Tips
Write without punctuation
When you’re working on a poem, try taking out punctuation, and see what you’re left with.
Another approach is to try…
Cliff Yates
By: Cliff Yates
Exercises / All, Poetry / Free writing
Free writing is an excellent way of generating ideas, jumpstarting a new piece of work, or overcoming writer’s block.
Essentially, it entails writing without knowing where it’s going and not minding how ‘good’ it is. The important thing is to keep writing, without stopping to think.
Free writing is a great warm-up exercise, but it can lead to a remarkably achieved piece of writing in its own right.
Give yourself a prompt to begin – an idea, an object or a phrase taken at random from a book, like these from Moby Dick: ‘Next morning…’; ‘You saw…’ (or he/she/I saw…); ‘It was quite late in the evening when…’
There are variations. If you’re currently writing fiction or a script, write from the point of view of a character; if you’re writing poems, write in lines rather than to the edge of the page.
Write for a few minutes and, if it’s going well, just carry on; if it isn’t, try another prompt, or just carry on anyway because ideas can come when you’re not expecting them.
It’s all about challenging yourself: if you think you’ve finished, for example, write for another five minutes, because it might get even better.
One of the great things about writing is the unpredictability, and free writing taps into this, so that we’re surprised by what we write.
Exercises
Whenever you write a scene it’s a good idea to rewrite it – perhaps in note form – using a different…
Tips
Each line must carry at least one unit of sense either in the line itself or across several lines.
To make…
Tips
Objects have immense power to help us to tell stories.
I have found that an entire storyline can be found in…
Exercises
PART ONE: Documentary or Research Exercise for Screenwriters
Using a still camera and or a tape recorder (or video recorder), follow…
Tips
After the giddy rush of a first draft, how you edit and refine your work is of equal, if not more…
Exercises
Start with a scenario – this might be a random picture, a very short scene from a novel, a few lines…
Tips
Before you begin to write your story ask yourself what is it about, what do you want it to say, what…
Exercises
Think about your favourite novel or short story, or if not your favourite, then the novel or short story you are…
