Quick writes: short exercises to 'loosen the writing muscles'
At the start of a writing session, in order to 'break the ice' and get some words written, it can be useful to provide short exercises which reduce anxieties. These may be shared in pairs, with the whole group - or not at all. It can be a good idea to give writers the right to share only when ready.
1. WORDS: List 5-10 words which are currently interesting you. These could be chosen for their sound, their shape (short words, compound words), their association - place names and product names are good - words from different languages, dialect words, slang, nonsense words. 2 mins. Read one by one around the circle. 'Get the words in the air' and see what coincidental sequences emerge. Enjoy. (cf Favourite words, Michael Laskey's workshop ideas mentioned in the Poetry Trust's excellent publication, 'The Poetry Toolkit' www.thepoetrytrust.org)
CLICK HERE FOR WORD STARTER VARIATIONS
2. OBSERVATIONS: Jot down three things you passed on your way to the meeting: now use one of these as a starting point to write about your journey here.
3. CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR: List 4 words and, next to each, place a word or phrase which is close in meaning. eg between - among, anger - irritation, awkward - embarrassing; dash - sprint. Now use one pair of words as the starting point for a piece of writing: You might find the following construction useful: 'It was not so much anger as a sense of irritation I felt when, for the third time, Martin scraped his pen across the air vents....'
4. LISTS: Make a list of ... (anything) ... colours and their correspondent objects; games; camping equipment; places you've visited; clothes you once had/still have; items in your room; furniture in your grandparents' house; things in my shed, feelings and their objective correlatives ... The act of listing alone is good, and sharing is even better, but it could be that from that you derive a stimulus for further writing. Olivia McCannon's 'Inventory' - a list poem about her grandparents' house - starts like this:
Open door, high cistern, wooden loo-seat,
Harvesters hanging, mangle in passage-way
Long key in lock, block of wood dangling,
Wall-clock, drop-leaf table, pressure-cooker, beans,
Cherry-patterned table-cloth, jug of Bisto, crumbs,
Pink-yellow Battenburg, splashes of dark tea ...
5. SIGNS AND LABELS: Here is a genuine four-line example found in the changing rooms of a swimming pool:
Out of order
This hairdryer is out of order
Please use an alternative hair dryer
We apologise for any inconvenience
Discuss what is happening on each successive line - and why someone might have thought that 'out of order' stuck on a hairdryer was somehow insufficient. Now take any sign that you have seen and devise similar 'additional lines' or 'translations'. Alternatively, look around the space you are in and devise 5 signs/labels which might be attached to something. (Reading your sign aloud can challenge your group to infer where the sign might be attached. This is particularly effective if you have more than one obvious place: it begins to tease out the metaphorical potential of what you have written)
6. STARTER SENTENCE: Take a 'starter sentence' - or choice of starter sentences - and write for 3 minutes. See where it takes you: "I lay awake, unable to sleep, and all because ..." (from Alan Gillespie's 5 tip tips, Guardian 2013)
7. JOURNEY INWARD: write about a public place for 3 mins; now write for another 4 mins about a place known to only 5 or 6 people; now write for 5 mins about a place known only to yourself. (Such 'stepped' exercises, help writers approach their content by degrees. See below 'Go and open the door' - longer structured exercise number 5)
8. MUSEUM OF YOUR LIFE: Imagine the museum of your life/year/day/classroom: what are the exhibits? Jot down a list of about 5-10 and then choose one and write the museum blurb that appears next to it. (cf Nicholas Guillen's zoo below - longer structured exercise number 4)
9. I-SPY: Write down 6 or 7 things you can see from where you are sitting - or make an alphabet/glossary of the place you are in.
10. PICTURE OR PHOTO: 2 or three people look at the same picture or photograph and discuss it - then, separately, each writer jots down
11. TOPIC WORDS: Take a topic and write down words of 2,3,4, - 15 letters.
12. ANTHROPOMORPHISM: Write down a list of 5 household objects (e.g. corkscrew, saucepan, broom, key, rug) - then write for 5 minutes in the first person from the point of view of one.
13. 10-WORD SENTENCE: Write a 10-word sentence. Now 'unpack' and expand the same sense in three more sentences (this can be the sentence before and the sentence afterwards) (Idea form Everybody Writes website).
