10 longer structured exercises
1. A map into myself: jot down people, places, objects, books, feelings which are important to you - and think about which are connected. This can be a 'mind-map'. Now draw a street map and label the larger streets with the more important things - with related things branching off them. There may even be a quarter of the map related to childhood, for example. There may be buildings or rivers which need labelling too. Now choose a place on your 'map' to write about.
2. Read a poem or prose passage and use as stimulus for writing. This works where the pattern or structure is clear. Sometimes discussion can clarify the forces within and behind the writing, or elicit some of the responses the writing might provoke. At other times, you might prefer to leave writers free to make their own responses - to content, style, attitude, structure. Whether such a stimulus leads to pastiche or parody or something else will depend on the writer and the group.
3. Gifted words and phrases: Take 2 words or phrases from a shared text and 'gift' them to each other - one to the person on your left, one to the person on your right. Each person must then include both phrases in what they subsequently write.
4. Nicholas Guillen's 'the world's a zoo' writing exercise (worth having a few examples of 'information plaques' to support structures cf short texts example number 4). This exercise involves the writer in thinking of the whole world - objects, places, emotions - as an infinite number of animals in a zoo. Each has its habitat, its way of feeding and breeding, its alternative names and strange habits. A class of year 9s took a set of abstract nouns - confidence, hope, stress, panic, compassion - and wrote a fascinating series of 'cage-plaques'. Previously uninspired writers became hooked on the power of metaphor. (Idea supplied to Buckinghamshire writers by Richard Andrews 2010) Click for examples.
5. Take a richly/heavily patterned text - such as 'Peat Cutting' by George Mackay Brown or 'Cups' by Gwen Harwood - and borrow aspects of it to structure, inform or inspire your own writing (as used by Jeni Smith 5/7/2014).
6. Share riddles and write a riddle. Click here for examples for a towel, a stamp, a coffin and many more.
7. Recipes for abstract qualities - an afternoon, an argument, a successful party, a journey, peace, a dismissal. This works well when writers riff off their familiarity with a format of ingredients, quantities, equipment, methods, safety tips and serving suggestions.
8. Raymond Queneau - exercises in style: Rewrite a short narrative text (50 words) in another one of a range of different genres: advertisement, conversation, health warning, set of instructions, obituary, recipe, alphabet ...
9. 6-word stories (Click here for a fascinating 2010 article about 6-word stories by author Liam Murray Bell)
/C:/Users/User/Downloads/087.94.Liam.Bell.The%20Six%20Word%20Short%20Story%20(3).pdf
This exercise is derived from an idea in Chris Sykes' book 'How to write a great story'. Hodder and Stoughton 2013.
The following 'story' is attributed to Ernest Hemingway: 'For sale: baby shoes, never used.' It's worth discussing how the sequence works on readers and what the effect of the structure. Before asking writers to devise their own 6-word story, play 5,4,3,2,1:
5 questions to ask about the story/circumstances;
4 characters who might be involved *;
3 events (before and after) that might fit in a fuller version of this 'story';
2 viewpoints from which the story might be told;
1 possible title for such a story.
This might be a useful exercise if writers are trying to work on plotting (see also Garth Nix's ideas)
*named characters are fine: 'Sofia Renato - a single mother of 2 children, living in the flat upstairs' ; unnamed characters are fine: 'the fisherman in his boat on the lake'.
Other 6-word stories cited by Liam Murray Bell:
Blake Morrison: Womb.Bloom.Groom. Gloom. Rheum. Tomb.
Helen Fielding: Dad called: DNA back: he isn't.
Simon Armitage: Megan's baby: John's surname: Jim's eyes.
Patrick Neate: The pillow smelled like my brother.
A.L.Kennedy: He didn't. She did. Big mistake.
Hani Kunzru: Stop me before I kill again.
Andrew O'Hagan: Purse found. 'No notes,' she said.
On December 1, I wrote with the Bedford community NWP group. This exercise is derived from a fascinating 2010 article by Liam Murray Bell (Creative Writing lecturer at Surrey University). We explored ‘six-word stories’ – e.g. ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ - how they provoke readers to imagine cause and consequence, to infer and to carry out, what has been implied or folded tight. They might be hors d’oeuvres (out-takes) ‘Disdaining Fortune with his brandish'd steel’ (Macbeth) or re-constructions of well-known works: ‘Incineration. Invitation. Visitation. Transformation. Infatuation. Association.’ (Cinderella) And here's the whole of existence from one of our group: 'Singularity explodes. Life forms. Outcome unknown.' (see blog for context)
10. Found text - this exercise is similar to 'Scavenger Hunt' above, but instead of using a place or a view, it uses a text. The text might be 'mined' for particular ideas/voices/features and then the findings discussed. Findings of phrases can be exchanged or gifted between writers who are then challenged to use these in any way to produce a new text of their own.
