What Else Happened? Exercising the Creative Writing Muscle
Lessons on Crafting Engaging Fiction from a Saturday Workshop
I don’t even like reading works of fiction, but I decided to try a creative writing class on a recent Saturday for the fun of it. Would it stretch my mind in new and diverse ways? That’s what I wanted to find out.
Our instructor arrived a half hour late with the few students and I casually waiting near the classroom. She was an older lady, half-deaf and a bit scatterbrained, but with a gentle and kind personality.
Over the next five hours she lectured and had us do many writing exercises. She tended to ramble on forever and we had to remind her that we needed an occasional restroom break! To my surprise, the time went by quickly and I had fun with it.
The toughest part was each of us had to read aloud everything we wrote! Because the instructor was hard of hearing she had us practically yell out our stories and repeat it, sometimes multiple times. But still, it was a supportive and gentle environment. She was encouraging and happy to hear from each of us.
So, what were the exercises she had us do? Below I’m sharing what each exercise was along with a screenshot of my own writing. This was a pen-and-paper class, so it was all handwritten quickly in a notebook. I share examples of my own work below. Sorry if my handwriting isn’t entirely legible but hopefully it gives a look inside the process.
First, she taught us simple observation. Look around the room and list every object you see. I got clever and started looking out the window to list more objects.
She then wanted us to go a bit deeper in describing the objects. I just started describing colors of each object which was (probably) not the point. She wanted to teach “wind angle vs narrow view”. Are you making a wide sweep of an environment or drilling down into something?
Pick an object and write about it. She had us pick one object and describe its usefulness. I wrote a short ode to the humble pen. Then we had to ask questions about another object, in my case a large black digital blackboard that was near me.
Category words. The instructor gave “category” words, initially adjectives like “loud” and “fast” and then different nouns like “city” and “sports”. She would announce one word and give us thirty seconds to write whatever other words came out of us related to the category word. It didn’t have to be synonyms, it just had to be something logically related.
Moving on from category words she then asked us to write a little short story or description of different suggestions. I highlighted the ones given in the screenshot below. It was a stream of consciousness. For garden, I wrote a little memory of my sister’s front yard garden. For the ice cream cone, I made a little poem celebrating the dessert.
One of the biggest keys to creative writing she revealed was to ask one simple question.
What else do you need to say? What else happened?
You showed up at a park. What else? You brought your dog. What else? You were hoping to see that cute woman who occasionally strolls there. What else? She likes to wear a red beret. What else? You get the idea.
On a large writing pad, she then wrote “Fall” as in the season and had us yell out any words we can think of related to fall. The changing colors, the weather, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and so on. We then had to write a little story incorporating these elements. My creative juices weren’t running full speed yet, so I drew from personal memory again describing trick or treating with my family. Towards the end she reminded us to add another line, the “what else”.
The next lesson was…
The instructor again went to the large writing pad. She asked the room to give her any random name and a student offered “Odette”. Going around the room she asked us to describe Odette and what kind of person she is.
We could be imaginative as possible. One student said, “What if she wore jingle bear earrings”? Using my lessons from improv (the “Yes, and” principle), I offered “What if she was from the North Pole and her dad was Santa?”. Now that we had an idea of Odette, we could show instead of telling what her life was like. In the five minutes we had I wrote a short story of Odette leaving the North Pole and moving to New York City for college.
A preposition you can’t refuse. At the writing pad, the instructor had us list out different prepositions and then asked us to write a story using as many of them as possible. She encouraged us to use the prepositions as guideposts to move our short story forward. Mine ended up being about a short vacation and losing a family treasure while doing a house chore. I didn’t pre-plan, it just rolled out as I was trying to write sentences and get as many prepositions in there while maintaining a logical flow.
Use the senses. The instructor drew a chart like the one below. She chose “The American Oregon Trail” as the topic and had all of us list out the different senses that those travelers would have experienced. The sights, the smells, the tastes, the touch, the sounds, and feelings. Many of the ones we produced were related to struggles and frustrations with a glimmer of hope for a better life.
Our assignment then was to write a letter pretending we were one of these west-bound travelers. Mine was to an “Abagail” describing the scenery and challenges of going west.
The instructor had us all read our letters before she read snippets from a book called Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey. She wanted us to note how our letters, which we created out of thin-air imagination, had similar tones as the real-life letters collected in that book.
The lesson? Just imagining the senses involved in a scene is enough to get a story started and it can be remarkably accurate to true life even though you had no actual prior experience.
The seven dwarves’ personalities. The instructor printed the names of the seven dwarves from Snow White on the writing pad and had us yell out descriptions of their personalities for each of them — Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey.
Our exercise then was to pretend that we have the personality of one of those dwarves and write a letter home describing our experience. My letter was as “Grumpy” sending a note home complaining about bugs, a leaky canoe, the hot sun, being picked last for every game, a snoring roommate, and boring activities.
We then had to pass our note to another student and underneath write a response as the parents using another personality. I didn’t get my first note back, but I can share my response to another. Can you guess which personality I used?
The last exercise of the day was to write a strong opening sentence for a story based on a specific trigger like a name, date, a city, or a word or phrase like “I remember”.
In the example I wrote below I highlighted whatever the key trigger that was needed. Like previous exercises, she would list out the key word or item needed and gave us thirty seconds to write an engaging opener.
Phew! I just squeezed a five-hour workshop into one newsletter!
Let’s quickly re-cap all the ideas and lessons here.
Use your observation. Start wide and then narrow down to specific details.
Pick different adjectives and nouns and see what related words, phrases, or stories you can think of related to it.
Ask “What else?”
Ask “What if?”
Don’t tell it, show it! Don’t say the character was a mean person. Show how they’re mean. What do they do that’s mean?
Imagine all the senses involved. What would the character see, hear, touch, feel, taste, and feel? Listing all of those out lays the groundwork for creating a convincing scene.
What’s the personality? Different personalities have different perspectives and different reactions. Play around with the differences and how they interact. Think of the seven dwarves.
Can you write a great opening sentence? What’s the key word or thing you’re trying to convey?
Maybe reading these exercises and examples you found other insights and lessons that I missed. Feel free to share what you think in the comments.
I did this workshop at a local arts center, and it wasn’t expensive. Around $30. It was a worthwhile investment of my time and money. I flexed my creativity and met some nice people too.
As a person who rarely reads fiction this workshop was surprising to me that I could write anything fictional spontaneously and let my imagination roll with it. It makes me wonder if I should try creative writing more often even if just for myself as a mental exercise.