Thread: Writing Exercises for Generating Ideas

Originally Posted by philistine

I'm sorry, you can't polish a turd. It makes sense, because it makes sense, because it makes sense.

If that isn't enough to sate you, I'll stick with saying the following: it's a crap method.

So you somehow know that any idea that comes from a more spontaneous process or an exercise is going to be a turd – or that's it's something that can’t be refined? And if it isn’t -- it has to be some kind of “exception?”

I love it when people assume the way they do it -- or imagine others do -- it is the only way.

Originally Posted by JosephB

So you somehow know that any idea that comes from a more spontaneous process or an exercise is going to be a turd – or that's it's something that can’t be refined? And if it isn’t -- it has to be some kind of “exception?”

I love it when people assume the way they do it -- or imagine others do -- it is the only way.

...though in all likelihood, it's going to be crap.

The idea that you can pick a word out of nowhere, add some inane, extraneous details and produce a story, is, of course, completely feasible-- I don't doubt it..

If I were to fling paint arbitrarily at a canvas, it'd likely be a complete cow pat. Of course, there does exist Pollock, Still and Hodgkin.

The idea that you can't improve your writing once it's on the page is completely retarded.
In this instance comparing a piece of writing to a speech or a painting is ill fitting. Paintings are a one draft thing. Speeches happen live. Writing gets redrafted and edited. Polishing is a huge part of it.

Originally Posted by philistine

If I were to fling paint arbitrarily at a canvas, it'd likely be a complete cow pat. Of course, there does exist Pollock, Still and Hodgkin.

I appreciate that you’ve couched your opinion with those qualifiers – that’s a given if you don’t want to come off as a know-it-all. (Although it doesn’t always work.)

Regardless, you’re dismissing something based entirely on your own guesswork.

Originally Posted by Like a Fox

The idea that you can't improve your writing once it's on the page is completely retarded.
In this instance comparing a piece of writing to a speech or a painting is ill fitting. Paintings are a one draft thing. Speeches happen live. Writing gets redrafted and edited. Polishing is a huge part of it.

If only you could see my face right now.

Also, there are ideas, as you must surely know (surely...) that even if rewritten a million times, would still be very much average in composition. This obviously resides on a sliding scale though, as I'm unsure as to what you consider a 'good piece of work'.

Originally Posted by JosephB

I appreciate that you’ve couched your opinion with those qualifiers – that’s a given if you don’t want to come off as a know-it-all. (Although it doesn’t always work.)

Regardless, you’re dismissing something based entirely on your own guesswork.

I think everyone has a special spot for some ignorance. Leave it be man.

Hey Kyle, thank you for posting. These could jump-start the blocked writer, similar to the LM prompts. And really, why not give them a go? Some can 'cook' and create a mess. Others can experiment and create a masterpiece.

I'm pretty sure we all have our own ways of writing our stories, and how we get through the process is different for everyone.

I sure wouldn't assume that my way is better than anyone else's just because it works for me. I think it takes a pretty closed minded person to presume that their way is the only way, and anything else would produce garbage, or I suppose a turd.

I like hearing all ideas. What any one writer does, and what works for them. I think every writer, no matter who you are or how many books you've got published, I think you can always improve. Keeping an open mind to new ideas will always help you become that much better.

No one way is the right way. What ever works for one person may not for another, and just because you took different roads to get your story out... doesn't mean one is better than the other.

Originally Posted by philistine

Also, there are ideas, as you must surely know (surely...) that even if rewritten a million times, would still be very much average in composition. This obviously resides on a sliding scale though, as I'm unsure as to what you consider a 'good piece of work'.

I probably don't know what I'm talking about with paintings. I'm no painter. Maybe paintings are just like like writing, in which case I believe you could start a painting within parameters, only using blue and your fingers, say, and then maybe inspiration strikes and it grows and changes and eventually it doesn't resemble a blue fingerpainting anymore, but that was where it began. In that case, I'd say it's a lot like writing, and in that case, then great, whatever it takes to create the finished piece. Everything doesn't have to be mulled over for days, weeks. A blank canvas stared at for hours. The assumption is that a writer or artist has the talent in them, so their decent ideas could well be brought out by silly-seeming prompts.

