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105 Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Writing Again

You know that feeling when you just don’t feel like writing? Sometimes you can’t even get a word down on paper. It’s the most frustrating thing ever to a writer, especially when you’re working towards a deadline. The good news is that we have a list of 105 creative writing exercises to help you get motivated and start writing again!

What are creative writing exercises?

Creative writing exercises are short writing activities (normally around 10 minutes) designed to get you writing. The goal of these exercises is to give you the motivation to put words onto a blank paper. These words don’t need to be logical or meaningful, neither do they need to be grammatically correct or spelt correctly. The whole idea is to just get you writing something, anything. The end result of these quick creative writing exercises is normally a series of notes, bullet points or ramblings that you can, later on, use as inspiration for a bigger piece of writing such as a story or a poem. 

Good creative writing exercises are short, quick and easy to complete. You shouldn’t need to think too much about your style of writing or how imaginative your notes are. Just write anything that comes to mind, and you’ll be on the road to improving your creative writing skills and beating writer’s block . 

Use the generator below to get a random creative writing exercise idea:

List of 105+ Creative Writing Exercises

Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again:

  • Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment.
  • Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour. For example, Orange, the colour of my favourite top. 
  • Open a book or dictionary on a random page. Pick a random word. You can close your eyes and slowly move your finger across the page. Now, write a paragraph with this random word in it. You can even use an online dictionary to get random words:

dictionary-random-word-imagine-forest

  • Create your own alphabet picture book or list. It can be A to Z of animals, food, monsters or anything else you like!
  • Using only the sense of smell, describe where you are right now.
  • Take a snack break. While eating your snack write down the exact taste of that food. The goal of this creative writing exercise is to make your readers savour this food as well.
  • Pick a random object in your room and write a short paragraph from its point of view. For example, how does your pencil feel? What if your lamp had feelings?
  • Describe your dream house. Where would you live one day? Is it huge or tiny? 
  • Pick two different TV shows, movies or books that you like. Now swap the main character. What if Supergirl was in Twilight? What if SpongeBob SquarePants was in The Flash? Write a short scene using this character swap as inspiration.
  • What’s your favourite video game? Write at least 10 tips for playing this game.
  • Pick your favourite hobby or sport. Now pretend an alien has just landed on Earth and you need to teach it this hobby or sport. Write at least ten tips on how you would teach this alien.
  • Use a random image generator and write a paragraph about the first picture you see.

random image generator

  • Write a letter to your favourite celebrity or character. What inspires you most about them? Can you think of a memorable moment where this person’s life affected yours? We have this helpful guide on writing a letter to your best friend for extra inspiration.
  • Write down at least 10 benefits of writing. This can help motivate you and beat writer’s block.
  • Complete this sentence in 10 different ways: Patrick waited for the school bus and…
  • Pick up a random book from your bookshelf and go to page 9. Find the ninth sentence on that page. Use this sentence as a story starter.
  • Create a character profile based on all the traits that you hate. It might help to list down all the traits first and then work on describing the character.
  • What is the scariest or most dangerous situation you have ever been in? Why was this situation scary? How did you cope at that moment?
  • Pretend that you’re a chat show host and you’re interviewing your favourite celebrity. Write down the script for this conversation.
  • Using extreme detail, write down what you have been doing for the past one hour today. Think about your thoughts, feelings and actions during this time.
  • Make a list of potential character names for your next story. You can use a fantasy name generator to help you.
  • Describe a futuristic setting. What do you think the world would look like in 100 years time?
  • Think about a recent argument you had with someone. Would you change anything about it? How would you resolve an argument in the future?
  • Describe a fantasy world. What kind of creatures live in this world? What is the climate like? What everyday challenges would a typical citizen of this world face? You can use this fantasy world name generator for inspiration.
  • At the flip of a switch, you turn into a dragon. What kind of dragon would you be? Describe your appearance, special abilities, likes and dislikes. You can use a dragon name generator to give yourself a cool dragon name.
  • Pick your favourite book or a famous story. Now change the point of view. For example, you could rewrite the fairytale , Cinderella. This time around, Prince Charming could be the main character. What do you think Prince Charming was doing, while Cinderella was cleaning the floors and getting ready for the ball?
  • Pick a random writing prompt and use it to write a short story. Check out this collection of over 300 writing prompts for kids to inspire you. 
  • Write a shopping list for a famous character in history. Imagine if you were Albert Einstein’s assistant, what kind of things would he shop for on a weekly basis?
  • Create a fake advertisement poster for a random object that is near you right now. Your goal is to convince the reader to buy this object from you.
  • What is the worst (or most annoying) sound that you can imagine? Describe this sound in great detail, so your reader can understand the pain you feel when hearing this sound.
  • What is your favourite song at the moment? Pick one line from this song and describe a moment in your life that relates to this line.
  •  You’re hosting an imaginary dinner party at your house. Create a list of people you would invite, and some party invites. Think about the theme of the dinner party, the food you will serve and entertainment for the evening. 
  • You are waiting to see your dentist in the waiting room. Write down every thought you are having at this moment in time. 
  • Make a list of your greatest fears. Try to think of at least three fears. Now write a short story about a character who is forced to confront one of these fears. 
  • Create a ‘Wanted’ poster for a famous villain of your choice. Think about the crimes they have committed, and the reward you will give for having them caught. 
  • Imagine you are a journalist for the ‘Imagine Forest Times’ newspaper. Your task is to get an exclusive interview with the most famous villain of all time. Pick a villain of your choice and interview them for your newspaper article. What questions would you ask them, and what would their responses be?
  •  In a school playground, you see the school bully hurting a new kid. Write three short stories, one from each perspective in this scenario (The bully, the witness and the kid getting bullied).
  • You just won $10 million dollars. What would you spend this money on?
  • Pick a random animal, and research at least five interesting facts about this animal. Write a short story centred around one of these interesting facts. 
  • Pick a global issue that you are passionate about. This could be climate change, black lives matters, women’s rights etc. Now create a campaign poster for this global issue. 
  • Write an acrostic poem about an object near you right now (or even your own name). You could use a poetry idea generator to inspire you.
  • Imagine you are the head chef of a 5-star restaurant. Recently the business has slowed down. Your task is to come up with a brand-new menu to excite customers. Watch this video prompt on YouTube to inspire you.
  • What is your favourite food of all time? Imagine if this piece of food was alive, what would it say to you?
  • If life was one big musical, what would you be singing about right now? Write the lyrics of your song. 
  • Create and describe the most ultimate villain of all time. What would their traits be? What would their past look like? Will they have any positive traits?
  • Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: Every time I look out of the window, I…
  • You have just made it into the local newspaper, but what for? Write down at least five potential newspaper headlines . Here’s an example, Local Boy Survives a Deadly Illness.
  • If you were a witch or a wizard, what would your specialist area be and why? You might want to use a Harry Potter name generator or a witch name generator for inspiration.
  • What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday night? Write a short story centred around this activity. 
  • Your main character has just received the following items: A highlighter, a red cap, a teddy bear and a fork. What would your character do with these items? Can you write a story using these items? 
  • Create a timeline of your own life, from birth to this current moment. Think about the key events in your life, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings and so on. After you have done this, you can pick one key event from your life to write a story about. 
  • Think of a famous book or movie you like. Rewrite a scene from this book or movie, where the main character is an outsider. They watch the key events play out, but have no role in the story. What would their actions be? How would they react?
  • Three very different characters have just won the lottery. Write a script for each character, as they reveal the big news to their best friend.  
  • Write a day in the life story of three different characters. How does each character start their day? What do they do throughout the day? And how does their day end?
  •  Write about the worst experience in your life so far. Think about a time when you were most upset or angry and describe it. 
  • Imagine you’ve found a time machine in your house. What year would you travel to and why?
  • Describe your own superhero. Think about their appearance, special abilities and their superhero name. Will they have a secret identity? Who is their number one enemy?
  • What is your favourite country in the world? Research five fun facts about this country and use one to write a short story. 
  • Set yourself at least three writing goals. This could be a good way to motivate yourself to write every day. For example, one goal might be to write at least 150 words a day. 
  • Create a character description based on the one fact, three fiction rule. Think about one fact or truth about yourself. And then add in three fictional or fantasy elements. For example, your character could be the same age as you in real life, this is your one fact. And the three fictional elements could be they have the ability to fly, talk in over 100 different languages and have green skin. 
  • Describe the perfect person. What traits would they have? Think about their appearance, their interests and their dislikes. 
  • Keep a daily journal or diary. This is a great way to keep writing every day. There are lots of things you can write about in your journal, such as you can write about the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of your day. Think about anything that inspired you or anything that upset you, or just write anything that comes to mind at the moment. 
  • Write a book review or a movie review. If you’re lost for inspiration, just watch a random movie or read any book that you can find. Then write a critical review on it. Think about the best parts of the book/movie and the worst parts. How would you improve the book or movie?
  • Write down a conversation between yourself. You can imagine talking to your younger self or future self (i.e. in 10 years’ time). What would you tell them? Are there any lessons you learned or warnings you need to give? Maybe you could talk about what your life is like now and compare it to their life?
  • Try writing some quick flash fiction stories . Flash fiction is normally around 500 words long, so try to stay within this limit.
  • Write a six-word story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. A six-word story is basically an entire story told in just six words. Take for example: “Another football game ruined by me.” or “A dog’s painting sold for millions.” – Six-word stories are similar to writing newspaper headlines. The goal is to summarise your story in just six words. 
  • The most common monsters or creatures used in stories include vampires, werewolves , dragons, the bigfoot, sirens and the loch-ness monster. In a battle of intelligence, who do you think will win and why?
  • Think about an important event in your life that has happened so far, such as a birthday or the birth of a new sibling. Now using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique describe this event in great detail. The 5 W’s include: What, Who, Where, Why, When and the 1 H is: How. Ask yourself questions about the event, such as what exactly happened on that day? Who was there? Why was this event important? When and where did it happen? And finally, how did it make you feel?
  • Pretend to be someone else. Think about someone important in your life. Now put yourself into their shoes, and write a day in the life story about being them. What do you think they do on a daily basis? What situations would they encounter? How would they feel?
  • Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: I remember…
  • Write about your dream holiday. Where would you go? Who would you go with? And what kind of activities would you do?
  • Which one item in your house do you use the most? Is it the television, computer, mobile phone, the sofa or the microwave? Now write a story of how this item was invented. You might want to do some research online and use these ideas to build up your story. 
  • In exactly 100 words, describe your bedroom. Try not to go over or under this word limit.
  • Make a top ten list of your favourite animals. Based on this list create your own animal fact file, where you provide fun facts about each animal in your list.
  • What is your favourite scene from a book or a movie? Write down this scene. Now rewrite the scene in a different genre, such as horror, comedy, drama etc.
  •  Change the main character of a story you recently read into a villain. For example, you could take a popular fairytale such as Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time re-write the story to make Jack the villain of the tale.
  • Complete the following sentence in at least 10 different ways: Do you ever wonder…
  • What does your name mean? Research the meaning of your own name, or a name that interests you. Then use this as inspiration for your next story. For example, the name ‘Marty’ means “Servant Of Mars, God Of War”. This could make a good concept for a sci-fi story.
  • Make a list of three different types of heroes (or main characters) for potential future stories.
  • If someone gave you $10 dollars, what would you spend it on and why?
  • Describe the world’s most boring character in at least 100 words. 
  • What is the biggest problem in the world today, and how can you help fix this issue?
  • Create your own travel brochure for your hometown. Think about why tourists might want to visit your hometown. What is your town’s history? What kind of activities can you do? You could even research some interesting facts. 
  • Make a list of all your favourite moments or memories in your life. Now pick one to write a short story about.
  • Describe the scariest and ugliest monster you can imagine. You could even draw a picture of this monster with your description.
  • Write seven haikus, one for each colour of the rainbow. That’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 
  • Imagine you are at the supermarket. Write down at least three funny scenarios that could happen to you at the supermarket. Use one for your next short story. 
  • Imagine your main character is at home staring at a photograph. Write the saddest scene possible. Your goal is to make your reader cry when reading this scene. 
  • What is happiness? In at least 150 words describe the feeling of happiness. You could use examples from your own life of when you felt happy.
  • Think of a recent nightmare you had and write down everything you can remember. Use this nightmare as inspiration for your next story.
  • Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning you can quickly jot down things that you remember from your dreams. These notes can then be used as inspiration for a short story. 
  • Your main character is having a really bad day. Describe this bad day and the series of events they experience. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character?
  • You find a box on your doorstep. You open this box and see the most amazing thing ever. Describe this amazing thing to your readers.
  • Make a list of at least five possible settings or locations for future stories. Remember to describe each setting in detail.
  • Think of something new you recently learned. Write this down. Now write a short story where your main character also learns the same thing.
  • Describe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Your goal is to amaze your readers with its beauty. 
  • Make a list of things that make you happy or cheer you up. Try to think of at least five ideas. Now imagine living in a world where all these things were banned or against the law. Use this as inspiration for your next story.
  • Would you rather be rich and alone or poor and very popular? Write a story based on the lives of these two characters. 
  • Imagine your main character is a Librarian. Write down at least three dark secrets they might have. Remember, the best secrets are always unexpected.
  • There’s a history behind everything. Describe the history of your house. How and when was your house built? Think about the land it was built on and the people that may have lived here long before you.
  • Imagine that you are the king or queen of a beautiful kingdom. Describe your kingdom in great detail. What kind of rules would you have? Would you be a kind ruler or an evil ruler of the kingdom?
  • Make a wish list of at least three objects you wish you owned right now. Now use these three items in your next story. At least one of them must be the main prop in the story.
  • Using nothing but the sense of taste, describe a nice Sunday afternoon at your house. Remember you can’t use your other senses (i.e see, hear, smell or touch) in this description. 
  • What’s the worst pain you felt in your life? Describe this pain in great detail, so your readers can also feel it.
  • If you were lost on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, what three must-have things would you pack and why?
  • Particpate in online writing challenges or contests. Here at Imagine Forest, we offer daily writing challenges with a new prompt added every day to inspire you. Check out our challenges section in the menu.

