Covering all forms of writing from all over the world!
Exercises and Tips
- Write a scene where many characters are having an active and heated conversation - be sure that the scene contains action and description, but does not slow down the conversation. This can be a difficult aspect of dialog to master, because with each additional character, the reader must be able to track the motivations/interests of all the individuals involved.
- Using and Making Similes for Poetry: Read through some of your favorite poems and write down some similes (similes are a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the words "like" or "as") that you like. Now go to your favorite public area and observe nature, people, or anything you like. Based on your observations, start listing some similes in your notebook (which you should always have with you!). No thinking when writing these observations - do it Raw. Nothing has to make sense… don't program yourself to create while make your list, the important thing is the list itself. Write whatever comes to your mind. No go back to your writing space and read what you wrote… anything jump out to you? Is there a line, a word that cries out to be immortalized forever in a poem? If nothing comes, close your notebook and come back to it at a later date with a new set of perspective. You could do this exercise as often as you like… always creating similes to use within your poetry.
- This exercise is based solely on dialog - write a conversation between two liars. Make sure that everything they say has several different meanings or suggestions. Never let the reader know that both parties are lying (like having one accuse the other of lying). Write it in a way that the reader can figure out that both are liars and nothing they say can be trusted.
- Have you ever written or created a character that has different religious beliefs than you? How about a different sex (or even a transgender character)? How about a different race, political view, or any trait that is the complete opposite of who you are?
- Purchase a diary… but not just an ordinary diary, a diary that the character who will be using it will like (does this new character like to keep secrets and have to have a diary that they lock; like images on the cover, or even on the pages themselves; a favorite color… your decide - because this will be your "alternative" character's diary and not yours, so choose carefully). With this diary you will create an alternative life and world for yourself. Be anyone, live anywhere you want (have you always wanted to live in a different world, under the water - then do it!). All that matters is that you sit down EVERY DAY and write in that diary as if you where - YOU ARE - that character. It doesn't matter how long your write in the diary, but the purpose is to stretch your mind and let it run free for a few minutes a day (soon, you may be writing pages about a certain incident that happened on that day in you imaginary world). Two things can be accomplished by doing this: the first being the opening of your creative mind, and the second is that after a while - who knows - you may have written a publishable book!
- Sensory Observations in Poetry: Poetry can describe a feeling, make a reader see a sight, create a smell, make inanimate objects live, make the reader see something that they have always known in a completely different view. Bring a poem alive by using your 5 senses (and if you are lucky enough to have that certain 6th sense, please, use that too). Nothing wrong with sitting with your notebook writing out: I see…, I hear…, I feel…, I smell…, I taste… observations. Now when you need an idea about something - look through your notebook and write about that mailbox that you saw, you heard, you felt, you smelled, you taste (though I wouldn't recommend tasting it, but that's all in the writers sense of creativity) and create your poem from these observations.
- Remember a powerful memory that involves at least another person. For a few minutes, sit back and let that memory overtake you - see it, feel it, try to relive it. Once you feel comfortable with the memory, start writing down all the details that come to mind (just thoughts, images, etc… this is not the time to create the scene). Sit the list of observations aside for a day and try to purge that memory from your mind - just complete forget about it. The next day, take your notes and write a complete scene about that memory - using description and dialog… but (and there's always a "but" with us here) write this scene from the point of view of the other person involved. Do you think their memories will be that same as yours? Will they conflict? DO NOT write about YOUR memory - write about the memory from the other person because this is their scene, their opportunity to speak out and let the world know what they felt during that period.
- A fun poetry exercise… even though poetry is not as popular today as it once was (which saddens all of us here at WritingRaw concerning this truth) it is guaranteed that many people can quote lines, whole sections of poems, or even just a few basic words that would make a poem instantly recognizable. Talk or email your friends and ask them to send/tell you these small "remembrances" of poems (stating right off the bat that they cannot go and look these things up to make themselves feel better - these lines must be off the top of their head). Most likely, they won't even know the name of the poem or whoever wrote it… The fun part for you will be to discover the poet and the poem! Though you might not be writing a poem, you will be doing something just as important - poetry research!
