Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

This one's great when you're having difficulty with a particular story or character - when you can't work out where to go, what to do, or why it isn't working.

Talk to yourself

It's simple - get a pen and paper (or computer and keyboard) and start talking to yourself. Write for at least ten minutes, though a lot of people find this can go on for half an hour or so before they feel they've finished. Similar to the Unstoppable pen, just keep rambling - ask yourself questions (written down) and answer them, branch off to other questions, sequey into musings and other random things.

If you're stuck for a beginning, try addressing the point that's bothering you. "I'm not writing the story because...", "This isn't working because...", etc. It's highly likely you'll have no idea what the answer to those are at the start, but by about halfway through you'll find yourself spouting random epiphanies about your process, your story, your relationship with your parents, everything.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

Whose line is it anyway?

This is best played with a group of four or five, but it's doable by yourself with a little adjustment. The idea is to write a story, one line each. Except you only get to see the line immediately before yours. So, with a group of four people - A, B, C and D:

A writes the first line. B reads A's line, and writes the second line. C read's B's line but can't read A's, and writes the third line. D reads C's line, but not B's or A's, and writes the fourth. A takes it back, reads D's line, but not he first four, and writes the fifth, etc.

With groups beyond five or six, there are too many different minds and ideas, and you tend to get surrealism - it's fun, but it's not going to make sense at all. It can be fun to have a theme, a central idea, or for each person to have an object they have to work in to their line - there are a lot of variations that I should probably save for another post.

You can do this over email, or in a writing group - I wrote a couple of short stories with a friend over email this way - one sentence each at a time. If it's in a face-to-face group, it's often best to run several at once, so people don't get bored waiting for their turn.

Alternatives:

Same concept, but you're writing the story backwards - A writes the last line, B writes the line before that, etc. Kind of a blend between this and Working Backwards.

If you don't have people to write with, you can play this yourself - write one sentence a day, and only allow yourself to look at the previous sentence. If you're a pen-and-paper person, you can do this by using looseleaf that you fold down as you go to hide the previous lines, if you work on computer, you can write it backwards - open the file, and your most recent line is at the start. Insert a page break, and write today's line. Next day, open it, and yesterday's line's at the top; insert a page break again, and write the next line. You'll have to swap it back around when you're done, though.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

'E's not here

Write anything you like, about anything. A letter, the next chapter, your shopping list. You just can't use the letter 'e'.Any word that has an 'e' in it is out of bounds. No exceptions, not even for names. Yes, I know this makes pronouns all-but-impossible.

No deliberately forgetting how to spell words just so you can have them without an 'e'.

This works in a different way to the other games - instead of forgetting about the words, this forces you to focus on nothing but - and by enforcing such strict rules, you're automatically forgiven for writing painful nonsense.

A slightly easier version is to omit the letters S, T or I. The resulting text is probably more useful, or more likely usable in a piece of writing, but it's nowhere near as much fun.

You can also use this to help train yourself out of words or phrases you commonly use. If, for example, you have a tendency to put 'just' all over the place - just as he was about to weep, he saw the sunlight peeking just over the top of the tree he had just trimmed - take the least-common letter that your phrase requires (j, in this case) as your forbidden letter.

 

Sorry for the lack of posting, folks - been setting up new computers and adjusting to new schedules. Will be back on track soon.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

The unstoppable pen

Get a pen and paper, (or keyboard and word processor) and a timer that goes "beep" when the time runs out. It's important that it makes sound, so you can forget that it's there.

Set the timer for fifteen minutes (or more, if you're adventurous). Pick up your pen (or open your word document) and type the first word. Just the first word. It doesn't really matter what word it is, so here's one: Under. 

Now start the timer, and write. You are not allowed to stop, edit, pause or break until the timer beeps. Not even if the cat jumps on the keyboard and knocks over the petunias. If you run out of words, start writing about the fact that you've run out of words^. Only go forwards, as fast as your fingers can write or type. This is why you need a timer that makes noise - you don't want the excuse of pausing to look at it all the time.

When the timer beeps, you can stop.

If you like this game, there's an entire website called write or die devoted to it that will, depending on what settings you choose, poke you gently to keep writing if you've paused for too long, or even start erasing what you've written. You can even purchase a program to do the same on your system, without an internet connection.

^ Alternative schools of thought will have you repeat the last word you wrote over and over until the next one presents itself - it depends if you're someone who is likely to chatter themselves back to the story at hand given self-referential comments, or someone who'll blunder off into talking about their day, the process of writing, what's stuck to their shoe, etc. Neither one is a bad thing - you're still writing. It just depends which one you prefer.

A third alternative is a chosen set phrase, such as I don't know what to write, repeated over and over until the next thing to write comes to mind. Personally, I find this too restrictive - part of the joy is the free flowing association, and forcing yourself to one specific phrase whenever you're lost seems to defeat the purpose.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

Someone Else's Sentence

Take the book nearest you*, flip it open to a random page. Close your eyes, point to a paragraph. Choose the sentence in that paragraph that most appeals to you. Not the one you think might be 'easiest', or fits best with what you're already thinking, the sentence that you find most interesting, most creative, most evocative. The one that resonates. You can only pick one.

That's your opening sentence. Word for word, copy it down. Now, your next sentence cannot be anything like the one that comes after your chosen sentence in the book. It must be completely different in intention, in direction of plot, everything^. Think it up, write it down. Now shut the book, and put it down.

You have your opening two sentences. Start writing.

* Unless it's a maths book, or a book on biochemistry. Oddly enough, I've found this actually works quite well with physics textbooks.

^ You set the second one up so that you're not tempted to go back to the book and just paraphrase what they've written. The first one gives you your hook, the second one turns that hook in a new direction.

 

When you sit down to Do Some Writing, are you someone who takes a handful of ideas and smears them around the page like cake batter, or do you have your itemised step-plan of scenes, pulses, beats, plot points and snippets? Do you know what you're going to write before it appears on the page, or is every moment a journey of joyful (or frustrating) discovery of (sometimes not-so) wonderful prose?