Do you have any more fun creative writing exercises to share? Let us know in the comments below!

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Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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Welcome to Writing Exercises and Prompts.

This site provides (completely free) creative writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks - as well as some fun anagram vocabulary games.

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43 Creative Writing Exercises

Creative writing exercises for adults

A selection of fun creative writing exercises that can be completed solo, or with a group. Some are prompts to help inspire you to come up with story ideas, others focus on learning specific writing skills.

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The location is a charming cottage with private pool in 15 hectares of woodland near Lodève, France. Exercises will be organised each morning, with silent writing sessions throughout the day. There will also be the chance to visit the beautiful surrounds and participate in feedback sessions to gain invaluable insights from the host and other participants.

This is the forth writing retreat we've run and the majority of participants are returning, a sure sign of the benefit of previous retreats.

Table of contents

A note on running exercises remotely

A letter from your character to you, the opening sentence, make your protagonist act, overcoming writer's block, writing character arcs, sewing seeds in your writing, giving feedback to authors, the five senses, show don't tell, world building.

Easy gossiping exercise

Degrees of Emotion Game

Three birds, one line, blind date on valentine's day (exercise for adults), a success (works best for online groups), your dream holiday, time travel - child, adult, senior, focus on faces.

Onomatopeai, rhyme and alliteration

The alphabet story - creating a story as a group

A question or two, murder mystery game, the obscure movie exercise, how to hint at romantic feelings, a novel idea, creative writing prompts, creative story cards / dice, alternative christmas story, murder mystery mind map.

New Year's resolutions for a fictional character

Stephen King - Using verbs & nouns in fiction

It's the end of the world

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7 Editing exercises  (for your first draft)

How to run the writing exercises

I run a  Creative Writing Meetup  for adults and teens in Montpellier or online every week. We start with a 5 to 20 minute exercise, followed by an hour and a half of silent writing, during which each participant focuses on their own project. Every exercise listed below has been run with the group and had any kinks ironed out.  Where the exercises specify a number of people, if you have a larger group, simply split everyone up into smaller groups as appropriate.

The solo exercises are ideal to help stimulate your mind before working on a larger project, to overcome writer’s block, or as stand-alone prompts in their own right. If a solo exercise inspires you and you wish to use it with a larger group, give every member ten minutes to complete the exercise, then ask anyone who wishes to share their work to do so in groups of 3 or 4 afterwards.

Looking for something quick to fire your imagination? Check out these  creative writing prompts for adults .

While you can enjoy the exercises solo, they are also designed for online writing groups using Zoom, WhatsApp, or Discord.

If you're running a group and follow a ' Shut Up and Write ' structure, I recommend connecting on WhatsApp (for example) first, doing the exercise together, sharing writing samples as needed. Next, write in silence for an hour and a half on your own projects, before reconnecting for a brief informal chat at the end. This works great with small remote groups and is a way to learn new techniques, gain online support, and have a productive session.

If you have a larger online group, it's worth looking into Zoom, as this has a feature called  Breakout Rooms . Breakout Rooms let you split different writers into separate rooms, which is great for group activities. The free version of Zoom has a 40 minute limit, which can be restrictive, but Zoom Pro is well worth it if you're going to use it on a regular basis. In my experience, Zoom has a better connection than Facebook chat or WhatsApp.