14. LATERAL THINKING: Take an object and write 5 different uses it can/could have.
15. GUESS THE CHARACTER: each person writes on a slip of paper the name of a person, real or imaginary, contemporary or historical, or an occupation or a type. These slips are then shuffled and redistributed. Each writer takes one slip and writes down 10 things that might be found in this character's pocket/house. These are then read out and the group challenged to deduce what might have been on the original slip of paper. (This is an example of an exercise to promote 'show not tell'. See also Ian Macmillan's poem: '10 things found in a ship-wrecked sailor's pocket.')
16. WORD PAIRS: Provide pairs of words and ask writers to choose one of the pair. Then they should write for 5 minutes trying to use all their chosen words. e.g. gold or straw? leaf or bark? salt or spice? fire or water? This can work well as a class exercise where the words are previously generated around a topic or a story, and then 'paired'.
17. GIFTING: Choice of words or phrases. This can be generated 'cold', but can be better selected from texts or from a section of recent writing, and then 'gifted' to each other. Choose two words or phrases from what you have just written and 'give' one to the person on your left, and one to the person on your right. You should also receive two phrases - one from the person on your left and one from the person on your right. Each writer then tries to include both 'gifted' words/phrases in a piece of free-writing (5-15 mins).
Short structured exercises
(cf Anthony Wilson's Praise Poems in 'The Poetry Toolkit' - freely downloadable from www.thepoetrytrust.org.uk)
VARIATIONS:
2. Compose a short text in sentences of only four words each
3. Write a short text without using any words containing the letter 'a'.
4. Compose a short text - a love letter, an obituary, a recipe, a play-script - using only the 100 most frequently used words (in a corpus of UK books - National Literacy Strategy):
the that not look put and with then don’t could a all were come house to we go will old
said can little into too in are as back by he up no from day I had mum children made
of my one him time it her them Mr I’m was what do get if you there me just help
they out down now Mrs on this dad came called she have big oh here is went when about off
for be it’s got asked at like see their saw his some looked people make but so very your an
5. Write a 26-sentence text with each consecutive sentence starting with the next letter of the alphabet. Playscripts are fine.
At the start of a writing session, in order to 'break the ice' and get some words written, it can be useful to provide short exercises which reduce anxieties. These may be shared in pairs, with the whole group - or not at all. It can be a good idea to give writers the right to share only when ready.
1. WORDS: List 5-10 words which are currently interesting you. These could be chosen for their sound, their shape (short words, compound words), their association - place names and product names are good - words from different languages, dialect words, slang, nonsense words. 2 mins. Read one by one around the circle. 'Get the words in the air' and see what coincidental sequences emerge. Enjoy. (cf Favourite words, Michael Laskey's workshop ideas mentioned in the Poetry Trust's excellent publication, 'The Poetry Toolkit' www.thepoetrytrust.org)
CLICK HERE FOR WORD STARTER VARIATIONS
2. OBSERVATIONS: Jot down three things you passed on your way to the meeting: now use one of these as a starting point to write about your journey here.
3. CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR: List 4 words and, next to each, place a word or phrase which is close in meaning. eg between - among, anger - irritation, awkward - embarrassing; dash - sprint. Now use one pair of words as the starting point for a piece of writing: You might find the following construction useful: 'It was not so much anger as a sense of irritation I felt when, for the third time, Martin scraped his pen across the air vents....'
4. LISTS: Make a list of ... (anything) ... colours and their correspondent objects; games; camping equipment; places you've visited; clothes you once had/still have; items in your room; furniture in your grandparents' house; things in my shed, feelings and their objective correlatives ... The act of listing alone is good, and sharing is even better, but it could be that from that you derive a stimulus for further writing. Olivia McCannon's 'Inventory' - a list poem about her grandparents' house - starts like this:
Open door, high cistern, wooden loo-seat,
Harvesters hanging, mangle in passage-way
Long key in lock, block of wood dangling,
Wall-clock, drop-leaf table, pressure-cooker, beans,
Cherry-patterned table-cloth, jug of Bisto, crumbs,
Pink-yellow Battenburg, splashes of dark tea ...
