By: Meaghan Bethany

My name is Meaghan Bethany and I run megbeth.travel.blog. My blog was started in reference to my love of travelling the UK and the world but is quickly evolving to include some of my other long-standing passions such as reading and creative writing. During the recent Coronavirus outbreak, I decided to do something meaningful with my new-found spare time and began writing my very first novel: a Greek myth re-telling. Through my research, I discovered a wealth of creative writing exercises that I’d love to share with you all below.

Writing your characters

If you’re having trouble generating characters or bringing them to life, I suggest starting with a character interview. You can perform a character interview using a Word template, or simply answer out loud, as long as you answer the following questions as your character. Try this without thinking too hard, and answer as quickly as you can.

What is your name?

What is your age?

When is your birthday?

What colour are your eyes?

What colour is your hair?

Do other people tell you that you’re attractive?

Do you see yourself as attractive?

Does beauty matter to you?

What do you want right now?

What did you want when you were seven?

What do you think of your parents?

Who is the most important person in your life and why?

What is your goal or desire?

What do you believe in?

Writing the senses

Next, I’m going to ask you to write a small scene involving one of your main characters, pretending they only have one sense. For instance, if your character is walking through a wood or going to the market, imagine they can only see their surroundings. When you’re done with the first sense, write the same scene using a different sense until you have completed all five. Senses are really important when it comes to writing believable characters, and can also help you to work on your prose by writing descriptively. You want to include touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight, but for an extra challenge you can also try writing motion, which is often forgotten about.

Writing the world

Whilst you want to master writing descriptively, the last thing you want to do to your readers is ‘info-dump’. Information dumping occurs most often when you are writing a complex world, and you want your readers to know everything there is to know about it all within the first chapter. Your readers do eventually need to know about the culture, the religion, politics, transport, history, folklore and mythology within your world, but you’ll need to resist the urge to tell them everything immediately. Practice writing about something that will take a few scenes to uncover (e.g. a secret or a hidden object) and try to use foreshadowing to slowly drip-feed your reader the information they’re craving.

Writing conflict

Whether you’re writing a book for a traditional publisher, for self-publishing or just for someone you know, the key to keeping a reader hooked is conflict. Conflict can be a number of things: a physical fight, an argument between characters, or perhaps a piece of dialogue that makes the reader think ‘Woah, where did that come from?’. There are a million small ways to inject conflict into your story. If you’re hoping for a traditional publisher then they’re going to want to see it on every page, so it’s worth spending some time on this. One creative writing exercise is to practice putting interesting characters into difficult situations – it’s inspired by Stephen King who believes that character-driven stories are more interesting than plot-driven ones.

Getting inspiration from books

If you’re an aspiring author then the chances are that you love reading. There are dozens of writing techniques that you can do using your favourite book as a tool, but probably the most popular one is to write your favourite scene in your own style. More than anything, this exercise could help you to discover which tense is right for your novel, and may even help you when it comes to figuring out POV (Point of View). Fun scenes to recreate could be: a prince discovering Rapunzel in the tower, Harry Potter discovering he’s a wizard on his birthday, or even Cersei blowing up the Great Sept of Baelor with wildfire in Game of Thrones.

Getting inspiration from art

So, now you’ve conducted your character interview, you know a little something about what they look like. But maybe you’re still describing them at surface level and struggling to go deeper. When this happened to me, I logged into a website called DeviantArt and looked for art matching my characters’ description. Admittedly, it was a lot easier for me than it might be for you because Greek Gods and Goddesses have been drawn and painted for centuries, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find some art that looks like your character too. Print the picture out next to your character interview, and use it for inspiration! It helps so much more to see your character.

Freewrite, re-write!

Nearly all writers experience procrastination, perfectionism, or self-doubt. One of the most helpful creative writing exercises I found to help me overcome these issues is freewriting. Freewriting is the easiest technique on Earth, and all it means is that you write any scene from your story without stopping and without editing, for around 900 words. If you don’t want to write a scene, you can always write about a character as I’ve found this is a great way to get to know them more! Your entire first draft is essentially one gigantic free-write, so if you can master freewriting 900 words per day, you’re going to get to the end of your novel much faster. All that matters here is that you get your story down on paper, ready for a re-write.

I’d like to thank Laura for letting me guest post on her lovely bookish blog – I hope this has helped you to write your first scene, your first chapter, or even your first sentence. If it has, please feel free to comment below or contact me on my blog, my Twitter page, or my Goodreads account. Happy writing and good luck with your stories!

Buy it!

Buy a copy of 101 Creative Writing Exercises here, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Pin it!