Letter from fictional character to the author

Spend ten minutes writing a letter from a character in your novel to  you , the author, explaining why you should write about them. This serves three purposes:

  • As you write, it helps you get into the mindset of the character. Ask yourself how they would language this letter and what they would consider important.
  • It's motivating to know that your character wants you to write about them.
  • If your goal is to publish a complete work of fiction one day, whether it be a novel, a play or a movie script, you will want to contact an agent or publisher. This helps you practice in an easy, safe way.

If you're doing this exercise with a group of teens or adults, and some of the group haven't already started working on their masterpiece, they can instead choose any fictional novel they love. Ask participants to imagine that a character within the book wrote to the author in the first place to ask them to write their story. How did they plead their case?

First sentence of books

The opening sentence has to grab the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Many authors achieve this by starting with an action scene. In modern literature, it's best to avoid starting with someone waking up, or a description of the weather. In this exercise the task is to write an opening sentence either to a book you're currently writing, or simply for an imaginary piece of literature.  Here are some of my favourite opening sentences to get you going:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

George Orwell , 1984

The Golem's life began in the hold of a steamship.

Helene Wecker , The Golem and the Djinni

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

Diana Gabaldon , Outlander

You better not never tell nobody but God.

Alice Walker , The Color Purple

The cage was finished.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez ,  Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon

Imagine that you are living your life out of order: Lunch before breakfast, marriage before your first kiss.

Audrey Niffenegger ,  The Time Traveler's Wife

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Douglas Adams ,  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There are a plethora of ways you can start a book, however two ways that help engage the reader immediately are:

  • Set the scene in as few words as possible, so the reader immediately knows what's happening and wants to know what happens next.  The scene must be original and create a vivid image in the reader's mind.
  • Surprise the reader with an unusual event or usual point of view.

Spend 5 minutes working on your own opening sentence, then share it with the other participants.

Exercise for 2 writers, or can be done solo.

Make your characters act

According to John Gardner:

"Failure to recognise that the central character must act, not simply be acted upon, is the single most common mistake in the fiction of beginners."

Spend 5 minutes writing a scene where the protagonist is passive in a conversation with one other character. It could be that the other character says something dramatic, and the protagonist just listens, or it could be anything else of your choice!

Once the 5 minutes is up, swap papers with another writer. If you're using Zoom, or working online, send it to each other in a private chat. Now the other person spends 8 minutes rewriting the scene to make the protagonist as active as possible. This might include:

Read both scenes together. Which makes you want to keep on reading?

If you're doing this as a solo writing exercise, simply complete both parts yourself.

  • Showing the emotion this evokes.
  • Getting them to disagree with the other character.
  • Showing how they respond physically (whether it's as a physical manifestation of how they feel, or a dramatic gesture to make a point).

Overcoming writer's block

Are you staring at a blank page or stuck for any story ideas? This exercise will help anyone who's experiencing writer's block with a particular piece of writing. If this isn't you, that's great, others will value your input!

If anyone has a particular scene they're stuck with (a pool of blood on the floor they have no explanation for, a reason why the rich lady just walked into a particular pub, etc.) then at the start of the exercise everyone briefly describes their scenes (if working online with a large group, typing it into the chat might be best). Everyone then chooses one scene to use as a writing prompt to write a short story for 10-15 minutes.

Afterwards, split into small groups if necessary, and read out how you completed someone else's writing prompt. As everyone listens to everyone else's ideas, this can be a wonderful source of inspiration and also improves your writing. As an alternative solo exercise, try free writing. With free writing, simply write as quickly as you can on the topic without editing or censoring yourself - just let your creative juices flow. If you're not sure what happens next, brainstorm options on the page, jot down story ideas, or just put, "I don't know what happens next." Keep going and ideas will come.

Character arc

There are several different types of character arc in a novel, the 3 most common being:

For this exercise choose either a positive or negative character arc. Spend 8 minutes writing a scene from the start of a novel, then 8 minutes writing a scene towards the end of a novel showing how the character has developed between the two points. Don't worry about including how the character has changed, you can leave that to the imagination.

The point here is to capture the essence of a character, as they will be the same, but show their development.

  • Positive  - Where a character develops and grows during the novel. Perhaps they start unhappy or weak and end happy or powerful.
  • Negative  - Where a character gets worse during a novel. Perhaps they become ill or give in to evil tendencies as the novel progresses.
  • Flat  - In a flat character arc the character themself doesn't change much, however the world around them does. This could be overthrowing a great injustice, for example.

Sewing seeds in writing

In this exercise, we will look at how to sew seeds. No, not in your garden, but in your story. Seeds are the tiny hints and indicators that something is going on, which influence a reader's perceptions on an often unconscious level. They're important, as if you spring a surprise twist on your readers without any warning, it can seem unbelievable. Sew seeds that lead up to the event, so the twists and turns are still surprising, but make intuitive sense. Groups : Brainstorm major plot twists that might happen towards the end of the novel and share it in a Zoom chat, or on pieces of paper. Choose one twist each. Individuals : Choose one of the following plot twists:   -  Your friend is actually the secret son of the king.   -  Unreliable narrator - the narrator turns out to be villain.   -  The monster turns out to be the missing woman the narrator is seeking.   -  The man she is about to marry happens to already have a wife and three kids.

Write for ten minutes and give subtle hints as to what the plot twist is. This is an exercise in subtlety. Remember, when the twist occurs, it should still come as a surprise.

Animal exercise

This is a fun writing activity for a small group. You’ve found a magic potion labelled ‘Cat Chat’ and when you drink it, you turn into whichever animal you’re thinking about; but there’s a problem, it also picks up on the brainwaves of other people near you!

Everyone writes down an animal in secret and then reveals it to the other writers.  The spell will turn you into a creature that combines elements of all the animals.  Each person then spends 5 minutes writing down what happens when they drink the potion.

After the 5 minutes is up, everyone shares their story with the other participants.

If you enjoy this exercise, then you may also want to check out our  Fantasy and Sci-Fi writing prompts  full of world building, magic, and character development prompts..

I remember

Joe Brainard wrote a novel called:  I Remember It contains a collection of paragraphs all starting with “I remember”.  This is the inspiration for this exercise, and if you’re stuck for what to write, is a great way to get the mental gears turning.  Simply write “I remember” and continue with the first thing that pops into your head.

Spend 5 minutes writing a short collection of “I remember” stories.

Here are a couple of examples from Joe Brainard’s novel:

“I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn't fall off.”

“I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face.”

Giving constructive feedback to authors

If you're running a workshop for more experienced adult authors and have at least an hour, this is a good one to use. This is the longest exercise on this page, but I felt it important enough to include.

Give each author the option to bring a piece of their own work. This should be double spaced and a maximum of 3 pages long. If you're running a workshop where not everyone is likely to bring a manuscript, ask everyone who wants to bring one to print two copies each. If someone forgets but has a laptop with them, the reader can always use their laptop.

Print out a few copies and hand them around to everyone in the workshop of the guide on: 'How to give constructive feedback to writers'

Each author who brought a sample with them then gives them to one other person to review. They write their name on the manuscript in a certain colour pen, then add any comments to it before passing it to a second person who does the same (commenting on the comments if they agree or disagree).

Then allow 5 minutes for everyone to discuss the feedback they've received, ensuring they are giving constructive feedback.

Giovanni Battista Manerius - The Five Senses

Painting by Giovanni Battista Manerius -  The Five Senses

Choose a scene and write it for 5 minutes focusing on one sense, NOT sight. Choose between:

Hearing  Taste Smell Touch

This can be internal as well as external (I heard my heartbeat thudding in my ears, or I smelt my own adrenaline).

After the 5 minutes stop and everyone reads it out loud to each other. Now write for another 5 minutes and continue the other person's story, but do NOT use sight OR the sense they used.

You can use any sense to communicate the essentials, just focus on creating emotions and conveying the story with the specific sense(s).

If you need some writing prompts, here are possible scenes that involve several senses:

  • Climbing through an exotic jungle
  • Having an argument that becomes a fight
  • A cat's morning
  • Talking to someone you're attracted to

2 or 3 people

Show don't tell your story

A lot of writing guides will advise you to, "Show, don't tell". What does this actually mean?

If you want to evoke an emotional reaction from your reader, showing them what is happening is a great way to do so.  You can approach this in several ways:

Split up into pairs and each person writes down a short scene from a story where they "tell" it.  After this, pass the description of the scene to your partner and they then have 5 minutes to rewrite it to "show" what happened.  If there are an odd number of participants, make one group of three, with each person passing their scene clockwise, so everyone has a new scene to show.  After the 5 minutes, for small groups everyone reads their new description to everyone else, or for large groups, each person just reads their new scene to their partner.

