Spend 5 minutes writing a character introduction that is animated, uses metaphors or similes and involves your protagonist.

If working with a group, then form small groups of 3 or 4 and share your description with the rest of the group.

Onomatopeai, rhyme and alliteration

Today's session is all about sound.

Several authors recommend reading your writing out loud after you've written it to be sure it sounds natural.   Philip Pullman  even goes as far as to say:

"When I’m writing, I’m more conscious of the sound, actually, than the meaning. I know what the rhythm of the sentence is going to be before I know what the words are going to be in it."

For today's exercise, choose the name of a song and write for 10 minutes as if that's the title for a short story. Focus on how your writing sounds and aim to include at least one onomatopoeia, rhyme or alliteration.  At the end of the 10 minutes, read it out loud to yourself, or to the group.

Alliterations

An alliteration example from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Onomatopoeias

Buzz, woof, quack, baa, crash, purr, beep, belch,...

The alphabet story - creating a story as a group

This is a novel way to write a story as a group, one word at a time.  The first person starts the story that begins with any word starting with “A”, the next person continues the story with a word starting with “B”, and so on.

Keep going round until you have completed the alphabet.  Ideally it will all be one sentence, but if you get stuck, start a new sentence.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t make complete sense!

It can be tricky to remember the alphabet when under pressure, so you may wish to print it out a couple of times, so the storytellers can see it if they need to, this is particularly helpful if you have dyslexics in the group.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Here’s an example of an alphabet story:

A Band Can Dance Each Friday, Ghostly Hauntings In Jail Kill Lucky Men, Nobody Or Perhaps Quiet Rats, Still That Unifies Villains Who X-Ray Your Zebras.

As I mentioned, it doesn’t need to make sense!

A question or two

Small or large groups

The standard format in our group is a short writing exercise followed by an hour and a half of silent writing on our projects.

At one point I felt like we'd done a lot of small group exercises, and wanted to gain an insight into what everyone was working on, so we did the following exercise instead:

Go round the table and ask everyone to briefly talk about their writing.  Each person then asks one or two yes/no questions.

Everyone responds either by raising their hand for 'yes' or shaking their heads for 'no'. You can also leap up and down to indicate a very strong 'yes'.

Questions can be about anything, and you can use them either to help guide your writing or to help find other people in the group who have similar interests.

Here are some random examples you might ask:

• I want to write a romance novel and am considering setting it in Paris, a traditional romantic setting, or Liverpool which is a less obvious setting. Who thinks Liverpool would be best?
• I need to know more about the life of a farmer. Has anyone got farming experience who I can interview in exchange for a drink?
• My character gets fired and that night goes back to his office and steals 35 computers. Does that sound realistic as the premise of a story?

This works best when you give participants some advance notice, so they have time to think of a question.

Murder Mystery Game

Groups of 3 or 4

This exercise takes 20-30 minutes and allows participants to create a murder mystery outline together.

Phase 1 (3 minutes)

• Split into groups of 3 or 4
• Decide as a group where the murder occurs (e.g. the opera house, a bar, a casino)
• Decide one person who will write the details of the victim and the murder itself.  Everyone else writes the details of one suspect each.
• The ‘victim author’ then invents a few extra details about the scene of the crime, who the victim was (a teenage punk, an adult opera singer, etc.) and the murder weapon and summarises this to the others.

Phase 2 (10 minutes)

Each person then writes a police report as if they are either describing the scene of the crime, or recording the notes from their interview with a single suspect:

Write the following:

• 1 line description of the victim.
• When they were last seen by a group of witnesses (and what they were doing).
• How the murder occurred in more detail based on the evidence available.

Write the following (from the perspective of the investigator):

• 1 line description of the suspect
• What they said during the interview (including what they claim to have doing when the murder occurs).
• A possible motivation (as determined by the police from other witnesses).

Phase 3 (5 minutes)

• Each person reads out their police reports to the other members of their small group
• As a group, decide who the murderer was and what actually happened

See more ideas on  creating murder mystery party games

The obscure movie exercise

Pick a famous movie and spend 5 minutes writing a scene from it from an unusual perspective.  Your aim is to achieve a balance between being too obscure and making it too obvious.  Feel free to add internal dialogue.

At the end of the 5 minutes, everyone reads their movie scene to the others and all the other participants see if they can guess what the movie is.

How to hint at romantic feelings

Write a scene with two people in a group, where you hint that one is romantically interested in the other, but the feelings aren’t reciprocated.

The goal of this exercise is to practice subtlety. Imagine you are setting a scene for the future where the characters feelings will become more important. Choose a situation like a work conference, meeting with a group of friends, etc. How do you indicate how the characters feel without them saying it in words?

Some tips for hinting at romantic feelings:

• Make the characters nervous and shy.
• Your protagonist leans forward.
• Asks deeper questions and listens intently.
• Finds ways to be close together.
• Mirrors their gestures.
• Gives lots of compliments.
• Makes eye contact, then looks away.
• Other people seem invisible to your protagonist.

A novel idea

Take it in turns to tell everyone else about a current project you’re working on (a book, screenplay, short story, etc.)

The other writers then brainstorm ideas for related stories you could write, or directions your project could take.  There are no right or wrong suggestions and the intention is to focus on big concepts, not little details.

This whole exercise takes around 15 minutes.

Creative writing prompts

Exercise for groups of 3-5

If you're in larger group, split up into groups of 3 or 4 people.

