50-Word Stories

Can you tell a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end that will engage your reader in 50-words or less?

See http://fiftywordstories.com/top-stories/ for examples.  Then write your own.

Creative Writing -- Prose Exercises

To improve as a writer, it is important to:
(1) Write frequently.  Write every day, if possible.
(2) Try your hand at all different kinds of writing.  (This is like cross training for an athlete or trying new ethnic foods for a chef.  It can only make you better at your main specialty.
(3) Save what you write, read it over, and reflect on it occassionally.
(4) Have others read and critique what you write.
(5) Read.  Continuously.  You can't read enough.  Borrow tricks of the trade from the masters.  Try out different styles.  Be impressed.  Get motivated.  Let your imagination take flight.
(6) Engage in some longterm writing projects of your own choosing.


The principles above can be useful in helping giving direction to this course.  Some of the daily writing exercises may seem like they "are not your cup of tea," but I encourage you to try them all.  The exercises that seem most difficult may actually be the ones that stretch you the most and do you the most good.

Some exercises to get started:

1.  Write about a place (real or imaginary).  Involve all 5 senses in your description of this place.
2.  Write about a person (real or imaginary).  Involve 2 or more senses in your description of this person.
3. Write about an object.  Tell the story of this object through time.
4.  Write about a pet (or other animal) from the point of view of that pet.  Tell a story (real or imagined) through the pet or animal's eyes.
5. Write about a birthday, Christmas, or other holiday from the point of view of a young child.  Use the language and way of looking at the world suitable to a child.
6. Write from a point of view of a person very different from yourself -- a prisoner in a jail, a nomad living in the desert, a yak farmer in Tibet, a rancher in Australia -- you get the idea.  Tell a story about your life from this perspective.
7. Write a complete short story that includes a beginning, middle, and an end in less than 200 words.  Then try to get it down to less than 100 words.
8.  Write a fable or a myth.
9.  Write about your first memory (from childhood).
10. Tell a story by only using dialogue.  No narration.
For example:
     "How would I go about doing that?"  he said.
     "Just start in the middle of a conversation and keep going," she replied.
     "But what about the story part?"
     She paused before answering.  "We've already got a beginning.  Now make it go somewhere. . . ."

Read a Poem Aloud

More than most other things that are written, most poems need to be read aloud to be fully appreciated. In fact, the poems themselves crave it. So do a poem a favor by adopting it for a day and preparing to read it aloud for the class.

This can be one of your poems -- or a poem by another writer. Be sure the poem is well-suited for reading aloud, and keep your audience in mind as you make your selection.

Some tips on reading poetry aloud can be found here:
Tips on reading poetry aloud from Billy Collins.

#5 Break the Rules

Poets of all times have been rule-breakers. (Just another reason to love poetry!)

Don't like punctuation? Leave it out. Wanna ms. spell words? Do it. Want to write about something you are not supposed to say in polite company, go for it.

The above are just a few examples of how poets of the past have broken the rules. To truly be a rule-breaker, you will have to find your own rule to break -- and to break it in a truly original way.

(Or maybe, just maybe, you could break the rule by following all the rules.)

Here is one example of a poem that breaks the rules:

Why do we read from the top to the bottom? Do poems always need to be read that way?

See the poem at thestarlitecafe.com/poems/51/poem_8213044778.html to find out.

#4 Imitation / Response Poem

Exercise #4: Imitation Response Poem

Imitate or respond to a poem by another.

• respond to the ideas of the poem, or change the topic slightly
• imitate at least some aspects of the writer's style
• your poem need not be as long as the original

Model: See The New Poem by Charles Wright

#3 Figurative Language

Exercise #3:
(1) Read the model poems below.
(2) Create a list of 9 original metaphors / similes.
(3) Write 1 - 3 poems (total of 15 lines or more), each using a least one example of figurative language.

Models:

Mary Oliver, Morning at Great Pond

Pablo Neruda, Ode to My Socks

Metaphors and Similes in Hip Hop

Poetry.org: On Figurative Language

#2 Repetition Poem

After reading models and dicussing what makes language memorable and powerful, brainstorm a list of words or phrases that might make good bases for repetition poems.

Then choose a word or phrase as a base and write a poem around it.

Write quick (at least partial) drafts of 3 or more repetition poems. Aim to develop at least one of these enough that it feels complete.

Tips:

• Aim to alternate repetition with variation.
  
• The poem should build up to something or go somewhere.
• Don't stop too soon. Ask yourself, "What else can I say?" "Where else can I take this?"
• Surprise and irony are always good!

Models:
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods
W.S. Merwin, Thanks
Theodore Roethke, The Waking
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man