Mood Board

An Exercise

If you've ever worked in design or advertising, you might be familiar with the concept of "mood boards." These are meant to capture the mood, style, color scheme, etc., of the project you're conceptualizing.

The point of this exercise is to create something similar but in written form.

Instead of taking visual images from pinterest, etc., use words to sketch a few images that have something to do with your story. (Even if you don't know why they popped into your head!) In one paragraph each, paint quick pictures that capture something about the mood and feel of your story.

This should be totally freeform and come in a stream-of-consciousness way. Don't think too much! Don't copy anything you've already written. Make a mess!

Use lots of sensory details: colors, shapes, sounds, smells.

Set your timer for fifteen minutes and sketch as many images as you can.

No tears in the writer

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

― Robert Frost, from "The Figure a Poem Makes," 1939


What does this quote mean to you? Does your story ever surprise you? Does it evoke a strong emotional reaction—not the trickiness of trying to get it "right," or make it "good," but the story and characters themselves? Do they feel that real to you? Do you ever find it's a struggle to care about them?

Cliches

People often say they worry about their writing being cliched. Sometimes this even stops them from making progress. In twenty-five years of teaching and writing, I have found that what leads writing to be cliched (and everyone is susceptible at times) is actually shallowness, or lack of honesty with ourselves. We're looking to sound a certain way: clever, for example. We're looking at the surface of our writing, rather than really going to a raw or risky or unknown place with it. It's when you allow yourself to make a mess that you move through and beyond the place of shallowness and cliches. If this worry gets in your way next time you're writing, try this. Instead of asking yourself, "Does this sound stupid/clever/cliched," ask, "Does this feel true?" (Or does it feel real, honest--find the word that works for you.) 

“I had this idea that to be a good writer you wrote these pretty sentences. The biggest thing I learned at [the] Iowa [Writers' Workshop] was that being a good writer has everything to do with telling a truth about what it means to be a human being.”
-->

—Ayana Mathis 

Oblique Strategies

I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it.
 —Brian Eno

When you need a writing prompt, it's always fun to remember Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.

Here it is online.

Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

―Ursula K. Le Guin

Here's one of Le Guin's most famous short stories: "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas." 

Burnt Socks: An Exercise

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance. —Richard Price

Here's an exercise. Get a number between one and twelve. Look at the list below. This is the small thing you come upon, that begins to tell a larger story. Set the timer for fifteen minutes and write. Don't stop or censor yourself. 

1. A single drop of water

2. A book lying open in the mud

3. The voice of a child, singing

4. Motes of dust lit up by the sun

5. Laundry on a line against the sky

6. A clod of earth on a polished floor

7. A small animal disappearing into the underbrush

8. A helicopter crossing in front of the clouds

9. A bloodstain on a rug

10. A candle that has burned all the way down

11. A table laid for dinner 

12. A shirt hanging from a branch

-->

Post-Holidays Writing Exercise

Happy 2018! For some, today marks the end of the holidays and the beginning of getting back into a work routine. Here's something quick to get your thoughts moving again:

This is an exercise inspired by Dylan Thomas that I wrote a while ago. In it, I ask you to begin with a prompt, then follow the natural stream of your memories from there. (If you only have a few minutes, you can do it without reading the Thomas piece first.) 

If you're writing fiction, try this: do the exercise with your main character. Pretend she's the one receiving the prompt: What memory does it trigger? And what follows from that memory, and from the next one? Keep writing for the whole fifteen minutes; don't censor yourself, just keep going.