  • Avoid internal dialogue (thinking), instead have your protagonist interact with other people, or have a physical reaction to something that shows how s/he feels.  Does their heart beat faster?  Do they notice the smell of their own adrenaline?  Do they step backwards, or lean forwards?
  • Instead of using an adjective like creepy, e.g. "Mary entered the creepy house", show why the house is creepy through description and in the way the protagonist responds - "The light streamed through the filthy skylight, highlighting the decomposing body of a rat resting on top of it.  As Mary stepped inside, she felt a gust of freezing air brush past her. She turned, but there was nothing there..."

Visual writing prompts

World building is the art of conveying the magic of living in a different world, whether it's a spaceship, a medieval castle, a boat, or simply someone's living room. To master world building, it's not necessary to know every intricate detail, rather to convey the experience of what it would be like to live there.

Choose one of the above images as a prompt and spend 10 minutes writing a scene from the perspective of someone who is seeing it for the first time. Now, move your character six months forward and imagine they've spent the last six months living or working there. Write another scene (perhaps with an additional character) using the image as a background, with the events of the scene as the main action.

Click the above image for a close-up.

Gossiping about a character as if they're a friend.

Easy to gossip with friends about a character

Judy Blume says that she tells her family about her characters as if they’re real people. 

Chris Claremont said, "For me, writing the 'X-Men' was easy - is easy. I know these people, they're my friends." 

Today’s exercise has 2 parts. First, spend 5 minutes jotting down some facts about a character you’ve invented that might come up if you were telling your friends about them. Either choose a character in something you’ve already written, or invent one from scratch now.

Answer the questions:

What are they up to? How are they? What would you say if you were gossiping about them?

Then split up into groups of 4 to 6 writers. 2 volunteers from each group then role-play talking about their character as if they were a friend (perhaps another character in the story).  The other participants will role-play a group of friends gossiping about the character behind their back and ask questions. If you don’t know the answer, invent it!

Degrees of emotion

This is based on an acting game, to help actors understand how to perform with different degrees of emotion.

Ask everyone to write the following 4 emotions:

For groups of 5 or less, write down numbers starting with 1 and going up until everyone has a number, then give them out in order. For groups of 6 or more, divide groups into 3's, 4's or 5's.

Each person has to write a scene where the protagonist is alone and is only allowed to say a single word, e.g. "Banana".  The writer with number 1 should write the scene with a very low level of the emotion (e.g. happiness), number 2 increases the intensity a bit and the highest number writes a scene with the most intense emotion you can possibly imagine.

Once each writer has written about happiness, rotate the numbers one or two spaces, then move onto anger, then fear, then sadness.

It can help to give everyone numbers showing the intensity of the emotions to write about at the start of the exercise, in which case you may wish to print either the Word or PDF file, then use the ones corresponding to 3, 4 or 5 writers.

PDF

Everyone shares their scene with the other course participants.

Kill three birds with one stone

The first paragraph of a surprising number of best-selling novels serves multiple purposes. These are to:

  • Establish a goal
  • Set the scene
  • Develop a character

Nearly every chapter in a novel also serves all three purposes. Instead of establishing a goal though, the protagonist either moves towards it, or encounters an obstacle that hinders them from achieving it.

Some books manage to meet all three purposes with their opening lines, for example:  

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

J.K. Rowling ,  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone  

A little more than one hundred days into the fortieth year of her confinement, Dajeil Gelian was visited in her lonely tower overlooking the sea by an avatar of the great ship that was her home.

Iain M. Banks ,  Excession  

"We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

George R.R. Martin ,  A Game of Thrones

For this exercise write a sentence or short paragraph that serves all three purposes. If you're already writing a novel, then see if you can do this for the first line in a chapter. If not, choose any combination from the following table:

Valentine's Day Book

In pairs one writer spends a minute or two describing a character they're writing about, or alternatively they can describe a celebrity or someone from a work of fiction.  The next writer then describes their character.

The story is that these 2 characters (or in my case, person and alien, as I'm writing a sci-fi) have accidentally ended up on a blind date with each other. Perhaps the waiter seated them in the wrong location, perhaps it's an actual blind date, or perhaps they met in some other fashion the writers can determine.

Now spend 10 minutes discussing what happens next!

Winning a race

This exercise works best for online groups, via Zoom, for example.  The instructions to give are:

"In a few words describe a success in your life and what it felt like to achieve it. It can be a small victory or a large one."

Share a personal example of your own (mine was watching my homeschooled sons sing in an opera together).

"Once you have one (small or large), write it in the chat.

The writing exercise is then to choose someone else's victory to write about for 10 minutes, as if it was the end of your own book.

If you want to write for longer, imagine how that book would start. Write the first part of the book with the ending in mind."

This is great for reminding people of a success in their lives, and also helps everyone connect and discover something about each other.

Dream holiday in France

You’re going on a dream holiday together, but always disagree with each other. To avoid conflict, rather than discuss what you want to do, you’ve decided that each of you will choose a different aspect of the holiday as follows:

  • Choose where you’ll be going – your favourite holiday destination.
  • Choose what your main fun activity will be on the holiday.
  • Decide what mode of travel you’ll use to get there.
  • If there’s a 4 th  person, choose what you’ll eat on the holiday and what you’ll be wearing.

Decide who gets to choose what at random. Each of you then writes down your dream holiday destination/activity/travel/food & clothes in secret.  Next spend 5 minutes discussing your dream holiday and add any other details you’d like to include, particularly if you’re passionate about doing something in real life.

Finally, everyone spends another 5 minutes writing down a description of the holiday, then shares it with the others.

Writing haiku

A haiku is a traditional Japanese form of non-rhyming poetry whose short form makes it ideal for a simple writing exercise.

They are traditionally structured in 3 lines, where the first line is 5 syllables, the second line is 7 syllables, and the third line is 5 syllables again. Haiku tend to focus on themes of nature and deep concepts that can be expressed simply.

A couple of examples:

A summer river being crossed how pleasing with sandals in my hands! Yosa Buson , a haiku master poet from the 18 th  Century.

And one of mine:

When night-time arrives Stars come out, breaking the dark You can see the most

Martin Woods

Spend up to 10 minutes writing a haiku.  If you get stuck with the 5-7-5 syllable rule, then don’t worry, the overall concept is more important!

See  How to write a haiku  for more details and examples.

Writing a limerick

Unlike a haiku, which is profound and sombre, a limerick is a light-hearted, fun rhyming verse.

Here are a couple of examples:

A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his beli-can He can take in his beak Food enough for a week But I'm damned if I see how the heli-can.

Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1910

There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She started one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller in  Punch,  1923

The 1 st , 2 nd  and 5 th  line all rhyme, as do the 3 rd  and 4 th  line.  The overall number of syllables isn’t important, but the 3 rd  and 4 th  lines should be shorter than the others.

Typically, the 1 st  line introduces the character, often with “There was”, or “There once was”. The rest of the verse tells their story.

Spend 10 minutes writing a limerick.

Adult time travel

Imagine that your future self as an old man/woman travels back in time to meet you, the adult you are today.  Alternatively, you as a child travels forward in time to meet yourself as an adult.  Or perhaps both happen, so the child you, adult you, and senior you are all together at the same time.  In story form write down what happens next.

Participants then share their story with other writers either in small groups, or to the whole group.

Solo exercise

Describing a character

One challenge writers face is describing a character. A common mistake is to focus too much on the physical features, e.g. "She had brown eyes, curly brown hair and was five foot six inches tall."

The problem with this is it doesn't reveal anything about the character's personality, or the relationship between your protagonist and the character. Your reader is therefore likely to quickly forget what someone looks like.  When describing characters, it's therefore best to:

  • Animate them - it's rare that someone's sitting for a portrait when your protagonist first meets them and whether they're talking or walking, it's likely that they're moving in some way.
  • Use metaphors or similes  - comparing physical features to emotionally charged items conjures both an image and a sense of who someone is.
  • Involve your protagonist  - if your protagonist is interacting with a character, make it personal.  How does your protagonist view this person?  Incorporate the description as part of the description.
  • Only give information your protagonist knows  - they may know if someone is an adult, or a teenager, but they won't know that someone is 37 years old, for example.

Here are three examples of character descriptions that leave no doubt how the protagonist feels.

“If girls could spit venom, it'd be through their eyes.” S.D. Lawendowski,  Snapped

"And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war." Maggie Stiefvater,  The Dream Thieves

"His mouth was such a post office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling." Charles Dickens

Spend 5 minutes writing a character introduction that is animated, uses metaphors or similes and involves your protagonist.

If working with a group, then form small groups of 3 or 4 and share your description with the rest of the group.

Onomatopeai, rhyme and alliteration

Onomatopeai, rhyme or alliteration.

Today's session is all about sound.

Several authors recommend reading your writing out loud after you've written it to be sure it sounds natural.   Philip Pullman  even goes as far as to say:

"When I’m writing, I’m more conscious of the sound, actually, than the meaning. I know what the rhythm of the sentence is going to be before I know what the words are going to be in it."