Example taken from LATE/NWP conference workshop 10.5.2014 at Goldsmiths University
Found text: Read one of the 3 texts (see below) and 'mine' them for words and phrases which respond in some way to some of the scavenger hunt prompts.
· Something bright/new
· A movement/ a life
· A sound that you can – or might – hear, not made by a human
· 6 words that are – or might be – written on signs in this place (not on paper)
· A ghost or a foreshadowing
· A corner
Share and discuss in pairs. What did you notice?
Read another of the three texts and find words and phrases which you like in some way. Choose two and ‘gift’ one to the person on your left and one to the person on your right. You will receive two in return. Now use these to write ‘London monologues’ – as many as you wish - incorporating one or both of the ‘gifted phrases’ you have received.
3 'London' texts:
Of London areas, there is no end. The vibrancy of Walthamstow, the mournful decay of Pimlico and Mornington Crescent, the confusion of Stoke Newington, the intense and energetic air of Brixton, the watery gloom of Wapping, the bracing gentility of Muswell Hill, the excitement of Canary Wharf, the eccentricity of Camden Town, the fearfulness of Stepney, the lassitude of Limehouse, can all be mentioned in the vast oration of London. Every Londoner has his or her own favourite location, whether it be Victoria Park in Hackney or rolling Long Lane in Southwark, although it must also be admitted that most inhabitants of the city rarely know or visit anywhere beyond their own neighbourhood. Most citizens identify themselves in terms of their immediate locale.
London The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
November ’63: eight months in London.
I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:
They float swanlike, arching their white necks
over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,
burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.
I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket
and secretly test my accent once again:
St. James’s Park; St. James’s Park; St. James’s Park.
Immigrant, Fleur Adcock
Over its history, almost everything that could have happened in the street had happened. Many, many people had fallen in love and out of love; a young girl had had her first kiss, an old man had exhaled his last breath, a solicitor on the way back from the Underground station after work had looked up at the sky, swept blue by the wind, and had a sudden sense of religious consolation, a feeling that this life cannot possibly be all, and that it is not possible for consciousness to end with the end of life; babies had died of diphtheria, and people had shot up heroin in bathrooms, and young mothers had cried with their overwhelming sense of fatigue and isolation, and people had planned to escape, and schemed for their big break, and vegged out in front of televisions, and set fire to their kitchens by forgetting to turn the chip pan off, and fallen off ladders, and experienced everything that can happen in the run of life, birth and death and love and hate and happiness and sadness and complex feeling and simple feeling and every shade of emotion in between.
Capital, John Lanchester
2. Read a poem or prose passage and use as stimulus for writing. This works where the pattern or structure is clear. Sometimes discussion can clarify the forces within and behind the writing, or elicit some of the responses the writing might provoke. At other times, you might prefer to leave writers free to make their own responses - to content, style, attitude, structure. Whether such a stimulus leads to pastiche or parody or something else will depend on the writer and the group.
3. Gifted words and phrases: Take 2 words or phrases from a shared text and 'gift' them to each other - one to the person on your left, one to the person on your right. Each person must then include both phrases in what they subsequently write.
4. Nicholas Guillen's 'the world's a zoo' writing exercise (worth having a few examples of 'information plaques' to support structures cf short texts example number 4). This exercise involves the writer in thinking of the whole world - objects, places, emotions - as an infinite number of animals in a zoo. Each has its habitat, its way of feeding and breeding, its alternative names and strange habits. A class of year 9s took a set of abstract nouns - confidence, hope, stress, panic, compassion - and wrote a fascinating series of 'cage-plaques'. Previously uninspired writers became hooked on the power of metaphor. (Idea supplied to Buckinghamshire writers by Richard Andrews 2010) Click for examples.
5. Take a richly/heavily patterned text - such as 'Peat Cutting' by George Mackay Brown or 'Cups' by Gwen Harwood - and borrow aspects of it to structure, inform or inspire your own writing (as used by Jeni Smith 5/7/2014).
6. Share riddles and write a riddle. Click here for examples for a towel, a stamp, a coffin and many more.
7. Recipes for abstract qualities - an afternoon, an argument, a successful party, a journey, peace, a dismissal. This works well when writers riff off their familiarity with a format of ingredients, quantities, equipment, methods, safety tips and serving suggestions.
8. Raymond Queneau - exercises in style: Rewrite a short narrative text (50 words) in another one of a range of different genres: advertisement, conversation, health warning, set of instructions, obituary, recipe, alphabet ...
9. 6-word stories (Click here for a fascinating 2010 article about 6-word stories by author Liam Murray Bell)
/C:/Users/User/Downloads/087.94.Liam.Bell.The%20Six%20Word%20Short%20Story%20(3).pdf
This exercise is derived from an idea in Chris Sykes' book 'How to write a great story'. Hodder and Stoughton 2013.
