Fiction Writing Exercises

Contrary to popular belief that the talent to write is inborn, it is something that can be developed and worked upon with practice. If you have ever attended a fiction writing class, you must have seen the teachers undertaking various kinds of exercises and activities, which help the new writers to develop their skills. Given below are some writing exercises, which anybody can undertake at home, to improve upon their writing skills.

Effective Exercises for Fiction Writers

Read, Read and Read...
One of the foremost writing tips is to read as much as you can. So, read articles in newspapers and magazines. Read the classics as well as contemporary fiction books. Read anything and everything under the sun and try to gauge the writing style of different authors and writers. All this will help you in two ways. Firstly, your vocabulary will improve and secondly, you will be able to develop and improve your own writing style.

Use Prompts for Free-Writing...
Fiction writing prompts are often used by teachers to train students in free writing. A prompt can be any word or a few sentences around which you have to build a story. Some of the commonly used prompts are - "Things I lost", "Things I found" or small plots like "you are a ten year old who has just discovered that your parents are actually thieves. Now, what will happen next?" or "You are traveling to a foreign country for the first time. While driving from the airport to the hotel, you discover that your passport is missing! ", etc.

Use Dictionary for Free-Writing...
Take a dictionary and open any random page. Write down the first word that you see on that page. In the same way, open the dictionary three more times so that you have in all four randomly selected words. Now, start writing and continue it for at least fifteen minutes without taking a break in between. You have to make sure that all the four words are included in the write up. Once you are done writing, go through what you have written and see whether there is any story or idea behind it. Check if you can make a story or a poem out of it. Even if there is none, but you have continued writing for fifteen minutes, it's an exercise in writing by itself. However, make sure that while free writing you do not get repetitive. You should always strive to come up with some new interesting words, sentences and ideas.

Keep a Journal...
Keeping a journal and writing in it on a regular basis, even if it's just for ten minutes a day, will help you analyze how much you have changed and improved as a writer over time. Also, writing a dairy everyday is a practice in itself and thus, will help with your writing considerably.

Write About Characters...
A good creative writing exercise to improve your writing about characters in a story is to think about someone whom you are in love with and then try to describe that person to others through your writing. The trick is that you have to write about the person in such a way that even the people who read your writing cannot help but fall in love with him. This exercise will help you develop your characters in a better way.

Write a Story from End to Start...
Another effective creative writing exercise is to write a story from the end to the start. You should write it in such a way that the readers can actually flow back in time through your writing. This will help you immensely in linking the various ideas of the story together to form a coherent whole!

The above-mentioned exercises, if undertaken regularly, will definitely improve your writing skills. In the end, everything boils down to practice. As is said, the more you write, the better at writing you become!