For today's exercise, choose the name of a song and write for 10 minutes as if that's the title for a short story. Focus on how your writing sounds and aim to include at least one onomatopoeia, rhyme or alliteration.  At the end of the 10 minutes, read it out loud to yourself, or to the group.

Alliterations

An alliteration example from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Onomatopoeias

Buzz, woof, quack, baa, crash, purr, beep, belch,...

alphabet story

This is a novel way to write a story as a group, one word at a time.  The first person starts the story that begins with any word starting with “A”, the next person continues the story with a word starting with “B”, and so on.

Keep going round until you have completed the alphabet.  Ideally it will all be one sentence, but if you get stuck, start a new sentence.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t make complete sense!

It can be tricky to remember the alphabet when under pressure, so you may wish to print it out a couple of times, so the storytellers can see it if they need to, this is particularly helpful if you have dyslexics in the group.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Here’s an example of an alphabet story:

A Band Can Dance Each Friday, Ghostly Hauntings In Jail Kill Lucky Men, Nobody Or Perhaps Quiet Rats, Still That Unifies Villains Who X-Ray Your Zebras.

As I mentioned, it doesn’t need to make sense!

Small or large groups

1 or 2 questions

The standard format in our group is a short writing exercise followed by an hour and a half of silent writing on our projects.

At one point I felt like we'd done a lot of small group exercises, and wanted to gain an insight into what everyone was working on, so we did the following exercise instead:

Go round the table and ask everyone to briefly talk about their writing.  Each person then asks one or two yes/no questions.

Everyone responds either by raising their hand for 'yes' or shaking their heads for 'no'. You can also leap up and down to indicate a very strong 'yes'.

Questions can be about anything, and you can use them either to help guide your writing or to help find other people in the group who have similar interests.

Here are some random examples you might ask:

  • I want to write a romance novel and am considering setting it in Paris, a traditional romantic setting, or Liverpool which is a less obvious setting. Who thinks Liverpool would be best?
  • I need to know more about the life of a farmer. Has anyone got farming experience who I can interview in exchange for a drink?
  • My character gets fired and that night goes back to his office and steals 35 computers. Does that sound realistic as the premise of a story?

This works best when you give participants some advance notice, so they have time to think of a question.

Groups of 3 or 4

Murder mystery

This exercise takes 20-30 minutes and allows participants to create a murder mystery outline together.

Phase 1 (3 minutes)

  • Split into groups of 3 or 4
  • Decide as a group where the murder occurs (e.g. the opera house, a bar, a casino)
  • Decide one person who will write the details of the victim and the murder itself.  Everyone else writes the details of one suspect each.
  • The ‘victim author’ then invents a few extra details about the scene of the crime, who the victim was (a teenage punk, an adult opera singer, etc.) and the murder weapon and summarises this to the others.

Phase 2 (10 minutes)

Each person then writes a police report as if they are either describing the scene of the crime, or recording the notes from their interview with a single suspect:

Write the following:

  • 1 line description of the victim.
  • When they were last seen by a group of witnesses (and what they were doing).
  • How the murder occurred in more detail based on the evidence available.

Write the following (from the perspective of the investigator):

  • 1 line description of the suspect
  • What they said during the interview (including what they claim to have doing when the murder occurs).
  • A possible motivation (as determined by the police from other witnesses).

Phase 3 (5 minutes)

  • Each person reads out their police reports to the other members of their small group
  • As a group, decide who the murderer was and what actually happened

See more ideas on  creating murder mystery party games

Obscure movie

Pick a famous movie and spend 5 minutes writing a scene from it from an unusual perspective.  Your aim is to achieve a balance between being too obscure and making it too obvious.  Feel free to add internal dialogue.

At the end of the 5 minutes, everyone reads their movie scene to the others and all the other participants see if they can guess what the movie is.

How to hint at romantic feelings

Write a scene with two people in a group, where you hint that one is romantically interested in the other, but the feelings aren’t reciprocated.

The goal of this exercise is to practice subtlety. Imagine you are setting a scene for the future where the characters feelings will become more important. Choose a situation like a work conference, meeting with a group of friends, etc. How do you indicate how the characters feel without them saying it in words?

Some tips for hinting at romantic feelings:

  • Make the characters nervous and shy.
  • Your protagonist leans forward.
  • Asks deeper questions and listens intently.
  • Finds ways to be close together.
  • Mirrors their gestures.
  • Gives lots of compliments.
  • Makes eye contact, then looks away.
  • Other people seem invisible to your protagonist.

Novel idea

Take it in turns to tell everyone else about a current project you’re working on (a book, screenplay, short story, etc.)

The other writers then brainstorm ideas for related stories you could write, or directions your project could take.  There are no right or wrong suggestions and the intention is to focus on big concepts, not little details.

This whole exercise takes around 15 minutes.

Exercise for groups of 3-5

Creative writing

If you're in larger group, split up into groups of 3 or 4 people.

Everyone writes the first line of a story in the Zoom chat, or on paper. Other people can then choose this line as a writing prompt.

For this exercise:

  • Say who the protagonist is.
  • Reveal their motivation.
  • Introduce any other characters

Once everyone's written a prompt, each author chooses a prompt (preferably someone eles's, but it can be your own if you feel really inspired by it.)  Then write for 10 minutes using this prompt. See if you can reveal who the protagonist is, what their motivation is (it can be a small motivation for a particular scene, it doesn't have to be a huge life goal), and introduce at least one new character.

Take turns reading out your stories to each other.

  • Write in the first person.
  • Have the protagonist interacting with an object or something in nature.
  • The challenge is to create intrigue that makes the reader want to know more with just a single line.

Creative story cards for students

Cut up a piece of paper and write one word on each of the pieces of paper, as follows:

Give each participant a couple of pieces of paper at random.  The first person says the first sentence of a story and they must use their first word as part of that sentence.  The second person then continues the story and must include their word in it, and so on.  Go round the group twice to complete the story.

You can also do this creative writing exercise with story dice, your own choice of words, or by asking participants to write random words down themselves, then shuffling all the cards together.

Alternative Christmas Story

Every Christmas adults tell kids stories about Santa Claus. In this exercise you write a Christmas story from an alternative dimension.

What if every Christmas Santa didn't fly around the world delivering presents on his sleigh pulled by reindeer? What if gnomes or aliens delivered the presents? Or perhaps it was the gnomes who are trying to emulate the humans? Or some other Christmas tradition entirely that we humans have never heard of!

Group writing exercise

If you're working with a group, give everyone a couple of minutes to write two possible themes for the new Christmas story. Each theme should be 5 words or less.

Shuffle the paper and distribute them at random. If you're working online, everyone types the themes into the Zoom or group chat. Each writer then spends 10 minutes writing a short story for children based on one of the two themes, or their own theme if they really want to.

If working alone, choose your own theme and spend 15 minutes writing a short story on it. See if you can create the magic of Christmas from another world!

Murder Mystery mind map

In a murder mystery story or courtroom drama, there's often conflicting information and lots of links between characters. A mind map is an ideal way to illustrate how everything ties together.

Split into groups of 3 or 4 people each and place a blank piece of A3 paper (double the size of A4) in the middle of each group. Discuss between you who the victim is and write their name in the middle of the piece of paper. Then brainstorm information about the murder, for example:

Feel free to expand out from any of these, e.g. to include more information on the different characters involved.

The idea is that  everyone writes at the same time!   Obviously, you can discuss ideas, but anyone can dive in and write their ideas on the mind map.

  • Who was the victim? (job, appearance, hobbies, etc.)
  • Who did the victim know?
  • What were their possible motivations?
  • What was the murder weapon?
  • What locations are significant to the plot?

New Year’s resolutions for a fictional character

List of ideas for a fictional character

If you’re writing a piece of fiction, ask yourself how your protagonist would react to an everyday situation. This can help you to gain a deeper insight into who they are.

One way to do this is to imagine what their New Year’s resolutions would be.

If completing this exercise with a group, limit it to 3 to 5 resolutions per person. If some participants are historical fiction or non-fiction writers, they instead pick a celebrity and either write what their resolutions  will  be, or what their resolutions  should  be, their choice.

Verb Noun Fiction Exercise (Inspired by Stephen King)

List of ideas for a fictional character

Stephen King said, "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops."

He also said, "Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight that’s nice."

In this fiction writing exercise, start by brainstorming (either individually or collectively) seven verbs on seven different pieces of paper. Put those aside for later. Now brainstorm seven nouns. Randomly match the nouns and verbs so you have seven pairs. Choose a pair and write a piece of fiction for ten minutes. Avoid using any adverbs.

It’s the end of the world

End of the world

It’s the end of the world!  For 5 minutes either:

If working as a team, then after the 5 minutes is up each writer reads their description out to the other participants.

  • Describe how the world’s going to end, creating evocative images using similes or metaphors as you wish and tell the story from a global perspective, or
  • Describe how you spend your final day before the world is destroyed.  Combine emotion and action to engage the reader.