Everyone writes the first line of a story in the Zoom chat, or on paper. Other people can then choose this line as a writing prompt.

For this exercise:

• Say who the protagonist is.
• Reveal their motivation.
• Introduce any other characters

Once everyone's written a prompt, each author chooses a prompt (preferably someone eles's, but it can be your own if you feel really inspired by it.)  Then write for 10 minutes using this prompt. See if you can reveal who the protagonist is, what their motivation is (it can be a small motivation for a particular scene, it doesn't have to be a huge life goal), and introduce at least one new character.

Take turns reading out your stories to each other.

• Write in the first person.
• Have the protagonist interacting with an object or something in nature.
• The challenge is to create intrigue that makes the reader want to know more with just a single line.

Creative story cards / dice

Cut up a piece of paper and write one word on each of the pieces of paper, as follows:

Give each participant a couple of pieces of paper at random.  The first person says the first sentence of a story and they must use their first word as part of that sentence.  The second person then continues the story and must include their word in it, and so on.  Go round the group twice to complete the story.

You can also do this creative writing exercise with story dice, your own choice of words, or by asking participants to write random words down themselves, then shuffling all the cards together.

Alternative Christmas Story

Every Christmas adults tell kids stories about Santa Claus. In this exercise you write a Christmas story from an alternative dimension.

What if every Christmas Santa didn't fly around the world delivering presents on his sleigh pulled by reindeer? What if gnomes or aliens delivered the presents? Or perhaps it was the gnomes who are trying to emulate the humans? Or some other Christmas tradition entirely that we humans have never heard of!

Group writing exercise

If you're working with a group, give everyone a couple of minutes to write two possible themes for the new Christmas story. Each theme should be 5 words or less.

Shuffle the paper and distribute them at random. If you're working online, everyone types the themes into the Zoom or group chat. Each writer then spends 10 minutes writing a short story for children based on one of the two themes, or their own theme if they really want to.

If working alone, choose your own theme and spend 15 minutes writing a short story on it. See if you can create the magic of Christmas from another world!

Murder Mystery Mind Map

In a murder mystery story or courtroom drama, there's often conflicting information and lots of links between characters. A mind map is an ideal way to illustrate how everything ties together.

Split into groups of 3 or 4 people each and place a blank piece of A3 paper (double the size of A4) in the middle of each group. Discuss between you who the victim is and write their name in the middle of the piece of paper. Then brainstorm information about the murder, for example:

Feel free to expand out from any of these, e.g. to include more information on the different characters involved.

The idea is that  everyone writes at the same time!   Obviously, you can discuss ideas, but anyone can dive in and write their ideas on the mind map.

• Who was the victim? (job, appearance, hobbies, etc.)
• Who did the victim know?
• What were their possible motivations?
• What was the murder weapon?
• What locations are significant to the plot?

New Year’s resolutions for a fictional character

If you’re writing a piece of fiction, ask yourself how your protagonist would react to an everyday situation. This can help you to gain a deeper insight into who they are.

One way to do this is to imagine what their New Year’s resolutions would be.

If completing this exercise with a group, limit it to 3 to 5 resolutions per person. If some participants are historical fiction or non-fiction writers, they instead pick a celebrity and either write what their resolutions  will  be, or what their resolutions  should  be, their choice.

Verb Noun Fiction Exercise (Inspired by Stephen King)

Stephen King said, "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops."

He also said, "Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight that’s nice."

In this fiction writing exercise, start by brainstorming (either individually or collectively) seven verbs on seven different pieces of paper. Put those aside for later. Now brainstorm seven nouns. Randomly match the nouns and verbs so you have seven pairs. Choose a pair and write a piece of fiction for ten minutes. Avoid using any adverbs.

It’s the end of the world

It’s the end of the world!  For 5 minutes either:

If working as a team, then after the 5 minutes is up each writer reads their description out to the other participants.

• Describe how the world’s going to end, creating evocative images using similes or metaphors as you wish and tell the story from a global perspective, or
• Describe how you spend your final day before the world is destroyed.  Combine emotion and action to engage the reader.

7 Editing Exercises

For use after your first draft

I’ve listened to a lot of masterclasses on writing by successful authors and they all say variants of your first draft won’t be good and that’s fine. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman summarise it the best:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”  

Terry Pratchett

“For me, it’s always been a process of trying to convince myself that what I’m doing in a first draft isn’t important. One way you get through the wall is by convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. No one is ever going to see your first draft. Nobody cares about your first draft. And that’s the thing that you may be agonising over, but honestly, whatever you’re doing can be fixed… For now, just get the words out. Get the story down however you can get it down, then fix it.”

Neil Gaiman

Once you’ve written your first draft, it will need editing to develop the plot, enhance the characters, and improve each scene in a myriad of ways – small and large. These seven creative editing exercises are designed to help with this stage of the process.

The First Sentence

Read the first paragraph of the novel, in particular the first sentence. Does it launch the reader straight into the action? According to  On Writing and Worldbuilding  by Timothy Hickson,  “The most persuasive opening lines are succinct, and not superfluous. To do this, it is often effective to limit it to a single central idea… This does not need to be the most important element, but it should be a central element that is interesting.” Ask yourself what element your opening sentence encapsulates and whether it’s the best one to capture your readers’ attention.

Consistency

Consistency is crucial in creative writing, whether it’s in relation to location, objects, or people.

It’s also crucial for personality, emotions and motivation.

