Writing Exercises You Can Do On Your Own

It is a good idea to have some writing exercises you can do, to strengthen your writing ‘muscles’. This is the case whether you are a beginner or not; but is particularly useful for those who are just starting.
If you are still unsure about what direction your writing lies in exactly – you just know you want to write – then practise a wide variety of exercises or assignments.
Here are some ideas:
· For imaginative writing, ask yourself ‘What if?’ Think of a place, event, person, creature – anything real or abstract – and change things around. This is not just the stuff of science fiction. ‘Animal Farm’ (by George Orwell) or ‘Prince and the Pauper’ (by Mark Twain) are two older examples of people or creatures being put in different positions and behaving unexpectedly. Anthropomorphism, such as seen in books like ‘Animal Farm’, is a very common result of the ‘What if’ question, and frequently seen in children’s books.
· For factual writing, take the journalist approach. A poem by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories of 1902 immortalised the most useful questions anyone can ask:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
· For poetry, try to capture emotions and observations in short phrases. Poetry is a much pithier, more emotive form of writing. It doesn’t suit everyone of course, but even those (such as myself) who don’t generally enjoy poetry as much as other forms of writing can benefit from practising it occasionally. It forces you to distill feelings and observations into a potent vial, and the result can be more vivid writing generally.
A lot of writing includes emotions and observations, so practice writing about them. For example:
· Write descriptions of places and events using all five physical senses, if possible. These are the windows to our world. We tend to rely on the common sight and sound senses, but forget about the other senses of taste, touch, and smell. However, these last three can be very evocative, and are remembered for a long time.
· Emotions – they’re common to us all, so learn to write about them. Who hasn’t experienced anger, disappointment, joy or the many forms of love, for example? To write about these as an exercise, think about a time when you experienced a strong emotion, and put it under a figurative microscope. Study the feeling. Why did you feel that way? Would you have done differently if you had been in a different person’s shoes? Developing this insight will held you understand why others act the way they do, because emotions are common to all mankind.
Your imagination is not only the window to your world; it is the window you provide for readers to see another world that you create. Amazing.