7 Editing Exercises

For use after your first draft

Editing first draft

I’ve listened to a lot of masterclasses on writing by successful authors and they all say variants of your first draft won’t be good and that’s fine. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman summarise it the best:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”  

Terry Pratchett

“For me, it’s always been a process of trying to convince myself that what I’m doing in a first draft isn’t important. One way you get through the wall is by convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. No one is ever going to see your first draft. Nobody cares about your first draft. And that’s the thing that you may be agonising over, but honestly, whatever you’re doing can be fixed… For now, just get the words out. Get the story down however you can get it down, then fix it.”

Neil Gaiman

Once you’ve written your first draft, it will need editing to develop the plot, enhance the characters, and improve each scene in a myriad of ways – small and large. These seven creative editing exercises are designed to help with this stage of the process.

The First Sentence

Read the first paragraph of the novel, in particular the first sentence. Does it launch the reader straight into the action? According to  On Writing and Worldbuilding  by Timothy Hickson,  “The most persuasive opening lines are succinct, and not superfluous. To do this, it is often effective to limit it to a single central idea… This does not need to be the most important element, but it should be a central element that is interesting.” Ask yourself what element your opening sentence encapsulates and whether it’s the best one to capture your readers’ attention.

Consistency

Consistency is crucial in creative writing, whether it’s in relation to location, objects, or people.

It’s also crucial for personality, emotions and motivation.

Look at scenes where your protagonist makes an important decision. Are their motivations clear? Do any scenes force them to choose between two conflicting morals? If so, do you explore this? Do their emotions fit with what’s happened in previous scenes?

As you edit your manuscript, keep the characters’ personality, emotions and motivation in mind. If their behaviour is inconsistent, either edit it for consistency, or have someone comment on their strange behaviour or be surprised by it. Inconsistent behaviour can reveal that a character is keeping a secret, or is under stress, so characters don’t always need to be consistent. But when they’re not, there has to be a reason.  

Show Don’t Tell One

This exercise is the first in  The Emotional Craft of Fiction  by Donald Maass. It’s a writing guide with a plethora of editing exercises designed to help you reenergize your writing by thinking of what your character is feeling, and giving you the tools to make your reader feel something.  

  • Select a moment in your story when your protagonist is moved, unsettled, or disturbed… Write down all the emotions inherent in this moment, both obvious and hidden.
  • Next, considering what he is feeling, write down how your protagonist can act out. What is the biggest thing your protagonist can do? What would be explosive, out of bounds, or offensive? What would be symbolic? … Go sideways, underneath, or ahead. How can your protagonist show us a feeling we don’t expect to see?
  • Finally, go back and delete all the emotions you wrote down at the beginning of this exercise. Let actions and spoken words do the work. Do they feel too big, dangerous, or over-the-top? Use them anyway. Others will tell you if you’ve gone too far, but more likely, you haven’t gone far enough.

Show Don’t Tell Two

Search for the following words in your book:

Whenever these words occur, ask yourself if you can demonstrate how your characters feel, rather than simply stating it. For each occasion, can you use physiological descriptors (a racing heart), actions (taking a step backwards) or dialogue to express what’s just happened instead? Will this enhance the scene and engage the reader more?

After The Action

Find a scene where your characters disagree – in particular a scene where your protagonist argues with friends or allies. What happens next?

It can be tempting to wrap up the action with a quick resolution. But what if a resentment lingers and mistrust builds? This creates a more interesting story arc and means a resolution can occur later, giving the character development a real dynamic.

Review how you resolve the action and see if you can stretch out the emotions for a more satisfying read.

Eliminating the Fluff

Ensure that the words used don’t detract from the enormity of the events your character is going through. Can you delete words like, “Quite”, “Little”, or “Rather”? 

Of “Very” Florence King once wrote: “ 'Very' is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen .” Delete it, or replace the word after it with a stronger word, which makes “Very” redundant.

“That,” is another common word used in creative writing which can often be deleted. Read a sentence as is, then reread it as if you deleted, “That”. If the meaning is the same, delete it.

Chapter Endings

When talking about chapter endings, James Patterson said,  “At the end, something has to propel you into the next chapter.”

Read how each of your chapters finish and ask yourself does it either:

  • End on a cliff hanger? (R.L. Stine likes to finish every chapter in this method).
  • End on a natural pause (for example, you’re changing point of view or location).

Review how you wrap up each of your chapters. Do you end at the best point in your story? Can you add anticipation to cliff hangers? Will you leave your readers wanting more?  

The editing exercises are designed to be completed individually.

With the others, I've always run them as part of a creative writing group, where there's no teacher and we're all equal participants, therefore I keep any 'teaching' aspect to a minimum, preferring them to be prompts to generate ideas before everyone settles down to do the silent writing. We've recently gone online and if you run a group yourself, whether online or in person, you're welcome to use these exercises for free!

The times given are suggestions only and I normally get a feel for how everyone's doing when time's up and if it's obvious that everyone's still in the middle of a discussion, then I give them longer.  Where one group's in the middle of a discussion, but everyone else has finished, I sometimes have a 'soft start' to the silent writing, and say, "We're about to start the hour and a half of silent writing now, but if you're in the middle of a discussion, feel free to finish it first".

This way everyone gets to complete the discussion, but no-one's waiting for ages.  It's also important to emphasise that there's no wrong answers when being creative.

Still looking for more? Check out these  creative writing prompts , or our dedicated  Sci-Fi and Fantasy creative writing prompts .

If you've enjoyed these creative writing exercises, please share them on social media, or link to them from your blog.

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The Write Practice

The 7 Best Skillshare Creative Writing Classes: Can These Courses Help You Become a Better Writer?

by Joe Bunting | 0 comments

Want to take one of Skillshare's many creative writing classes but not sure where to start? Or maybe your wondering whether these classes actually work, whether they'll really help you transform for an aspiring writer into a published author.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

In this post, I'm going to review the seven best creative writing classes on Skillshare , sharing the ones I would consider taking if I were in your position, the pros and cons of each, and most of all, whether they will help you accomplish your writing goals. (Never heard of Skillshare before? That's ok! You can check out their site here and even sign up for a free trial.)

Before we get started though, I wasn't paid to write this review, but I do want to be fully transparent and let you know that some of the links below are affiliate links. If you sign up for Skillshare, it will help me be able to keep writing (and help me continue sharing what I've learned about the writing process). Of course, this won't affect your overall price, and it didn't affect my decision on the course.

Should You Take Skillshare Creative Writing Classes?

If you want to become a better writer and learn the craft of creative writing, taking a class can be a great way to get started.

Classes provide structure, give you the chance to learn new things, and can help you get the feedback you need to get better. Most of all, they can be great sources of deliberate practice.

At The Write Practice, we believe in the power of deliberate practice, which is the best way to transform from an aspiring writer into a published author.

Deliberate practice has five components, and creative writing classes can be evaluated based on how they help creative writers practice deliberately.

  • Theory and knowledge . A good creative writing course should provide essential information on various writing techniques, storytelling principles, and literary devices. This knowledge will help students understand the craft of writing better and improve their skills.
  • Practice and process. Learning isn't enough, though. You also have to do the work! Good courses include a clear process that can guide you to achieve your writing goals. This might involve breaking down larger projects into manageable tasks, providing templates or outlines, or offering techniques for overcoming writer's block. Good courses also can hold you accountable so you actually follow through with the process and complete your projects.
  • A coach. You need a mentor who can show you the process. A good coach can provide insights, share their own experiences, and offer guidance to help students navigate challenges and improve their skills. Interaction with your coach can also be a source of accountability and direction.
  • Feedback. We all need feedback on what's working in our writing and what's not, both from professional editors and writing peers. Good courses should offer opportunities for you to get feedback on your writing, whether through peer review, one-on-one coaching, or group workshops.
  • A team . Writing is hard, and you need encouragement and support from a community of people to help you keep going. A course that encourages collaboration, peer support, and networking can help you stay motivated, share ideas, and learn from your fellow writers.

If you practice deliberately, you'll grow. You'll become a better creative writer. You'll accomplish your writing goals, get published, and perhaps even become a professional writer.

We will evaluate each Skillshare class based on these criteria.

By the way, did you know we have creative writing classes at The Write Practice designed specifically around deliberate practice? Check out our community and see if we can help you transform from aspiring writer into published author. Check out our classes here.

How Much Do Skillshare Online Classes Cost?

Skillshare operates on a subscription model, so instead of paying for individual classes, you pay a monthly or annual fee for unlimited access to their entire online course library.

Skillshare's monthly plan is $19 per month or an annual plan for $99 per year. This makes Skillshare one of the most budget friendly creative writing class options available, especially considering you can take multiple classes per month.