- Hate doing this - but there are some boxed sets for writers to gain inspiration and encouragement. These are not affiliated whatsoever with WritingRaw.com, but just some materials that we found fun throughout the years of us writing. Here are some that we would recommend, and they can be purchased through Amazon or at your local bookstore:
- The Observation Deck: A Tool Kit for Writers by Naomi Epel (contains 50 innovative cards designed to help break through writer's block; 50 chapters with practical strategies for writers at all levels of experience; guidance through each stage of writing, from conception to polished work - includes a 160 page book and 50 creative cards)
- The Not Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty (48 page booklet with inspiration, instructions, activities and anecdotes; daily noveling briefs - perfectly sized recommended allowances of writing advice and activities for every day of the noveling month; month long, guided, displayable log with gold-star decals for keeping daily and weekly track of your progress; motivational materials, pep-talking letters, and commitment coupons designed to keep your energy up and word-count flowing; the Radiant Badge of the Triumphant Wordsmith - at month's end, in which the novel will be finished, you can wear this badge proudly and announce your authoring victory to the world)
- The Writer's Toolbox by Jamie Cat Callan (Designed by a longtime creative writing teacher, this innovative kit includes a 64-page booklet filled with exercises and instructions that focus on a 'right-brain' approach to writing. Sixty exercise sticks First Sentences, Non Sequiturs, and Last Straws will get stories off the ground, 60 cards fuel creative descriptions, and four spinner palettes will ignite unexpected plot twists. For any aspiring writer, this kit is the perfect first step on the path to literary greatness!)
- Being an author is like being an architect. As an architect, they must create their plans - usually starting from the bottom to the top. Well, a writer can do the same thing using the same concept. Draw out a house plan - oh, I mean your story plan. You can have as many rooms and levels you want, depending on how many sections your story/novel will have. No matter what, the design must contain at least three rooms - a beginning, middle and end. The story could start in the basement (back-story); or start in, say, the living room (introducing characters and plot situations); and the whole thing can climax in the attic. Once you have decided all the parts of your story, make sure that no questions are left unanswered and all loose ends are wrapped up so that your house, whether it is mansion or a single-family home, is complete and ready for occupancy by your characters.
- Found another website that we thought you might enjoy… again, this site has nothing to do with WritingRaw - we are just giving them a kind shout-out. It's a site created by Bonnie Neubauer (Bonnie Neubauer is an author, inventor, and telemarketing consultant who resides in suburban Philadelphia, PA with her husband, Gil; two cats, Booger and Coolio; and a lot of clutter - hey, I took this off her site so don't blame me about the clutter) and the really cook thing about her site is the Story Spinner Online - gazillions more creative writing exercises than the millions generated by the original handheld Story Spinner! Check it out and give it a try, it really is kind of amazing. http://www.bonnieneubauer.com/ssonline.shtml
- What some people will do to get their creativity back! Found this exercise online called the "30 minute mad half hour." If you are suffering from writer's block, do a silly and quite freaky dance (pray that you are alone) for at least 30 minutes. The objective is to just do something fun and crazy that will get your heart pounding - and hopefully shake out all that blocked negativity in your head in the process… if this is not for you, there are always the old alternatives like jogging, taking a walk, standing on your head, cleaning the cat box… but, hey, we are always open to new ways of discovering creativity.
- The last exercise this month will be a sexy one… either write a poem of a scene about the last time you felt sexy, and why. Since this will not be shown to anyone (unless you so desire) get as naughty as you like with it. We are not saying that you should write porn (which is fine too) but you should be able to reach down inside in a moments notice and be able to write about the sexiness of life and your characters. Give it a try - and, if you let your significant other read it, who knows where the night might end up!
Inspiring Quotes from Authors
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Theodore Dreiser
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
Jean Cocteau
It's not plagiarism - I'm recycling words, as any good environmentally conscious writer would do.
Uniek Swain
I am a man, and alive.... For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.
D.H. Lawrence
It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Theodore Dreiser
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath
Our Readers let us know their TOP 5 books for 2009
(the list is in alphabetical order by title)
BOOK REVIEWS
&
WRITING EXERCISES
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Try our internal WritingRaw Google search.
Meaningful letters
or characters
that constitute
readable
matter.