Look at scenes where your protagonist makes an important decision. Are their motivations clear? Do any scenes force them to choose between two conflicting morals? If so, do you explore this? Do their emotions fit with what’s happened in previous scenes?

As you edit your manuscript, keep the characters’ personality, emotions and motivation in mind. If their behaviour is inconsistent, either edit it for consistency, or have someone comment on their strange behaviour or be surprised by it. Inconsistent behaviour can reveal that a character is keeping a secret, or is under stress, so characters don’t always need to be consistent. But when they’re not, there has to be a reason.  

Show Don’t Tell One

This exercise is the first in  The Emotional Craft of Fiction  by Donald Maass. It’s a writing guide with a plethora of editing exercises designed to help you reenergize your writing by thinking of what your character is feeling, and giving you the tools to make your reader feel something.  

• Select a moment in your story when your protagonist is moved, unsettled, or disturbed… Write down all the emotions inherent in this moment, both obvious and hidden.
• Next, considering what he is feeling, write down how your protagonist can act out. What is the biggest thing your protagonist can do? What would be explosive, out of bounds, or offensive? What would be symbolic? … Go sideways, underneath, or ahead. How can your protagonist show us a feeling we don’t expect to see?
• Finally, go back and delete all the emotions you wrote down at the beginning of this exercise. Let actions and spoken words do the work. Do they feel too big, dangerous, or over-the-top? Use them anyway. Others will tell you if you’ve gone too far, but more likely, you haven’t gone far enough.

Show Don’t Tell Two

Search for the following words in your book:

Whenever these words occur, ask yourself if you can demonstrate how your characters feel, rather than simply stating it. For each occasion, can you use physiological descriptors (a racing heart), actions (taking a step backwards) or dialogue to express what’s just happened instead? Will this enhance the scene and engage the reader more?

After The Action

Find a scene where your characters disagree – in particular a scene where your protagonist argues with friends or allies. What happens next?

It can be tempting to wrap up the action with a quick resolution. But what if a resentment lingers and mistrust builds? This creates a more interesting story arc and means a resolution can occur later, giving the character development a real dynamic.

Review how you resolve the action and see if you can stretch out the emotions for a more satisfying read.

Eliminating the Fluff

Ensure that the words used don’t detract from the enormity of the events your character is going through. Can you delete words like, “Quite”, “Little”, or “Rather”? 

Of “Very” Florence King once wrote: “ 'Very' is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen .” Delete it, or replace the word after it with a stronger word, which makes “Very” redundant.

“That,” is another common word used in creative writing which can often be deleted. Read a sentence as is, then reread it as if you deleted, “That”. If the meaning is the same, delete it.

Chapter Endings

When talking about chapter endings, James Patterson said,  “At the end, something has to propel you into the next chapter.”

Read how each of your chapters finish and ask yourself does it either:

• End on a cliff hanger? (R.L. Stine likes to finish every chapter in this method).
• End on a natural pause (for example, you’re changing point of view or location).

Review how you wrap up each of your chapters. Do you end at the best point in your story? Can you add anticipation to cliff hangers? Will you leave your readers wanting more?

How to run the writing exercises

The editing exercises are designed to be completed individually.

With the others, I've always run them as part of a creative writing group, where there's no teacher and we're all equal participants, therefore I keep any 'teaching' aspect to a minimum, preferring them to be prompts to generate ideas before everyone settles down to do the silent writing. We've recently gone online and if you run a group yourself, whether online or in person, you're welcome to use these exercises for free!

The times given are suggestions only and I normally get a feel for how everyone's doing when time's up and if it's obvious that everyone's still in the middle of a discussion, then I give them longer.  Where one group's in the middle of a discussion, but everyone else has finished, I sometimes have a 'soft start' to the silent writing, and say, "We're about to start the hour and a half of silent writing now, but if you're in the middle of a discussion, feel free to finish it first".

This way everyone gets to complete the discussion, but no-one's waiting for ages.  It's also important to emphasise that there's no wrong answers when being creative.

Still looking for more? Check out these creative writing prompts  or our dedicated Sci-Fi and Fantasy creative writing prompts

If you've enjoyed these creative writing exercises, please share them on social media, or link to them from your blog.

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Dates:  Section 1 July 9 - 18, 2024 / Section 2 July 8 - 17, 2024

Student Profile:  Current 9th - 12th graders

Registration open through 6/18/24

College Application Essay Writing Workshop

How to write an unforgettable college essay that reflects you

In this online workshop, high school students will practice and develop the skill of writing a college application essay. Students will brainstorm, draft, and revise a full-length college application essay by the conclusion of the workshop. Provided students attend all four sessions and complete the 1-2 hours of homework assigned each week, students can expect to leave the workshop with an essay that is ready or near-ready for submission. Together, we will investigate the central questions of application writing, including:

• Who am I? As a student? As a writer?
• What do I want out of my time in college?
• Which of my experiences have most shaped who I am today, and why?
• Where have I witnessed my ability to enact change in my community?

This workshop is for high school students at the beginning of their application writing process; all writers will start their essays from scratch. Our virtual classroom will function as a collaborative workshop, as well as an instructional space. Students will routinely read and analyze each other's work, as well as personal essays by published authors. Together, we will grow comfortable with: (1) the conventions of application writing, (2) vulnerably sharing our stories, and (3) a rigorous revision process involving peer review and instructor feedback. In order to create an open online writing community within the workshop, students will be asked to turn their Zoom cameras on.

