A Month of Writing Exercises

Wow that is a full month. Not sure I will do one every day but maybe I should shoot for that at least instead of aiming low :). Thanks for sharing your plan. I'm really looking forward to this.

Thanks for sharing. I'm about to go away travelling at short notice, so I'll check back in November. Some of these could help with works in progress, even if they don't make it into the story.

Thanks for putting this together! I'll try to do as much of this as I can

Glad to have you guys aboard! Life last year kicked me hard, so I completely understand if any of us miss out on some, or a significant portion of these exercises. Still would love to hear about what is accomplished.

November is here and I just finished my first exercise. Hope you do well with your writing!

Just found this. I'm in

How has everyone's writing been going? So far, I've done all the exercises, though I forgot to journal last Sunday.

During the dialogue exercises, I noticed that even though I was supposed to focus on a variety of different techniques, but the things I kept pondering was what differentiated different characters in their voices. That's something I've been a bit perplexed on when I've heard that advice before, and now, I think I understand it a bit better.

The other thing I noticed is that during the transcript exercise, I wrote from the POV of someone who was blind, and I had a hard time describing the other person without using visual cues. That's something I'll want to work on improving.

As for description, I feel like I've improved since taking the Writing the Other Description class this summer. Still need to work on actually putting it in my stories.

That sounds like some great progress. Despite my many desires to do something so far this month has been a slog. I know I need to just kick myself into gear and do something - may swing in to do one or two of these to see if they can get things going.

I remember there was an exercise in one writing book I have/had that suggested writing a whole scene or story with just dialogue. I think that exercise changed my writing forever. I may lean too hard into dialogue sometimes now. But the issue you mention - having each character sound different is one I find really challenging but also one of my most nagging worries. Before I started writing I was not a writing detail critical reader. I ignored almost any shortfall in a story except a significant issue with plot/resolution. But I think noticing that a group of characters in a book all sounded kind of the same was the first time I remember having that writing critique kind of thought as I read. So I live in fear of creating something that makes people have that feeling

Glad you are finding some insights as you do the exercises. Sorry i haven't been participating as I hoped.

Ha I just reopened my computer after doing a bit of soup making and saw the title for this thread and my brain read "A Month of Writing Excuses". That seems spot on for me :(. But I do love that pod cast so maybe it is a sign I need to go listen to one so I can get motivated.

Just wanted to check in and say that I have been really enjoying these exercises! I found the DREAM character arc really helpful.
Thanks again for putting this together!

You're welcome! I found the DREAM arc helpful too in addressing some critiques that a character's turn around was too abrupt.

Just finished the last exercise! I managed to do the whole month! Thanks again for putting these together. I think the ones that really helped me out the most were the DREAM character act and pretty much all of week 4. I think it will really help to break apart my writing down to the components and figure out what each thing is accomplishing in a scene.

Well done on doing the whole month's worth of exercises!

Seated at a small table, in her hotel room, Mary translated her thoughts and notations into typewritten words.
Brian sat opposite her, his chin resting on his hand, his elbow on the tabletop, gazing at her.
She smiled, without looking up. “Stop that, please,” she said.
“What should I stop?”
“Staring at me.”
“I am not staring,” he said.
She paused and looked at him. “Yes you are, you’re getting cross-eyed.”
He laughed softly, remembering. “We seem to have had this conversation before.”
She carried on typing. “I know that.”
“I asked you to marry me then!”
“And I said okay!”
“What are you writing?”
“Your Mr. Schickelburger’s interview.”
“I call him Schickl - gruber, not - burger.”
“Hold on, I’m almost finished.”
He watched as she pulled out the typed sheet and laid it on top of the others. She looked at him. “Why do you call him Schicklgruber, is that his nickname?”
“No, it used to be his father’s name; his mother was Anna Maria Schicklgruber, and her great grandmother was Jewish. Hitler’s father changed his name to Hietler and Adolf altered it to Hitler.” He grinned as her eyebrows rose. “Can you imagine people saying ‘Heil Schicklgruber’?”
She sniggered. “I’d like to see his face if somebody did.”
“There is something else. You have heard that song about Hitler having only one testicle? The truth is Hitler is impotent.”
“You’re joking.”
“I am not, you see, as a youth he bet he could urinate into a goat’s mouth. So he did, the problem was, he came too near and the goat bit the end off his penis.”
“Aw come on,” she said.
“No, it is absolutely true, it was printed in a newspaper.”
She shook her head, smiling widely, “Serves him right.”
“How did it go, you said you would tell me, the interview?”
She picked up the type sheets and read aloud, “It goes like this: ‘I never imagined he would agree to an interview, but he did, and I sat next to the most talked about man in the whole world, and would you believe it, he asked me to tell him all about myself, so I told him’.” She paused then said, “I put down everything I told you.”
“The bad breath too?”
“I don’t think our boss would allow that.”
“Yes, but you said something about him after you left the building, about something missing and something there that should not have been.”
She turned the next sheet over. “I was coming to that, just pin your ears back.” She continued, ‘I asked him how it felt to be the most powerful man in Europe. It was then the real Adolf Hitler came to the fore. His eyes glittered as he said, ‘Magnificent’, he breathed deeply through his nose, as if his power surrounded him and he was savoring it. Then I asked him about the stories we had heard back in the States’ about the harassment of Jews, why he was against Jews of all people, and he told me, ‘That is communist propaganda my dear. You should not believe everything you read in the newspapers. The German armed forces have well over one hundred and fifty thousand Jewish combatants, decorated veterans, and high-ranking officers.’
Brian’s eyebrows rose. “How about that then.”
She continued, “I asked him about the stories we had heard about the internment of Gypsies and other non-Aryans.” She looked him in the eye as she shook her head. “Do you know what he said: ‘If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin.’ ” She paused, and then said, “Then the veil came back as he smiled and said to me, ‘Enough of that, tell me about the film industry, have you ever met Gary Cooper, he is one of my favorites, and I would dearly love to meet Greta Garbo’.
She regarded his features as he smiled at her. “That was it, Brian, he started with his magnetism once more. Well I have to hand it to him; he certainly has a way with words.”

Great job, AJzach! I did most of the exercises, though in week 4 I only did 2 of them, as I was visiting family.

I found the chastity exercise really enlightening too. I tend to be an underwriter, so my thoughts going in to the exercise were "I'm always needing to add details. How can I cut?" But it showed me that I still have repetitions and filler words that by deleting will make my prose tighter. I still was only able to get to 60% of the original scene instead of 50%, but I think I will be practicing the "cut 10% of your prose" advice more regularly.

Now to put all this work into editing my next WOTF submission!