Writing exercises

Here are a few of the writing exercises we used, in case you want to try them at home! We used them as a quick way to inspire short blasts of writing on the topics of Medway, fuse and festivals, though you could adapt them to suit other topics, by making your own wordcloud.

Words, words, and more words!

Exercise one:

Choose a word from the wordcloud above and write for ten minutes on that topic. You can write a poem or a short prose.

Exercise two:

Choose two words from the wordcloud above and write a poem contrasting the words. 10 minutes.

Exercise three:

Speed haikus. Using the English version of the haiku structure (5 sounds / 7 sounds / 5 sounds), write as many haikus as you can, inspired by words from the wordcloud. 10 minutes.

Exercise four:

Choose a local historical character. (We used Dickens, Richard Dadd, Sybil Thorndike, Will Adams… etc.) Choose a word from the wordcloud. Write a dialogue or monologue, telling the character’s thoughts on the word from the wordcloud. Write for about 15 minutes.

Exercise five:

Take a paragraph from a local author (we chose Dickens) – rewrite that paragraph, updating it or changing it in any way.

Exercise six:

Choose a word from the wordcloud that describes a natural object (eg, river) and a man-made object (eg, bridge), and write a poem contrasting the qualities of the two.

Exercise seven:

Poetry consequences. (You will need a few people to try this one!) The first writer writes one line of a poem and passes it on, the next writer writes their line and the  paper is folded so that the next writer can only see one line written by the writer next to them. Fold it up as pass it on, so only one line is visible at all times. Watch how the poem mutates!