Thursday, August 4, 2011

Making Writing Fun!

Do you sometimes dread writing because you can't think of a thing to write about?  Are you stuck in your story and can't figure out what comes next?  Or, does your writing group need a fun game to play to get your creative juices going?  I found a great exercise to help!



At a recent Writers' Group meeting, we played a fun game called Exquisite Corpse: A Surrealist Writing Exercise for Groups.   This game was a great ice breaker and resulted in some highly original story starters or poems. 
To play:  Everyone has a blank piece of paper.  At each prompt, each person writes the word on their paper, folds it under.  Then they pass their paper on the the person on their left.  They write down the next prompt (adjective or noun or number, etc) and keep passing it on.  (To see all the prompts, go to the link) After the 8th prompt, unfold the paper you are holding and read your strange sentence out loud. 
Here are what we came up with:

The bubbly mink sees 5,000 interesting humming birds.
The stupendous rake sees 7 copious Yoshies.
A hot banana remembers 1,782,245 sweaty coyotes.
A soggy bench sees one zillion sweaty tables.
The happy book squirted 18 pretty chickens.

Try it with your group!  What can you come up with?

Tomorrow: how many What if? questions can you think of:



8 comments:

Ann Mullen said...

This is a delicious right brained exercise. I imagine the group just roared when each sentence was read.

I think it would be a great exercise for upper elementary through middle school, too.

Mom Does Reviews said...

Ann, Thanks for visiting my blog! It was a fun time reading our sentences, it got everyone laughing.
I think it would be a great exercise for teachers too.
Happy Writing!

Michelle said...

That's a fun idea! I'll have to try it with my kids. :)

Mom Does Reviews said...

Michelle,
I worked great with 8 to 10 people. Not sure how it would be with 4 or less. Let me know if you try it.
Thanks for visiting!

BarbaraB said...

Cute exercise, Pam.

Mom Does Reviews said...

Thanks, Barb. It was a lot of fun, I can't wait to try it with a group of kids!
Thanks for visiting!

Jacqueline McMahon said...

This is a great idea. Lots of fun and a super ice breaker.

Mom Does Reviews said...

Thanks for visiting, Jacqueline. It was fun. You should try it.:)

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