Students will have the opportunity to join a generative collective of writers, to discuss their hopes and anxieties regarding the application process, and to connect firsthand with the UMass Amherst university level writing community. We will approach application writing both practically, and creatively: all students will leave with an essay they feel confident about, and will have also had the opportunity to challenge and hone their skills within the expansive personal writing genre.

Enrollment for this workshop is limited to give time for personalized attention. Questions? Email [email protected]. 

Workshop Format and Schedule

• Section 1: July 9 - 18, 2024  |  Live synchronous sessions will meet Tuesdays & Thursdays from 4:30 - 6pm (EST). 
• Section 2: July 8 - 17, 2024 | Live synchronous sessions will meet Mondays & Wednesdays from 1:00 - 2:30pm (EST).

This workshop consists of 4 online synchronous meeting. In addition, participants should plan for 1-2 hours of asynchronous assignments per week. 

Students attending the online program are expected to attend all class sessions live in real time. In order to prioritize the health and well-being of participants, eligibility is restricted to applicants residing in time zones where class hours do not extend beyond midnight. Please use a  time zone converter  to check when class sessions will meet in your time zone. 

Instructors:

Section 1: Miranda Lutyens  is an MA/PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric at UMass Amherst. She teaches College Writing and recently served as a Graduate Assistant Director in the Writing Program, where she mentored first-year teaching associates. Prior to coming to UMass, Miranda spent fifteen years teaching secondary English Language Arts, first in the Boston Public Schools and then at the American School of Lima, Peru. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and has two Master's in Education. Her research and practice interests include: leveraging the study of multilingualism for enacting social justice pedagogy; rhetorics of voice and the aural; and freewriting as reflective practice.  

Section 2: Peter Kent-Stoll  is a PhD candidate in sociology at University of Massachusetts Amherst with ten years of research, writing, and teaching experience in both the social sciences and humanities. Currently, he is working as an instructor in the the Writing Program at UMass, where he works with first year students on personal narrative writing, research writing, and multimedia writing. He has worked previously as an instructor in sociology and as a language arts and math tutor for middle school and high school students. With his expertise in writing across different disciplines and genres, he enjoys working with students pursuing college and career tracks in STEM, the social sciences, and the humanities, and beyond in creatively articulating their life experiences, goals, unique perspectives and talents.

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FSU | Writing Resources

Writing Resources

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• College Composition

Ice Breakers

You know what they say about assuming…, would you rather…, alphabet lists—getting to know your classmates, tv personalities: trying on voices, looking beneath the surface.

Purpose of Exercise : To ease students into your classroom and the setting, including having a teacher who is young. This emphasizes stereotyping and assumptions as possibly being inconclusive or false.

Description : Instructor begins with a bit of role-playing and then students are led into a free write about their basic info then introduce themselves to the class.

Suggested Time : about 30 minutes

Procedure : This activity should be done on the first day of class and works well if you can blend in with your students, if just for the day. When you get to your classroom, sit down in a desk with your students. Wait maybe two or three minutes after class begins, ask a few surrounding students if they know anything about the TA and possibly say something to the effect of, “I can’t believe they’re late on the first day!” Wait until about five minutes after then get up and head to the front of class. Typically, this leaves students in shock because they never would have guessed you to be the instructor. Lead into an ice breaker wherein the students have to come up with three interesting things about themselves but they cannot write: their major, where they’re from, their favorite color or the sport they play. After everyone has introduced themselves and said their three things, discuss how we assume so many things about people based on looks or information like major etc. This works well to get them accustomed to the type of writing we do in FYC and the atmosphere we like to create for our classrooms.

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Purpose of Exercise:  The purpose of this exercise is three-fold: to introduce students to each other, to show the variety of experiences and backgrounds each student brings to the classroom community, and to address stereotypes or preconceptions we may have about one another on first meeting.

Description:  Distribute an index card to each student. Ask her or him to write a fact on the card that separates her or him from the rest of the class. This activity will help each student to connect a face to a name and a fun fact.

Suggested Time:  30 minutes

Procedure:  Divide the class in half, and distribute an index card to each student. Have him or her write a fact down that makes them unique: an experience he or she might have had, a talent, a hobby. Alternate between teams in reading the other teams’ cards, and ask each team to guess which member of the opposing team wrote that card. Award one point for each correct guess, and encourage students to elaborate on what they wrote on the card.

Purpose:  This ice breaker is a great activity for students and I have found that it gives students a chance to get to know more about each other and text creativity without having to be forced into group situations that can be uncomfortable on the first day of class.

Suggested Time:  20-35 minutes

Procedure:  You will need to ask the students to either take out a sheet of paper, or you can have slips of paper already prepared for them and pass them out. Then, you ask each person to create a “would you rather” question of his/her own on the slip of paper. Go ahead and lay out any ground rules for the questions. For example, make sure that everyone knows the questions need to be appropriate for the classroom setting. Give them an example of a “would you rather” question (I have copied and pasted some examples from the internet below). Give the students time to come up with questions and write them down. Then, there are a few ways you can go about sharing the questions/answers: 1) you can have the students go around and share their question with the class, and give time for a few responses or 2) you can collect the slips of paper (or sheets of paper) and randomly select ones to read for the class and allow for student responses. This exercise is great for ENC 1000-level courses where students are going to be challenged to be creative and use imagery and detail. Approximately 10-15 minutes should be allotted for explaining the exercises, passing out slips of paper and letting students write down their “would you rather” question. Then, the amount of time you spend going through the questions and getting feedback can vary between 10-20 minutes, depending on how much time you wish to spend on the activity.

