Creative Writing Exercises For Dummies

Chapter 2

Sketching Out Ideas

In This Chapter

Unearthing great ideas

Creating a concrete reality for your story

Researching your project

If you’re starting a writing project and think that it’s a question of sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper or a blank screen and waiting for inspiration to strike, you’re probably in for a surprise. You may well sit there waiting … and waiting … and waiting.

This method may work for you, but for most people it simply doesn’t. So instead of wasting your valuable time, use the effective, painless ways to kick-start your creativity that I suggest in this chapter. I give you plenty of exercises, ideas and tips to wake up your sleeping creative giant, show you how to use images and objects effectively in your writing, and lead you towards deciding on the appropriate level of research.

Getting Your Creative Juices Flowing

Nine times out of ten, just sitting down to write the story in a linear fashion doesn’t work. You tend to freeze at the sight of the blank page and immediately a million questions leap out at you: Where to begin? Who are the main characters? What point of view shall I use? Do I write in the first or third person? Should ...