There's also a thirty-day free trial if you sign up with our link (it's normally seven days), making it extremely easy to get started, try out the platform, and perhaps even finish a few classes.

Check it out and sign up for the free trial.

How Does Skillshare Work?

Skillshare is an online learning platform that offers a wide range of classes across various categories, including creative writing, graphic design, photography, entrepreneurship, and more.

Here are some of the core features of Skillshare and how they work for creative writers.

1. High Quality Video Lessons with Transcripts

Video lessons are one of the primary features of Skillshare courses. They are generally well-produced, engaging, and easy to follow. The quality of video lessons can vary depending on the class, but overall, Skillshare maintains high standards for its course content.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

One advantage of video lessons is that they cater to visual learners. The video lessons offer the opportunity to pause, rewind, or even jump ahead to markers as needed, which can be helpful for learners who need more time to grasp a concept or want to revisit certain topics.

Transcripts are also available, making it easier for you to follow along, take notes, or review specific points. Transcripts are particularly useful if prefer reading to watching videos, or if you have hearing impairments.

2. World Class Instructors

Many Skillshare courses are taught by experienced professionals, including some of the best authors and writers in the world, including Roxane Gay, Susan Orlean, and Simon Van Booy.

However, other classes are taught by less notable professors, and while some of them can be helpful, they're not always the highest quality.

That's why we've picked out the best classes and instructors to learn from below.

3. Self-Paced Learning

Courses on Skillshare are pre-recorded, allowing you to progress at your own pace.

This flexibility makes it easy for users to fit learning into their schedules and work at a comfortable pace but can limit interaction.

3. Class Projects

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Many of the creative writing courses include hands-on projects, giving you the opportunity to apply what you've learned. This is an important part of deliberate practice and something I was really impressed with!

4. Class Discussions

Skillshare offers a platform for learners to interact with one another, share their work, and engage in discussions. However, I found feedback and interaction fairly limited.

5. Wide Variety of Courses

Skillshare offers thousands of courses in various subjects, so once you finish the creative writing courses, you can move on to other topics like cooking, digital marketing, photography, and more.

Ready to sign up? You can check out more of Skillshare's features here , or keep reading for our favorite classes.

The Best Creative Writing Classes from Skillshare: Our Review

Here are the seven best Skillshare classes for creative writing.

We evaluate each course based on five criteria, which correspond to the five aspects of deliberate practice.

1. Creative Writing for All: A 10-Day Journaling Challenge by Emily Gould

This course provides daily journaling prompts and insights to help you improve your creative writing skills over 10 days.

About the Instructor

Emily Gould is a writer, editor, and former co-owner of the independent bookstore Emily Books. Emily is the author of the novels Friendship and Perfect Tunes , as well as the essay collection And the Heart Says Whatever . She has written for The New York Times, The Guardian , and Slate .

Deliberate Practice Review

  • Theory and knowledge: This course focuses primarily on journaling and daily writing exercises to help students develop a consistent writing habit. It may not delve deeply into advanced writing techniques or storytelling principles, but like The Artist's Way, it can be a great way to wake up your creativity.
  • Practice and process: The 10-day structure encourages you to engage in daily writing practice, promoting a consistent writing habit. However, like all Skillshare classes, there's no accountability mechanism to ensure you follow through on the daily writing process.
  • Coach : Emily Gould is an experienced author and editor who shares her helpful insights and experiences about the writing craft through the course. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback: While feedback isn't the core emphasis of the course since it focuses on personal journaling, the program gives you several prompts, including one called “Today I Noticed,” and allows you to post your work as a “Class Project” and get feedback from fellow students. However, most of the pieces I saw received little feedback.
  • Team: Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but it doesn't appear that the discussions are very active, and it seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers in the threads.

Check out Emily Gould's Skillshare class.

2. Storytelling 101: Character, Conflict, Context & Craft by Daniel José Older

This class covers the fundamentals of storytelling through a framework which he calls the “4 C's,” including character, conflict, crisis (which we call dilemma), and context (which is his way of thinking about world-building and setting). Older studies how each “C” works in his short story, “Salsa Nocturna.”

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Daniel José Older is the author of several best-selling books, including the Shadowshaper Cypher series, Bone Street Rumba series, and The Book of Lost Saints. Daniel also leads writing workshops and teaches creative writing courses.

  • Theory and knowledge: This course provides a great overview of storytelling fundamentals: character, conflict, crisis (which we call dilemma), and context, which will help students improve their craft.
  • Practice and process : Older gives you an assignment to write a short story about something that happened in your childhood neighborhood in one hour (a really fun prompt!). He also gives you some good tips and techniques to apply to your own process. Of course, like with all Skillshare courses, there's no accountability to actually do the work.
  • Coach : Older is a seasoned author who gives great real-world examples that will help you write better stories. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : Some of the stories posted by students received quite a lot of feedback (probably the most of all the courses I looked at). However, others received little to no feedback, so your experience might vary. Still, of all the courses, this might be the one to post your assignment for feedback.
  • Team : Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but as with other courses, it's a very inactive community. It seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers in the threads.

Check out the class here.

3. The Writer's Toolkit: 6 Steps to a Successful Writing Habit by Simon Van Booy

This course covers essential techniques for establishing and maintaining a successful writing habit.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Simon Van Booy is an award-winning author of short stories, novels, and essays, including the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Simon teaches creative writing at various institutions, including The School of Visual Arts in New York City.

  • Theory and knowledge: This course concentrates on developing a successful writing habit, so the course is not extensively focused on advanced writing techniques or storytelling principles. However, his second course, Writer's Toolkit 2 looks to be more helpful for general writing skills.
  • Practice and process: The 6-step framework he provides gives you a clear process for building a consistent writing routine that will work for most writers. However, there's no real accountability to actually follow through with the steps and apply them to your practice.
  • Coach: Simon Van Booy is an award-winning author and with good feedback on how to develop a professional-level writing habit. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : The course doesn't emphasize feedback on your writing. You can post a picture of your writing space, but I didn't see much interaction or feedback on the pictures.
  • Team : Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but the discussions weren't very active when I looked at them, and it seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers.

Check out Simon Van Booy's Skillshare class.

4. Writing Character-Driven Short Stories by Yiyun Li

This course teaches you how to create engaging, character-driven short stories, and is taught by a celebrated, prize winning author. In the class, Li studies her 4 favorite short stories, and then write a story of your own inspired by an online comment, review, or obituary.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Yiyun Li is an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and essays, and the winner of such prizes as the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Yiyun Li teaches at Princeton University, is a MacArthur Fellow, and has been named a “20 Under 40” writer by The New Yorker .

  • Theory and knowledge: This course studies how to create engaging characters and how to write character-driven short stories. Plus, you'll gain advanced insights on storytelling techniques and character development from a celebrated author and creative writing professor.
  • Practice and process: The course includes writing exercises and an assignment to write a three to five page short story to help you practice the skills you learn. However, there's no accountability to actually write the story.
  • Coach : Yiyun Li is an award-winning author author with a wealth of experience. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : You can post your assigned story for feedback. However, very few of the pieces I saw received any feedback.
  • Team : Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but as with other classes, the discussions are not very active, and it seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers in the threads.

Check out the class.

5. Crafting Personal Essays with Impact by Roxane Gay

This one-hour class with best-selling author Roxane Gay focuses on writing personal essays that resonate with readers by exploring techniques for telling your story effectively.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Roxane Gay is the bestselling author of Bad Feminist , Hunger , and Difficult Women . Roxane's work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian , and The Nation . She is also a professor of creative writing.

  • Theory and knowledge: This course covers techniques for writing effective personal essays, offering good insight on personal storytelling and self-expression.
  • Practice and process: Despite being a relatively short class, Gay lays out some good practices for writing, editing, and getting published. There's an assignment to write and revise a personal essay of your own. There are also two worksheets, one to use to inspire your writing before you start, and a second to help you interrogate and revise your work. However, there's no real accountability to actually follow through.
  • Coach : Roxane Gay is a well-known author and essayist who will teach you how to write better personal essays. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : You can post the personal essay you write in the class project workshop. However, while a few pieces did receive comments, most that I saw received little feedback.
  • Team : Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but the last discussion in the class was from two months ago and the discussions weren't very active. It seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers in the threads.

6. Creative Nonfiction: Write Truth with Style by Susan Orlean

This course teaches you how to write creative nonfiction, combining journalistic accuracy with literary style.

Specifically, bestselling author and New Yorker columnist Susan Orlean walks you through through her writing process where she transforms ordinary subjects into inspired stories, focusing especially on how she wrote her piece “The American Male at Age Ten” from Esquire.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Susan Orlean is a celebrated author and journalist, best known for her book The Orchid Thief , which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Adaptation . She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, covering a wide range of topics. Susan is also the author of several other books, including Rin Tin Tin and The Library Book .