Sample “Would You Rather” Questions...

• Would you rather run your tongue down ten feet of a New York City street or press your tongue into a strangers nostril?
• Would you rather be forgotten or hatefully remembered?
• Would you rather have a missing finger or have an extra toe?

Purpose:  The aim of this exercise is to get students to introduce themselves and to initiate collaborative working relationships immediately. It emphasizes writing as a collaborative process that requires input and feedback from others. This exercise works well as an icebreaker in the first week or prior to the first peer workshop.

Description:  Students exchange ideas with each other to complete an informal writing assignment.

Suggested Time:  20 minutes

Procedure:  Ask every student to take out a loose piece of paper and write the letters of the alphabet vertically down the left side of the paper. Next, choose a topic; sometimes I ask students to suggest potential topics or I often simply choose “writing” as a way to start a discussion about it. When you’ve got a topic, give students only one or two minutes to write words they associate with the topic that start with every letter of the alphabet (i.e. for “writing”, A for “argument” etc). When the time limit is up, students will have incomplete alphabets. Next, ask your students to get up and introduce themselves to another student and trade with that person one missing word before moving on to someone else. After some time, students will eventually have completed their alphabets and met almost everyone in the class. Ask for a few volunteers to read their alphabet lists. At this point, I often talk about how writing is a collaborative endeavor and segue into an explanation of the peer workshop.

Purpose: T his icebreaker makes a great first day introduction, getting students interested in and excited about writing by exploring well-known TV voices and personally interesting topics.

Description:  All you need is a whiteboard, and your class will need paper and pen. This discussion and exercise gets students thinking about who they see in the media, and analyzing what makes those people/characters what they are by mimicking those elements unique to their TV “voice.”

Suggested Time:  15 – 20 minutes

Procedure:  Start out by asking the class if they like writing. You’ll probably get a roomful of “Noooos!” Ask them if they ever write on their own. Again, most will insist “Never!” Then, of course, exclaim “Excellent!” Throw them for a loop. Ask them if they ever email anybody, or use IM – isn’t this writing? This should cause a bit of a shift in classroom thought, so take the opportunity to have the students come-up with a topic – any topic – that they’ve been dealing with in their first days at FSU and that they might IM, email, or text about. You might write some on the board, and choose from among these, or get a group consensus on one topic. For example, if someone yells out, “Parking!” go with that.

Then ask the class to come-up with some different TV/Movie Personas to add to the board in another column: The Terminator, Paris Hilton, etc – you can throw in something off-the-wall, like Wylie Cayote. When you’ve got about 3 or so characters down, set the students to writing about their chosen situation at FSU from the perspective of EACH character, one at a time, in 2-4 minute shifts. Encourage them to write in the ‘voice’ of that character - how would that person/think talk, think and behave?

By the end of the exercise, the students should have 3 brief descriptions of a single situation in 3 different voices. Take some time to share a few, depending on the time that you have. Discuss how writing offers us the opportunity to explore our own, and various other voices, as well as those topics that are most important to us in ways that may be further-reaching than text, IM, or email.

Purpose of Exercise:  This exercise accompanies “In Case You Ever Want To Go Home Again” by Barbara Kingsolver (published in  On Writing ). It is designed to ask students to apply specific parts of the reading to their own lives and examine their experiences beyond surface-level.

Description:  This exercise engages students in conversation with one another about personal topics, but it allows them to do so without the risk involved in sharing “too much.” Sometimes students are shy to share in class because they don’t want to reveal too much of themselves; however, this exercise allows them to be personal while maintaining some distance. Kingsolver’s essay is an excellent starting point for personal engagement in the classroom, especially for first-year students who have just recently left their homes.

Suggested Time:  50 minutes

Procedure: Have the students read “In Case You Ever Want To Go Home Again” before class. In class, show the following quotes and writing prompts on the projector. Read through each quote and prompt as a class, and then give the students 15-20 minutes to think about and write a personal response to one of the quotes/prompts. Collect the papers and read some of the responses out loud anonymously. Use the student responses as the basis for a conversation about surface-level perceptions, the truth behind situations, and honesty.

Additional Information:  Below are the quotes and writing prompts:

  “It’s human, to want the world to see us as we think we ought to be seen” (Kingsolver 471). 

•   If the world could see you, your families, your memories as they authentically are on the inside, what would they see? Would this be different than the “you” shown on the outside?

“Imagine singing at the top of your lungs in the shower as you always do, then one day turning off the water and throwing back the curtain to see there in your bathroom a crowd of people, rapt, with videotape. I wanted to throw a towel over my head” (Kingsolver 472). 

•   If the world read your personal journal, what would it find? Would people be surprised? Embarrassed? Upset? Happy?

“I had written: ‘Pittman was 20 years behind the nation in practically every way you can think of except the rate of teenage pregnancies…we were the last place in the country to get the dial system. Up until 1973, you just picked up the receiver and said, Marge, get me my Uncle Roscoe…I’ve photographed my hometown in its undershirt” (Kingsolver 473).

•   What is the real description of your hometown? (Not the “Visitor’s Guide” description) What do only people who live in your hometown know about it? How do the insiders describe it? What does your hometown look like it its “undershirt?”

