A lot of people's experiences of creative writing exercises were back in secondary school English classes; where their teacher would let them know where to begin and maybe follow up with an occasional prompt or two. The structure for these exercises is frequently, "Say this, now make something up, now say that"
It didn't just not teach you anything, it also limited your creativity at the same time - the worst of both worlds.
Would it be any wonder then that a lot of writers nowadays wouldn't give creative writing exercises the time of day? These folks were bored senseless by them!
And that is very unfortunate, because these exercises can really provide many benefits, and give you the tools to improve your writing ability substantially - when they're performed the right way.
The simple truth is, the way that your highschool teacher attempted to direct you through those exercises was simply uninspiring (except maybe for anyone who had the rare fortune of a decent teacher). They may actually have been just waiting around for the bell to ring so they could have another nap in the teachers' lounge.
So, just how should they be done?
Well, for starters, they require direction and purpose. The goal of your highschool exercises was to write a story. However , I believe we can recognize that to create a story, one dosen't really require an exercise.
The objective of such an exercise therefore, is to practice a really specific writing skill in a fashion that challenges that skill and pushes you to improve it.
It's by doing this that you're able to focus on one of your sticking points, and then another, and then yet another, and so on and so forth, having the overall outcome of improving the caliber of your writing piece by piece, skill by skill - and not simply writing a story for the sake of writing a story.
Now we all know the advantages. However, you could be thinking, "terrific, but that still doesn't seem like a great deal of fun."
And yet once again, it most likely has more to do with the way in which your old high school teacher presented them back in the day. Creative writing exercises really can be fun and drastically strengthen your writing simultaneously.
Something that many of us resented about them was the limitations put on their creativity by these kinds of exercises, when you are told what and how to write. What quality exercises try to accomplish however, is to leverage and empower your creativity to solve a problem. You've still got guidelines, but those guidelines are there to push you to adapt, and not just to conform.
It didn't just not teach you anything, it also limited your creativity at the same time - the worst of both worlds.
Would it be any wonder then that a lot of writers nowadays wouldn't give creative writing exercises the time of day? These folks were bored senseless by them!
And that is very unfortunate, because these exercises can really provide many benefits, and give you the tools to improve your writing ability substantially - when they're performed the right way.
The simple truth is, the way that your highschool teacher attempted to direct you through those exercises was simply uninspiring (except maybe for anyone who had the rare fortune of a decent teacher). They may actually have been just waiting around for the bell to ring so they could have another nap in the teachers' lounge.
So, just how should they be done?
Well, for starters, they require direction and purpose. The goal of your highschool exercises was to write a story. However , I believe we can recognize that to create a story, one dosen't really require an exercise.
The objective of such an exercise therefore, is to practice a really specific writing skill in a fashion that challenges that skill and pushes you to improve it.
It's by doing this that you're able to focus on one of your sticking points, and then another, and then yet another, and so on and so forth, having the overall outcome of improving the caliber of your writing piece by piece, skill by skill - and not simply writing a story for the sake of writing a story.
Now we all know the advantages. However, you could be thinking, "terrific, but that still doesn't seem like a great deal of fun."
And yet once again, it most likely has more to do with the way in which your old high school teacher presented them back in the day. Creative writing exercises really can be fun and drastically strengthen your writing simultaneously.
Something that many of us resented about them was the limitations put on their creativity by these kinds of exercises, when you are told what and how to write. What quality exercises try to accomplish however, is to leverage and empower your creativity to solve a problem. You've still got guidelines, but those guidelines are there to push you to adapt, and not just to conform.