EXERCISE: Creativity Supercharged (5)

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Original Posting 4 June 2009

Writers' Digest, August 2006, pages 30, 32 and 33, have an article by Joe Ortiz with some discussion of creativity followed by six -- a half-dozen! -- exercises. The title of the article is, "Supercharge Your Creativity."

From prose: Chekhov's Notebook

Anton Chekhov wrote short stories, and like many writers, kept a notebook of observations and character descriptions. However, in writing his stories, he tried to avoid using images and scenes "which are precious to me and which for some reason I carefully saved up and put aside." So he didn't use his notebook. He also wrote quickly, aiming to finish a story in 24 hours.

Your task: Write a two page story in one sitting. Start with a title, a first line or character. Adopt the attitude of not caring how it turns out -- this is a story for fun. Three requirements:

1. Write from memory only, without notes
2. End the story before the bottom of page 2, no matter how many or how few words you use
3. Do the story in five minute chunks -- beginning, middle, end -- take a five minute break between each section.

Total time: 25 minutes

You can also try some variations. Take a story or a scenario that you know, and set it aside. Now write it up again, fresh, from memory. Or try writing it up backwards? Start with the ending in five minutes, then write a middle, and then cap it with a beginning. Or bash out the ending and beginning, and then connect the dots?

Write!

Do you remember...