“I was a bookworm who never quite fit her clothes. I managed to look fine in my school pictures, but as usual the truth lay elsewhere” (Kingsolver 474). 

•   What is the truth behind your photographs? Choose one specific picture and tell us what people see and then the truth behind it.

“Before the book signing was over, more than one of my old schoolmates had sidled up and whispered: ‘That Lou Ann character, the insecure one? I know you based her on me” (Kingsolver 476). 

• Do we all have insecurities and uncertainties? Do we consider other people’s insecurities or just our own? Do we try to hide our insecurities from other people, and why or why not?

10 fun writing activities for the reluctant writer

  10 FUN WRITING ACTIVITIES FOR THE RELUCTANT WRITER

No doubt about it – writing isn’t easy. It is no wonder that many of our students could be described as ‘reluctant writers’ at best. It has been estimated by the National Association of Educational Progress that only about 27% of 8th and 12th-grade students can write proficiently.

As educators, we know that regular practice would go a long way to helping our students correct this underachievement, and sometimes, writing prompts just aren’t enough to light the fire.

But how do we get students, who have long since been turned off writing, to put pen to paper and log the requisite time to develop their writing chops?

The answer is to make writing fun! In this article, we will look at some creative writing activities where we can inject a little enjoyment into the writing game.

25 Fun Daily Writing Tasks

Quick Write and JOURNAL Activities for ALL TEXT TYPES in DIGITAL & PDF PRINT to engage RELUCTANT WRITERS .

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1. Poetry Scavenger Hunt

The Purpose: This activity encourages students to see the poetry in the everyday language around them while helpfully reinforcing their understanding of some of the conventions of the genre.

The Process: Encourage students to ‘scavenge’ their school, home, and outside the community for snippets of language they can compile into a piece of poetry or a poetic collage. They may copy down or photograph words, phrases, and sentences from signs, magazines, leaflets or even snippets of conversations they overhear while out and about.

Examples of language they collect may range from the Keep Out sign on private property to the destination on the front of a local bus.

Once students have gathered their language together, they can work to build a poem out of the scraps, usually choosing a central theme to give the piece cohesion. They can even include corresponding artwork to enhance the visual appeal of their work, too, if they wish.

The Prize: If poetry serves one purpose, it is to encourage us to look at the world anew with the fresh eyes of a young child. This activity challenges our students to read new meanings into familiar things and put their own spin on the language they encounter in the world around them, reinforcing the student’s grasp on poetic conventions.

2. Story Chains  

The Purpose: Writing is often thought of as a solitary pursuit. For this reason alone, it can be seen as a particularly unattractive activity by many of our more gregarious students. This fun activity exercises students’ understanding of writing structures and engages them in fun, creative collaboration.

The Process: Each student starts with a blank paper and pen. The teacher writes a story prompt on the whiteboard. You’ll find some excellent narrative writing prompts here . For example, each student spends two minutes using the writing prompt to kick-start their writing.  

When they have completed this part of the task, they will then pass their piece of paper to the student next to them. Students then continue the story from where the previous student left off for a given number of words, paragraphs, or length of time.

If organized correctly, you can ensure students receive their own initial story back at the end for the writing of the story’s conclusion .

The Prize: This fun writing activity can be used effectively to reinforce student understanding of narrative writing structures, but it can also be fun to try with other writing genres.

Working collaboratively motivates students to engage with the task, as no one wants to be the ‘weak link’ in the finished piece. But, more than that, this activity encourages students to see writing as a communicative and creative task where there needn’t be a ‘right’ answer. This encourages students to be more willing to take creative risks in their work.

3. Acrostic Associations

The Purpose: This is another great way to get students to try writing poetry – a genre that many students find the most daunting.

The Process: Acrostics are simple poems whereby each letter of a word or phrase begins a new line in the poem. Younger students can start off with something very simple, like their own name or their favorite pet and write this vertically down the page.

Older students can take a word or phrase related to a topic they have been working on or have a particular interest in and write it down on the page before beginning to write.

The Prize: This activity has much in common with the old psychiatrist’s word association technique. Students should be encouraged to riff on ideas and themes generated by the focus word or phrase. They needn’t worry about rhyme and meter and such here, but the preset letter for each line will give them some structure to their meanderings and require them to impose some discipline on their wordsmithery, albeit in a fun and loose manner.

4. The What If Challenge

The Purpose: This challenge helps encourage students to see the link between posing interesting hypothetical questions and creating an entertaining piece of writing.

The Process: To begin this exercise, have the students come up with a single What If question, which they can then write down on a piece of paper. The more off-the-wall, the better!

For example, ‘What if everyone in the world knew what you were thinking?’ or ‘What if your pet dog could talk?’ Students fold up their questions and drop them into a hat. Each student picks one out of the hat before writing on that question for a suitable set amount of time.

Example What If Questions

• “What if you woke up one day and found out that you had the power to time travel?”
• “What if you were the last person on Earth? How would you spend your time?”
• “What if you were granted three wishes, but each one came with a terrible consequence?”
• “What if you discovered a secret portal to another world? Where would you go, and what would you do?”
• “What if you woke up one day with the ability to communicate with animals? How would your life change?”

The Prize: Students are most likely to face the terror of the dreaded Writer’s Block when they are faced with open-ended creative writing tasks.

This activity encourages the students to see the usefulness of posing hypothetical What If questions, even random off-the-wall ones, for kick-starting their writing motors.

Though students begin by answering the questions set for them by others, please encourage them to see how they can set these questions for themselves the next time they suffer from a stalled writing engine.