The following 'story' is attributed to Ernest Hemingway: 'For sale: baby shoes, never used.' It's worth discussing how the sequence works on readers and what the effect of the structure. Before asking writers to devise their own 6-word story, play 5,4,3,2,1:
5 questions to ask about the story/circumstances;
4 characters who might be involved *;
3 events (before and after) that might fit in a fuller version of this 'story';
2 viewpoints from which the story might be told;
1 possible title for such a story.
This might be a useful exercise if writers are trying to work on plotting (see also Garth Nix's ideas)
*named characters are fine: 'Sofia Renato - a single mother of 2 children, living in the flat upstairs' ; unnamed characters are fine: 'the fisherman in his boat on the lake'.
Other 6-word stories cited by Liam Murray Bell:
Blake Morrison: Womb.Bloom.Groom. Gloom. Rheum. Tomb.
Helen Fielding: Dad called: DNA back: he isn't.
Simon Armitage: Megan's baby: John's surname: Jim's eyes.
Patrick Neate: The pillow smelled like my brother.
A.L.Kennedy: He didn't. She did. Big mistake.
Hani Kunzru: Stop me before I kill again.
Andrew O'Hagan: Purse found. 'No notes,' she said.
On December 1, I wrote with the Bedford community NWP group. This exercise is derived from a fascinating 2010 article by Liam Murray Bell (Creative Writing lecturer at Surrey University). We explored ‘six-word stories’ – e.g. ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ - how they provoke readers to imagine cause and consequence, to infer and to carry out, what has been implied or folded tight. They might be hors d’oeuvres (out-takes) ‘Disdaining Fortune with his brandish'd steel’ (Macbeth) or re-constructions of well-known works: ‘Incineration. Invitation. Visitation. Transformation. Infatuation. Association.’ (Cinderella) And here's the whole of existence from one of our group: 'Singularity explodes. Life forms. Outcome unknown.' (see blog for context)
10. Found text - this exercise is similar to 'Scavenger Hunt' above, but instead of using a place or a view, it uses a text. The text might be 'mined' for particular ideas/voices/features and then the findings discussed. Findings of phrases can be exchanged or gifted between writers who are then challenged to use these in any way to produce a new text of their own.
Example taken from LATE/NWP conference workshop 10.5.2014 at Goldsmiths University
Found text: Read one of the 3 texts (see below) and 'mine' them for words and phrases which respond in some way to some of the scavenger hunt prompts.
· Something bright/new
· A movement/ a life
· A sound that you can – or might – hear, not made by a human
· 6 words that are – or might be – written on signs in this place (not on paper)
· A ghost or a foreshadowing
· A corner
Share and discuss in pairs. What did you notice?
Read another of the three texts and find words and phrases which you like in some way. Choose two and ‘gift’ one to the person on your left and one to the person on your right. You will receive two in return. Now use these to write ‘London monologues’ – as many as you wish - incorporating one or both of the ‘gifted phrases’ you have received.
3 'London' texts:
Of London areas, there is no end. The vibrancy of Walthamstow, the mournful decay of Pimlico and Mornington Crescent, the confusion of Stoke Newington, the intense and energetic air of Brixton, the watery gloom of Wapping, the bracing gentility of Muswell Hill, the excitement of Canary Wharf, the eccentricity of Camden Town, the fearfulness of Stepney, the lassitude of Limehouse, can all be mentioned in the vast oration of London. Every Londoner has his or her own favourite location, whether it be Victoria Park in Hackney or rolling Long Lane in Southwark, although it must also be admitted that most inhabitants of the city rarely know or visit anywhere beyond their own neighbourhood. Most citizens identify themselves in terms of their immediate locale.
London The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
November ’63: eight months in London.
I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:
They float swanlike, arching their white necks
over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,
burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.
I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket
and secretly test my accent once again:
St. James’s Park; St. James’s Park; St. James’s Park.
Immigrant, Fleur Adcock
Over its history, almost everything that could have happened in the street had happened. Many, many people had fallen in love and out of love; a young girl had had her first kiss, an old man had exhaled his last breath, a solicitor on the way back from the Underground station after work had looked up at the sky, swept blue by the wind, and had a sudden sense of religious consolation, a feeling that this life cannot possibly be all, and that it is not possible for consciousness to end with the end of life; babies had died of diphtheria, and people had shot up heroin in bathrooms, and young mothers had cried with their overwhelming sense of fatigue and isolation, and people had planned to escape, and schemed for their big break, and vegged out in front of televisions, and set fire to their kitchens by forgetting to turn the chip pan off, and fallen off ladders, and experienced everything that can happen in the run of life, birth and death and love and hate and happiness and sadness and complex feeling and simple feeling and every shade of emotion in between.
Capital, John Lanchester