‘Creative non-fiction writing exercises

For SBBU

 Motivation

“Always do what you’re afraid to do,” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s visionary Aunt Mary advised him. We tie ourselves in knots to sabotage the energy that might be unleashed if we move resolutely ahead. The risks of making changes are great. . . especially great changes.

— Gail Sher, One Continuous Mistake

Write out all the things you are afraid to do concerning your writing and your writing life. Do not simply make a list, but use sentences so you can experience the flow of your thoughts. If you are stuck, start your sentences with something like, “I am afraid my writing will. . . .” or “I am afraid writing is . . . .”

Now make a list of other things you’re afraid of doing. Be as outrageous as you can.

In this exercise, we’re going to use quotations as our jumping off place into writing. You may choose the form: narrative or essay or dialogue. Spend the first five minutes thinking, jotting notes, clustering, doodling, gnashing your teeth, or wandering around, if you choose. If no response comes together for you, write three pages on what is going on in your mind, starting with the quote:

“Where we are going is here.”
or
“Both ways are best.”
or
“What is the straight within the bent?”

Who might say such words? In what context? You may use them as dialogue or images or theme. Write a poem or a story or a reflection. Let yourself play.

Narratives

Writing has tremendous energy. If you find a reason for it, any reason, it seems that rather than negate the act of writing, it makes you burn deeper and glow clearer on the page. Ask yourself, “Why do I write?” or “Why do I want to write?” but don’t think about it. Take pen and paper and answer it with clear, assertive statements. Every statement doesn’t have to be one hundred percent true and each line can contradict the others. Even lie if you need to, to get going. If you don’t know why you write, answer it as though you do know why.

— Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Tip: If you feel stuck, start out: I don’t know why I write, but . . . . or I feel that as a writer I have something to say, but. . . . But? But what? Stay with this “but” until you are about “but,” the most knowledgeable person in the world.

Since everyone likes a good story, it’s no wonder that the narrative is such a popular form of writing. Fairy tales, anecdotes, short stories, novels, plays, comics, and even some poems are all examples of the narrative form. Simply stated, a narrative is a story based on fact or fiction. Any type of narrative (or story) writing is built on a series of events. By telling about these events one after the other, just as they occurred, your story will satisfy a reader’s curiosity about what happens next. (A more complex narrative device of moving back and forth from past to present within a story is call the flashback technique.) A narrative composition can be used to entertain, make a point, and/or illustrate a premise.

A. Write a story about wanting and glue and staring.

B. Respond to the following quote. Follow where the words lead you.

A man’s life is nothing but an extended trek through the detours of art to recapture those one or two moments when his heart first opened.

 — Albert Camus

Highlighting Details

A. Start a story with a word that starts with the letter B – any B, any word.

B. Pick a particular time of day and a particular window. Spend 10 minutes each day for three days describing what you see out of the window.

C. Write about what you hate most about writing.

D. Create a lovable character with one disappointing flaw. Put that character in the same room as you and a very favorite small child in such a way that the disappointing flaw is evident. What happens?

E. Remember haiku? Those 5-7-5 syllable poems that have a touch of nature and a hint of epiphany in them? Try writing one every day this week. Or try your hand at a sonnet!’