5. The Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World

The Purpose: Up until now, we have looked at activities encouraging our students to have fun with genres such as fiction and poetry. These genres being imaginative in nature, more easily lend themselves to being enjoyable than some of the nonfiction genres.

But what about descriptive writing activities? In this activity, we endeavor to bring that same level of enjoyment to instruction writing while also cleverly reinforcing the criteria of this genre.

The Process: Undoubtedly, when teaching instruction writing, you will at some point cover the specific criteria of the genre with your students.

These will include things like the use of a title, numbered or bulleted points, time connectives, imperatives, diagrams with captions etc. You will then want the students to produce their own piece of instruction writing or procedural text to display their understanding of how the genre works.

 But, why not try a fun topic such as How to Make the Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World rather than more obvious (and drier!) topics such as How to Tie Your Shoelaces or How to Make a Paper Airplane when choosing a topic for your students to practice their instruction writing chops?

Example of a Most Disgusting Sandwich Text

The Prize: As mentioned, with nonfiction genres, in particular, we tend to suggest more banal topics for our students to work on while internalizing the genre’s criteria. Enjoyment and acquiring practical writing skills need not be mutually exclusive.

Our students can just as quickly, if not more easily, absorb and internalize the necessary writing conventions while engaged in writing about whimsical and even nonsensical topics.

if your sandwich is entering the realm of horror, be sure to check our complete guide to writing a scary story here as well.

Daily Quick Writes For All Text Types

Our FUN DAILY QUICK WRITE TASKS will teach your students the fundamentals of CREATIVE WRITING across all text types. Packed with 52 ENGAGING ACTIVITIES

6. Diary Entry of a Future Self

The Purpose: This activity allows students to practice personal writing within diary/journal writing conventions. It also challenges them to consider what their world will be like in the future, perhaps stepping a foot into the realm of science fiction.

The Process: Straightforwardly, after working through some examples of diary or journal writing, and reviewing the various criteria of the genre, challenge the students to write an entry at a given milestone in the future.

This may be when they leave school, begin work, go to university, get married, have kids, retire, etc. You may even wish to get the students to write an entry for a series of future milestones as part of a more extended project.

Example of Message to Future Me Text

The Prize: Students will get a chance here to exercise their understanding of this type of writing , but more than that, they will also get an opportunity to exercise their imaginative muscles too. They will get to consider what shape their future world will take in this engaging thought experiment that will allow them to improve their writing too.

7. Comic Strip Script

The Purpose: Give your students the chance to improve their dialogue writing skills and work on their understanding of character development in this fun activity which combines writing with a series of visual elements.

The Process: There are two ways to do this activity. The first requires you to source or create a comic strip without the dialogue the characters are speaking. This may be as straightforward as using whiteout to erase the words in speech bubbles and making copies for your students to complete.

Alternatively, provide the students with photographs/pictures and strips of cards to form their action sequences . When students have their ‘mute’ strips, they can begin to write the dialogue/script to link the panels together.

The Prize: When it comes to writing, comic strips are probably one of the easier sells to reluctant students! This activity also allows students to write for speech. This will stand to them later when they come to produce sections of dialogue in their narrative writing or when producing play or film scripts.

They will also develop their visual literacy skills as they scan the pictures for clues of tone and context before they begin their writing.

Keep It Fun

Just as we should encourage our students to read for fun and wider educational benefits, we should also work to instil similar attitudes towards writing. To do this means we must work to avoid always framing writing in the context of a chore, that bitter pill that must be swallowed for the good of our health.

There is no getting away from the fact that writing can, at times, be laborious. It is time-consuming and, for most of us, difficult at the best of times. There is a certain, inescapable amount of work involved in becoming a competent writer.

That said, as we have seen in the activities above, with a bit of creative thought, we can inject fun into even the most practical of writing activities . All that is required is a dash of imagination and a sprinkling of effort.

8. Character Interviews

The Purpose: Character interviews as writing activities are excellent for students because they encourage creative thinking, character development, and empathy. The purpose of this activity is to help students delve deeper into the minds of the characters they are creating in their stories or reading about in literature. By conducting interviews with these characters, students gain a better understanding of their personalities, motivations, and perspectives.

The Process of character interviews involves students imagining themselves as interviewers and their characters as interviewees. They can either write out the questions and answers in a script-like format or write a narrative where the character responds to the questions in their own voice.

The Prize: Through character interviews, students learn several valuable skills:

• Character Development: By exploring various aspects of their characters’ lives, backgrounds, and experiences, students can develop more well-rounded and authentic characters in their stories. This helps make their fictional creations more relatable and engaging to readers.
• Empathy and Perspective: Conducting interviews requires students to put themselves in their characters’ shoes, considering their thoughts, emotions, and struggles. This cultivates empathy and a deeper understanding of human behavior, which can be applied to real-life situations as well.
• Voice and Dialogue: In crafting the character’s responses, students practice writing authentic dialogue and giving their characters unique voices. This skill is valuable for creating dynamic and believable interactions between characters in their stories.
• Creative Expression: Character interviews provide a creative outlet for students to let their imaginations run wild. They can explore scenarios that may not appear in the main story and discover new aspects of their characters they might not have considered before.
• Critical Thinking: Formulating questions for the interview requires students to think critically about their characters’ personalities and backgrounds. This exercise enhances their analytical skills and storytelling abilities.