Being in a natural condition; not processed or refined.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Ben Franklin
2 States - The Story of My Marriage by Chetan Bhagat
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in the USA by Webster Tarpley
A Rain of Words: A Bilingual Anthology of Women's Poetry in Francophone Africa
Affluenza by Oliver James
Amigoland by Oscar Casares
An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
Any of John Grisham's books
Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Book Promotion Ain’t For Sissies by Jenna Glatzer
Charlemagne by Derrck Wilson
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Get In the News by David Leonhardt
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
Guerrilla Marketing For Writers by Jay Levinson
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneggar
Hunted (House of Night, Book 5) by P.C. Cast + Kristin Cast
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Just After Sunset by Stephen King
Kathy Griffin Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin
Keep off the Grass by Karan Bajaj
Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam Fisher
L'arbre au vent by Marie-Hélene Bahain (Diabase)
Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas by Jean Bodel (Flammarion)
Lincoln's Men: The President and His Private Secretaries by Daniel Mark Epstein
Looking Askance by Michael Leja
Love, Desire & Hate by Joan Collins
Lover Avenged by J.R. Ward
Marketing Success by Robert W Bly
Mars Life by Ben Bova
Mixology by Adrian Matejka
Model by Cheryl Diamond
My Holocaust by Tova Reich
My Legendary Girlfriend by Mike Gayle
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (Third time of reading)
Out of the Night that Covers Me by Pat Cunningham Devoto
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Please by Jericho Brown
Poe's Children: The New Horror edited by Peter Straub
Roots by Alex Haley
Sacred Unions by Thomas Breidenthal
Ship of Fools by Fintan O'Toole (Faber)
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
Solo, poems by John Calder (Herla)
Steve Martin: The Magic Years by Morris W. Walker
That Demon Life by Lowell Mick White
The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by M. Glenn Taylor
The Bible
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President by Taylor Branch
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox
The Grace That Keeps this World by Tom Bailey
The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
The March by E.L. Doctorow
The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand
The Monk by Matthew Lewis (Wordsworth Editions)
The Moon Below by Barbara Bickmore
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Selfish Capitalist by Oliver James
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Third Man Factor by John Geiger
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Trump Card by Ivanka Trump
Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler by Brad Matsen
Top Book Marketing Tips of 2008 by Dana Lynn Smith
Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Waiting Period by Hubert Selby Jr.
What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage by David G. Myers and Letha Dawson Scanzoni
recommended by Writersadda.com
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recommended by Writersadda.com
recommended by Jendi Reiter
recommended by Fred Johnston
recommended by Fred Johnston
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recommended by Jack McDevitt
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recommended by Erin Baliya
recommended by Bill Sawyers
recommended by Jack McDevitt
recommended by Lowell Mick White
recommended by Jendi Reiter
recommended by Weeb
recommended by Raphael Henaut
recommended by Raphael Henaut
recommended by Rick Wilmot
recommended by Paula Margulies
recommended by Carole D. Zebaze
recommended by Lowell Mick White
recommended by Weeb
recommended by Jendi Reiter
recommended by Jendi Reiter
recommended by Fred Johnston
recommended by Paula Margulies
recommended by Fred Johnston
recommended by Diane Winks
recommended by Lowell Mick White
recommended by Carole D. Zebaze
recommended by Lowell Mick White
recommended by Diane Winks
recommended by Jack McDevitt
recommended by Rib
recommended by C. Angelo Caci
recommended by Weeb
recommended by Paula Margulies
recommended by Raphael Henaut
recommended by Carole D. Zebaze
recommended by Weeb
recommended by Writersadda.com
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recommended by Anne Curtis
recommended by Erin Baliya
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recommended by Jack McDevitt
recommended by Fred Johnston
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recommended by Paula Margulies
recommended by Peter Marsh/Diane Winks
recommended by Rick Wilmot
recommended by Peter Marsh
recommended by Rick Wilmot
recommended by Peter Marsh
recommended by Carole D. Zebaze
recommended by Rib
recommended by Bill Sawyers
recommended by Writersadda.com
recommended by Raphael Henaut
recommended by C. Angelo Caci
recommended by Jendi Reiter
NEW Monthly column by Ditch
5 Suggested Books to Read for the Month
All books can be purchased from Amazon, your local bookstore (if at all possible, please patronize your local bookstore),
your local library or any other online shop that sells books.
The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Under the Dome by Stephen King