Wow, this thread certainly took an interesting direction. I feel some clarification is needed, because the debate seems to be hinged upon whether or not these prompts can lead to good stories. While, I feel that's not the purpose of the prompts. They're to generate ideas specifically. And ideas are distinct from stories.

Just as these are writing exercises. Not to be confused with the writing process.

It's a catalyst for creative exploration. These aren't to be used as a method to begin writing a piece (though, if a writer likes what they've come up with enough, it certain could end up being a piece).

The reason the prompts are "big" and extravagant is not to imply that stories require wild extravagance, but because extravagent prompts are generally fun to work with.

I used the Opening Line Hook exercise and came up with a silly short story. It wasn't very good. But I wrote it to fulfill the exercise. Fortunately, I fell in love with a supporting character from that story. Now that character has become my protagonist in a novel-length piece.

Without that exercise I wouldn't have met her. So I consider that exercise to have been a success.

If you feel these exercises have no merit, that's cool. I posted it because I saw some people complaining about not having ideas, or not being able to come up with any.

I went through my pile of books and looked for writing prompts suggested. I found these, and adjusted them a bit to make them a little more user friendly (The Character Chaos prompt originally stated to write the WORST THING you could think of that could happen to your character. I thought "Well, that might not help some who could only think of death as the worst thing," so I changed it to MOST UNEXPECTED THING)

Not everyone will find value in these. But for those who might, they're there for ya. One way to attempt to tackle that writer's block problem, and get back to writing swiftly.

Writing exercises are a staple of writing classes and how to-ing, and there's probably as many different ones as there are things I should've said but didn't remember in time. I always kind of enjoyed timed writing on incongruous prompts; I'm pretty good at it and occasionally one would get elaborated and polished. I also liked character development exercises; the kind where you answer a bunch of questions about what they say in a situation or what they aspire to at different times in their life and so on. It helped me remember all the things that need to go into a character, which I was prone not to even consider. When one's in the groove and the project is cooking, an exercise isn't indicated. When one's stalled or between jobs, probably can't hurt to try. For me, a lot of the exercises I've seen, like about finding suitable imagery, try to make my imagination more practical, composition-wise, rather than wilder. Writing exercises, just like any kind of practicing, are about habituating self-disciplie and control and technique, for which some people have less natural inclination than others. Some of us probably don't need much practice but I'm personally just too indolent to be bothered, even though I'd likely benefit.

Wow, a lot of people knocking the good old-fashioned from-the-seat-of-your-pants writing. I happen to think there are some fun-sounding exercises in Kyle's list. And even if I write 100 of them and 99 of them are crap, at least it was time spent writing, and not wasting that time arguing about how someone else should be writing instead.

I'd say I'm in what seems to be the 1% of writers on this site that rarely come up with ideas to write, and when I do come up with one, it usually stems from some of the methods described in the damn list. One of my best stories started out with a really good first line that I decided to expand on and see where it took me. Another came from a character with an odd quirk. Yet another came from imitating the writing style of a story I saw published in GUD.

Sure, a lot of the stories I write in those ways (and many others) turn out to be crap. However, I'm sure for every beautifully crafted story some of the best writers on this site post, they have a whole folder dedicated to those stories that just didn't turn out right. I know I have my "Crap" folder, and it's quite a bit heftier than my "Acceptable" folder.

Point is, we all write crap, and some of us write it more frequently than others. But don't knock the creative process when you've mucked it up every bit as much as every other aspiring writer out there.

Originally Posted by Tiamat10

I'd say I'm in what seems to be the 1% of writers on this site that rarely come up with ideas to write, and when I do come up with one, it usually stems from some of the methods described in the damn list. One of my best stories started out with a really good first line that I decided to expand on and see where it took me. Another came from a character with an odd quirk. Yet another came from imitating the writing style of a story I saw published in GUD.

I dunno what your definition of the word "idea" is, but I saw three of them in the paragraph above.

I fail to see your point. I didn't say I never come up with ideas. I said rarely, which therefore means that I'm allowed to come up with three of them, even more if I can, over the last few years.

My point is that the second and third sentences of the quoted parargraph appear to imply that three stories had as their catalyst "things" that were not ideas.

I don't see how that's implied, but in any event, that wasn't my intent.