Archive for the ‘writing exercise’ Category

Read the news lately? {YA writing exercise}

Posted: January 23, 2011 in news inspired fiction, writing exercise
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When I first started this blog, I had just attended a writing conference where Little Brown editor Jennifer Hunt spoke. She recommended practicing the craft by reading news articles or watching documentaries that involved kids and then writing a YA or MG scene inspired by the article or documentary. I loved the idea and decided I would do it weekly as a fun creative exercise.

And now, months later, I begin.

Each Monday, I’ll post the article I’ll be using as my inspiration. If you want to play along, and I hope you do, you can either use the same article (I think it would be fun to see how different the end product is) or pick another article that came out in the past week. On Friday we’ll post our results — be sure to share the link to yours in the comments!

I’ve done a few of these on my own, and it’s always been fun to see where the story leads me. It helps me to explore characters and issues I never would have thought to before. Maybe one of these days I’ll find a character I’d like to spend a novel with.

This week I’m doing a YA scene using this article as my inspiration: http://bit.ly/gLGvNj

Thanks for playing!

A zombie-making contest

Posted: September 14, 2010 in contest, writing exercise
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Brought to you by the same peeps (plus one!) who sponsored the last one.

This one’s pretty simple. Rewrite the beginning of any scene from your WIP.

Oh, but also your MC must have just turned into a zombie.

Here’s what I wrote:

*****

It’s like when a deer dies.

And I’m not talking about when one gets shot up with your dad’s fat rifle and its insides explode or its face gets torn off and you’re left picking flesh off tree branches. (Which is pretty sick until you have to keep track of your own dripping flesh, of which I’m now an expert, thanks.)

I’m talking about getting a deer with a bow and arrow. A crossbow. You ever seen it? You can shoot that thing so clean the deer won’t even know what happened. Deer’ll give you this confused sorta look and then go right back to drinking from the stream. Then it falls over, just like that.

They say it’s a strange sensation, that arrow slicing through you. Course, who they’re asking, I’ll never know. But strange, they say. Not agonizing. Not even painful. A strange sensation. You’d never believe it either til you seen how it goes down yourself. Sometimes the deer’ll even hop a few yards away, like it can sense something’s wrong. But not wrong enough to worry too much about it.

Always thought it was maybe like when you wake up in an airplane, and you know something’s changed, that something woke you, but you’re not really sure what?

And in a way, I was right, I guess. It didn’t register at first. Knew something was off, but not enough to worry too much about it. To be honest, I was more nervous about crossing that line of cones.

*****

A guy I work with (who, incidentally, is an incredibly talented and successful illustrator) happens to be a skilled hunter, and today at work he was telling me all about his latest kill and how it all goes down with deer and bows and arrows. So anyway, I heard zombies, thought death, remembered Jim, bled all over the computer, and this is what was left.

There’s a new contest with a new prize every day, so check out their site then check back here for my submission. Good luck!

A character-building contest

Posted: July 30, 2010 in writing exercise
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But you’ll have to hurry. I just found out about it tonight and the deadline is tomorrow. But don’t worry. If you miss the deadline, you still get the reward — the reward of learning more about your main character. Awwww.

Here are the rules, and here’s what I wrote.

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I wouldn’t wear it even if Kristin Chenoweth wore it, even if she did it on the cover of Vogue, and even if it said 5 HOTTEST TRENDS. I was trying to explain this to mom when she said something about HER DEAD BODY. Then I said some stuff and she said EXCUSE ME??? so I said it the way they say to in drama–from the diaphragm or something–and she said that I must think I was funny and I’LL GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE, YOUNG LADY. And I said it again but this time it hurt my throat so I knew I was doing it wrong but I didn’t care.

She stood there for a second all quiet and tight. Then she put the Polka Dotted Monstrosity on my bed and said you have five minutes. And she left.

That’s when I wished for a lock on my door.

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Can you tell I just finished reading How I Live Now? I adored it with all its capital letters (more on that later). Good luck!