Overall, character interviews are a dynamic and enjoyable way for students to delve deeper into the worlds they create or the literature they read. It nurtures creativity, empathy, and writing skills, empowering students to become more proficient and imaginative writers.

9. The Travel Journal

The Purpose: Travel journal writing tasks are excellent for students as they offer a unique and immersive way to foster creativity, cultural awareness, and descriptive writing skills. The purpose of this activity is to allow students to embark on a fictional or real travel adventure, exploring new places, cultures, and experiences through the eyes of a traveller.

The process of a travel journal writing task involves students assuming the role of a traveler and writing about their journey in a journal format. They can describe the sights, sounds, tastes, and emotions they encounter during their travels. This activity encourages students to use vivid language, sensory details, and expressive writing to bring their travel experiences to life.

The Prize: Through travel journal writing tasks, students will learn several valuable skills:

• Descriptive Writing: By describing their surroundings and experiences in detail, students enhance their descriptive writing skills, creating engaging and vivid narratives.
• Cultural Awareness: Travel journals encourage students to explore different cultures, customs, and traditions. This helps broaden their understanding and appreciation of diversity.
• Empathy and Perspective: Through writing from the perspective of a traveler, students develop empathy and gain insight into the lives of people from different backgrounds.
• Research Skills: For fictional travel journals, students might research specific locations or historical periods to make their narratives more authentic and accurate.
• Reflection and Self-Expression: Travel journals offer a space for students to reflect on their own emotions, thoughts, and personal growth as they encounter new experiences.
• Creativity and Imagination: For fictional travel adventures, students get to unleash their creativity and imagination, envisioning fantastical places and scenarios.
• Language and Vocabulary: Travel journal writing tasks allow students to expand their vocabulary and experiment with expressive language.

Overall, travel journal writing tasks inspire students to become more observant, empathetic, and skilled writers. They transport them to new worlds and foster a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them. Whether writing about real or imaginary journeys, students develop a deeper connection to the places they encounter, making this activity both educational and enjoyable.

10. The Fairy Tale Remix

The Purpose: A fairy tale remix writing activity is a fantastic creative exercise for students as it allows them to put a unique spin on classic fairy tales, fostering imagination, critical thinking, and storytelling skills. This activity encourages students to think outside the box, reinterpret well-known tales, and explore their creative potential by transforming traditional narratives into something entirely new and exciting.

The process of a fairy tale remix writing activity involves students selecting a familiar fairy tale and altering key elements such as characters, settings, plot twists, or outcomes. They can modernize the story, change the genre, or even mix different fairy tales together to create a wholly original piece.

The Prize: Through this activity, students will learn several valuable skills:

• Creative Thinking: Students exercise their creativity by brainstorming unique concepts and ideas to remix the fairy tales, encouraging them to think imaginatively.
• Critical Analysis: Analyzing the original fairy tale to identify essential elements to keep and areas to remix helps students develop critical thinking skills and understand storytelling structures.
• Writing Techniques: Crafting a remix requires students to use descriptive language, engaging dialogue, and well-developed characters, helping them hone their writing techniques.
• Perspective and Empathy: Remixing fairy tales allows students to explore different character perspectives, promoting empathy and understanding of diverse points of view.
• Genre Exploration: Remixing fairy tales can introduce students to various genres like science fiction, fantasy, or mystery, expanding their literary horizons.
• Originality: Creating their own narrative twists and unexpected plots encourages students to take ownership of their writing and develop a unique voice.
• Storytelling: Students learn the art of compelling storytelling as they weave together familiar elements with innovative ideas, captivating their readers.

By remixing fairy tales, students embark on a creative journey that empowers them to reimagine well-loved stories while honing their writing skills and imaginative prowess. It’s an engaging and enjoyable way for students to connect with literature, explore new possibilities, and showcase their storytelling talents.

Top 5 Tips for Teaching Engaging Creative Writing Lessons

Teaching creative writing can be a thrilling discovery journey for students and educators alike. To foster a love for storytelling and unleash the imaginative prowess of your students, here are five engaging tips for your creative writing lessons:

1. Embrace Playfulness : Encourage a spirit of playfulness and experimentation in your classroom. Encourage students to explore unconventional ideas, characters, and settings. Use fun writing prompts like “What if animals could talk?” or “Imagine a world where gravity is reversed.”

2. Incorporate Visual Stimuli : Visual aids can be powerful creative catalysts. Show intriguing images or short videos to spark students’ imaginations. Ask them to describe what they see, then guide them to weave stories around these visuals. This approach can lead to unexpected and captivating narratives.

3. Encourage Peer Collaboration : Foster community and collaboration among your students. Organize group writing activities where students can brainstorm, share ideas, and build upon each other’s stories. This not only enhances creativity but also promotes teamwork and communication skills.

4. Explore Different Genres : Introduce students to various writing genres—fantasy and science fiction to mystery and historical fiction. Let them experiment with different styles and find what resonates most with their interests. Exposing students to diverse genres can broaden their horizons and inspire fresh ideas.

5. Celebrate Individuality : Encourage students to infuse unique experiences and perspectives into their writing. Provide opportunities for them to write about topics that are meaningful to them. Celebrate their voices and help them discover the power of their narratives.

Remember, the key to teaching creative writing is to create a supportive and inspiring environment where students feel empowered to take risks and explore the limitless possibilities of storytelling. By embracing these tips, you can transform your classroom into a vibrant imagination and literary exploration hub. Happy writing!

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