5. SIGNS AND LABELS: Here is a genuine four-line example found in the changing rooms of a swimming pool:
Out of order
This hairdryer is out of order
Please use an alternative hair dryer
We apologise for any inconvenience
Discuss what is happening on each successive line - and why someone might have thought that 'out of order' stuck on a hairdryer was somehow insufficient. Now take any sign that you have seen and devise similar 'additional lines' or 'translations'. Alternatively, look around the space you are in and devise 5 signs/labels which might be attached to something. (Reading your sign aloud can challenge your group to infer where the sign might be attached. This is particularly effective if you have more than one obvious place: it begins to tease out the metaphorical potential of what you have written)
6. STARTER SENTENCE: Take a 'starter sentence' - or choice of starter sentences - and write for 3 minutes. See where it takes you: "I lay awake, unable to sleep, and all because ..." (from Alan Gillespie's 5 tip tips, Guardian 2013)
7. JOURNEY INWARD: write about a public place for 3 mins; now write for another 4 mins about a place known to only 5 or 6 people; now write for 5 mins about a place known only to yourself. (Such 'stepped' exercises, help writers approach their content by degrees. See below 'Go and open the door' - longer structured exercise number 5)
8. MUSEUM OF YOUR LIFE: Imagine the museum of your life/year/day/classroom: what are the exhibits? Jot down a list of about 5-10 and then choose one and write the museum blurb that appears next to it. (cf Nicholas Guillen's zoo below - longer structured exercise number 4)
9. I-SPY: Write down 6 or 7 things you can see from where you are sitting - or make an alphabet/glossary of the place you are in.
10. PICTURE OR PHOTO: 2 or three people look at the same picture or photograph and discuss it - then, separately, each writer jots down
- three things that are happening in the photo;
- what is happening just outside the frame of the picture/photo?;
- what might have happened 5 minutes before this photo was taken ... and 5 minutes after?;
- what might the photographer/artist have been thinking as she/he took the photo?
11. TOPIC WORDS: Take a topic and write down words of 2,3,4, - 15 letters.
12. ANTHROPOMORPHISM: Write down a list of 5 household objects (e.g. corkscrew, saucepan, broom, key, rug) - then write for 5 minutes in the first person from the point of view of one.
13. 10-WORD SENTENCE: Write a 10-word sentence. Now 'unpack' and expand the same sense in three more sentences (this can be the sentence before and the sentence afterwards) (Idea form Everybody Writes website).
14. LATERAL THINKING: Take an object and write 5 different uses it can/could have.
15. GUESS THE CHARACTER: each person writes on a slip of paper the name of a person, real or imaginary, contemporary or historical, or an occupation or a type. These slips are then shuffled and redistributed. Each writer takes one slip and writes down 10 things that might be found in this character's pocket/house. These are then read out and the group challenged to deduce what might have been on the original slip of paper. (This is an example of an exercise to promote 'show not tell'. See also Ian Macmillan's poem: '10 things found in a ship-wrecked sailor's pocket.')
16. WORD PAIRS: Provide pairs of words and ask writers to choose one of the pair. Then they should write for 5 minutes trying to use all their chosen words. e.g. gold or straw? leaf or bark? salt or spice? fire or water? This can work well as a class exercise where the words are previously generated around a topic or a story, and then 'paired'.
17. GIFTING: Choice of words or phrases. This can be generated 'cold', but can be better selected from texts or from a section of recent writing, and then 'gifted' to each other. Choose two words or phrases from what you have just written and 'give' one to the person on your left, and one to the person on your right. You should also receive two phrases - one from the person on your left and one from the person on your right. Each writer then tries to include both 'gifted' words/phrases in a piece of free-writing (5-15 mins).
Short structured exercises
- WRITING STEMS: Give writing 'stems' for quick writing sentence lists for 2 to 3 minutes each (as used by US poet Kenneth Koch):
- ''I wish ...; I wish ...; I wish ...'
- 'I remember...; I remember ...; I remember...'
- I like it when ...; I hate it when ...; I like it when ...; I hate it when ...'
- 'At first ....; but now/then ...; At first ...; but now/then ...'
(cf Anthony Wilson's Praise Poems in 'The Poetry Toolkit' - freely downloadable from www.thepoetrytrust.org.uk)
VARIATIONS:
2. Compose a short text in sentences of only four words each
3. Write a short text without using any words containing the letter 'a'.
4. Compose a short text - a love letter, an obituary, a recipe, a play-script - using only the 100 most frequently used words (in a corpus of UK books - National Literacy Strategy):
the that not look put and with then don’t could a all were come house to we go will old
said can little into too in are as back by he up no from day I had mum children made
of my one him time it her them Mr I’m was what do get if you there me just help
they out down now Mrs on this dad came called she have big oh here is went when about off
for be it’s got asked at like see their saw his some looked people make but so very your an
5. Write a 26-sentence text with each consecutive sentence starting with the next letter of the alphabet. Playscripts are fine.