Everyone has a story to tell. Whether you’re writing down real life experiences or making up a fantasy story with dragons and knights, there’s something magical about watching your words come to life. In today’s post, the Liv Ahwatukee Blog is sharing two creative writing exercises. We’ve been focusing on taking adventures around Phoenix, Arizona all month, and today we thought we’d invite you to take an adventure in your own apartment. See which writing exercise works best for you.
This is a simple exercise. Take a look around the room and write down what you see. The challenge is to use descriptive language. Instead of writing something like, “I hear the birds chirping through the windows,” you could say something like, “I sit quietly in in my chair, absorbing the peaceful chirping as I watch the birds through the western facing windows over the patio.”
Food Ingredients
This is a fun exercise that will help you stretch your ideas. First, select a packaged food item and write down the ingredients (Baked Potato Chips: contains dried potatoes, corn starch, sugar, corn oil, salt, soy lecithin, and corn sugar; Snickers: contains milk chocolate, peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, skim milk, lactose, soybean oil, salt, egg whites, and artificial flavor; and Teriyaki Beef Jerky: contains beef, sugar, water, soy sauce, salt, hydrolyzed soy protein, monosodium glutamate, garlic powder, guar gum, polysorbate 80, caramel color powder, and sodium nitrite).
After selecting a food item, begin to write a short story. It can be about anything that you want, but it must include the ingredients from the selected food item. At least three of these ingredients need to be the names of your characters.
Set a timer for ten minutes and write until the time is up. Strive to fit the ingredients in a creative way, especially those with unique sounding names.
We hope that these writing exercises send you on an adventure of your choosing without even having to leave your apartment. Share in the comments what your favorite writing exercise is, or even share a short story of your own. Thanks for reading!