Off the Beaten Path: Creative Writing Exercises

Hall Houston, Taiwan

Hall Houston has many years of teaching experience at universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong. His first book, The Creative Classroom, was published in 2007 by Lynx Publishing (www.lynxpublishing.com). He is currently working on his second book. His professional interests include cross-cultural communication, discourse analysis, creativity and critical thinking. E-mail: hallhouston@yahoo.com

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Introduction
Freewriting
Writing Prompts
First Line/ Last Line
Creating a Character
Haiku
Cut-Ups
Oulipo
Resource List

Introduction

Creative writing exercises can bring a welcome change of pace to a writing course. Use one of the following exercises to inspire students to write, or find other intriguing alternatives for creative writing in the books and websites listed at the end of this article.

Freewriting

Simply ask students to sit down with pen and paper for five minutes and write anything that comes to mind. If they get writer's block, tell them to write “I can’t think of anything to write” repeatedly until they think of something. At the end of five minutes, ask a few volunteers to read out their work.

Writing Prompts

A writing prompt is something that gives students something to focus on when writing. It can be a single word chosen at random from a dictionary, a novel, or a magazine. It can also be a sentence or short paragraph that sets up the situation. For example:

Imagine you wake up and you are on a dark street in a city in a foreign country. You don’t remember who you are or how you got there. What happens next?

Write about how you met your best friend.

First Line/ Last Line

Ask each student to write the first line of a story on the top of a sheet of paper, and then add a last line at the bottom. (I would suggest that you forbid the clichéd “Once upon a time…” and “They all lived happily ever after.”) Collect all the papers, then give them to new students who must write out the story, using the beginning and ending provided.

Creating a Character

Before class, arrange seats in a circle. Ask students to tell you some attributes of a fictional character, such as age, gender, weight, hobbies, etc. Write these attributes on the board and stop when you have about 15. Ask students to write these all on the left hand side of a page, and then write short answers so that they have produced a description of a fictional character. When they are finished, have students fold up their papers, and pass them down 3 places. Their writing task is to write a paragraph that is part of a novel that directly involves the character on their paper. They don’t have to use all of the information on their paper. Also, the paragraph should focus more on the story and not on simply describing the character.

Haiku

Explain to your students the basic format of a haiku poem (three lines, 17 syllables total, the first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7 syllables, the third has 5 syllables). Read a few examples and then ask students to write their own haikus.

Cut-Ups

This is a technique created by William S. Burroughs. Ask students to type up a long descriptive paragraph, print it out, and cut it into short phrases. Next students put the strips of paper into a bag and shake them up. Then they rearrange the strips to form a very surreal nonsensical piece of writing.

Oulipo

Oulipo is a unique form of poetry writing, where the writer puts constraints on his or her writing. The most famous oulipo constraint is N+7, where the author chooses a text, and replaces each noun with the 7th noun that follows it in the dictionary. Another oulipo constraint is a lipogram, where the writer excludes a letter of the alphabet.

Resource List

Books

Allen, Roberta. (2002). The playful way to creative writing. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Epel, Naomi. (1998). The observation deck. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Heffron, Jack. (2002). The writer’s idea book. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books.

Kiteley, Brian. (2005). The 3 a.m. epiphany. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books.

Neubauer, Bonnie. (2005). The write-brain workbook. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books.

Rekulak, Jason. (2001). The writer’s block. Philadelphia: Running Press.

Wood, Monica. (2004). The pocket muse. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books.

Websites

Creative Writing Prompts
www.creativewritingprompts.com

Web English Teacher – Creative Writing
www.webenglishteacher.com/creative.html

Language is a Virus
www.languageisavirus.com

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.