  • Theory and knowledge: Susan Orlean is an amazing writer, and if you write creative nonfiction, you'll learn so much about how to combine journalistic accuracy with literary style.
  • Practice and process: You'll learn the process of one of the best narrative nonfiction writers in the world, and then apply her process to write your own 1,000 word profile on someone you find mysterious. At the same time, there's no real accountability to actually follow through
  • Coach : Susan Orlean is a talented author and journalist who any creative nonfiction writer can learn from. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : You can post your creative nonfiction essay for feedback, however, most of the pieces I saw received few to no critiques.
  • Team : Skillshare enables class discussion threads, but it doesn't appear that the discussions are very active, and it seems unlikely you'll develop deep relationships with other writers in the threads.

7. Writing for Expression: How to Make Your Words More Artful & Lyrical by Hanif Abdurraqib

In this class, you'll learn techniques for writing with more creativity, artistry, and emotion from poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib. This class is helpful especially for poets but also for any writer interested in writing more lyrically and artistically.

Skillshare Creative Writing Classes

Hanif Abdurraqib is a distinguished poet, essayist, and cultural critic. He is the author of the poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster and the essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us . Hanif is also contributes to The New York Times, Pitchfork, The FADER, and other publications.

  • Theory and knowledge: This course focuses on making your writing more creative, artistic, and emotionally expressive. You'll learn how to hone your unique voice as a writer.
  • Practice and process: The course has three writing assignments that all lead to helping you craft a great writing piece or poem while allowing you to experiment with different styles and work on your writing expression. However, as with the other Skillshare classes, there's no accountability to actually follow through on the assignments.
  • Coach : Hanif Abdurraqib is a good poet and teacher. However, as with all Skillshare courses, there is no interaction between student and teacher, limiting the coaching experience.
  • Feedback : While you can post your assignments, this class had one of the lowest amount of feedback on pieces. I wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for feedback on your writing.
  • Team : As with other classes on Skillshare, you can start and respond to discussions, but there was very little recent interaction here. It's unlikely to be a great place to build your writing team.

My Final Review: Will Skillshare Help You Become a Better Writer?

Skillshare classes are especially good at the theory and knowledge aspect of deliberate practice, helping you learn important aspects of creative writing in a budget friendly way.

They may also help you with the practice and process, feedback, and coach aspects to some extent, providing some amount of self-guided structure, but the lack enough interaction to fully maximize these aspects.

However, most Skillshare classes will not provide the team aspect that's so important to become a better writer. After all, we do learn from our teachers, but we learn more from our peers, and Skillshare lacks the camaraderie, peer interaction, as well as coach interaction that helps writers transform into published authors fastest.

That isn't to say you shouldn't take creative writing classes from Skillshare, especially if you already are part of a vibrant writing community and have a good coach. These classes will certainly help you learn new things about the writing craft that will be helpful.

Just know that without the context of a full deliberate practice environment, you won't become a better creative writer and accomplish your goals as quickly as you could with a more complete class.

Final verdict : Skillshare can help you learn the craft of writing from world-class authors and instructors, but you should also join a writing community and get interactive coaching.

Sign up for Skillshare and take these creative writing classes here.

The Write Practice offers both a vibrant writing community and book coaching, and could be a great fit in tandem with Skillshare! Check out our community and coaching here.

What do you think? Have you taken any of these Skillshare classes? What was your experience like? Or after reading this, are you likely to? Let us know in the comments .

Today set your timer for 15 minutes and let's practice. Two choices from my reviews above:

  • Start a free writing exercise with “Today I noticed…”
  • Write a scene from your childhood neighborhood.

Once time is up, share your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop here and give feedback to a few other writers.

Not a member yet? Join us here!

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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35 Writing Exercises For Adults To Drastically Improve Your Writing

How do beginners practice writing ?

Here you are as an adult who’s decided to make writing an essential part of your life. 

However little practice you’ve had until now, it’s not too late to become a writer.

It’s as simple (and challenging) as showing up every day to write something .

Getting started on your daily writing can be tricky, though–especially if it’s not a habit yet. 

That’s why we’ve rounded up this collection of 35 fun writing exercises for adults. 

What Exercises Can I Do to Improve My Writing Skills? 

We’re not talking about writing prompts (which are also helpful). Writing exercises usually focus on a specific type of writing to help you develop your skills.

The list in this post offers a variety of fiction writing exercises, each dealing with one or more of the following: 

  • Sensory Description
  • Character Development
  • Emotions 
  • Poetry 

Since there’s plenty of room for overlap with these types, the list below doesn’t separate them. You can choose, though, to focus on one specific type for each exercise.

If you’re still wondering, “How do I start writing as an adult?” the answer is to do just that: start writing. We all have to start somewhere. The older you are when you begin, the more experiences you can draw from for your writing material. 

35 Writing Exercises for Adults 

What better way to get started and build a daily writing habit than with some easy writing exercises?

Look through the list below and start with the one that gets your mind immediately working on ideas. Don’t worry if those ideas quiet down the moment you begin.

Take a deep breath (or two) and write whatever comes to mind. 

1. Write up to ten emotions on as many strips of paper and put them in a container. Choose an object, and then pick out one of the pieces of paper. Write about the object from the perspective of a character feeling that emotion. Or write a journal entry for a character, expressing that emotion and explaining why they feel it. 

2. Start with a blank page and whatever is on your mind, and just write. This is a stream of consciousness exercise where you just let the thoughts pour onto the page without worrying about grammar , spelling, or technique. The point is to just get the words flowing without interruption. Choose the topic , and run with it.

3. Take one of your works in progress or a story you’ve enjoyed reading, and write from the perspective of one of its characters. It can be the protagonist, the chief antagonist, or anyone else. Get into the character’s head and write freely about the story or another character from their point of view. 

4. Choose a creative writing prompt for the day and write for a solid five minutes using whatever comes to mind. Don’t worry about how it sounds or whether you think it’s bestseller material. The point here isn’t to write something masterful; it’s to help you get used to writing without a filter. Editing is not part of this. 

5. Imagine you’ve gone back in time, and you have the opportunity to say something to your younger self. Write about how that encounter would go and what, if anything, you would say to warn them about a pivotal decision you remember making. Would you encourage them to choose differently? Or would you just be there for yourself?

6. Write a fake advertisement for a roommate, a job, a product of your own making, or whatever you want. Have fun with it. You can even advertise yourself, offering your services as a memoir writer , a food tester, an interior designer, or whatever. It doesn’t have to be something you’re good at. 

writing exercises for adults

7. Write a short blog post from the perspective of one of your story characters — or any character you choose from a TV series, a movie, or a story you’ve enjoyed reading. Write about something they’ve learned, something they want to do, or someone who’s on their mind a lot lately. 

8. Describe your ideal home office using as much sensory detail as possible. Include the color scheme, the decorating style and type of furniture, the smells from candles or fresh flowers, the taste of your favorite working beverage and/or snacks, and the tactile sensations you experience while working in that room. 

9. Pick a number between one and ten. Choose a book from your shelf and go to that number page and to that number line on the page. Use it as a prompt for a poem and take it in whatever direction you choose. Don’t worry about technique. Write the words that come as a sort of free association exercise.

10. Your character comes to you with a problem. Your job, for this exercise, is to keep asking the question, “Why?” and writing down whatever they give as their answer. If they get exasperated (and rude), you can go with that, too. Make the words fit your character. And don’t be afraid to go deep. 

11. Pretend you’re a talk show host, and your special guest is the protagonist or antagonist of a favorite story or your own work in progress. Record your conversation as a dialogue, and don’t be afraid to ask personal or challenging questions. Let your guest answer in a way that fits their character. 

12. You’ve gone to a party with a favorite story character, and they’ve had a bit too much to drink. What might they say or do when they’re less inhibited? Record a conversation you have with their drunken self or describe a scene they create while under the influence. And what are the consequences? 

13. Describe an unexpectedly romantic scene between two characters. Start with something mundane and have one of the characters say something unexpected — either from a sudden rush of emotion or because they’re distracted and not thinking about the words coming out. Write about what happens between them.

14. Write a detailed description of the room you’re in right now. What details stand out for you, and why do they matter? What would you change if you could? What can you do today or this week to make this room better for writing in? Or what do you love about this room that no other room has?

15. Your character steps through a portal into a place of your choosing. Describe it using words to set a particular mood . How does your character feel as they walk deeper into the scene? Are they afraid, curious, hungry, sad, or something else? And how does that emotion affect their perception of their surroundings? 

writing exercises for adults

16. Write a dialogue between two characters who keep misinterpreting each other’s words and nonverbal cues, thanks to their own distorted self-perception. Is one of them convinced the other finds them unattractive or annoying? Is the other trying to work up the nerve to ask them out? Add descriptions of body language. 

More Related Articles

75 Of The Best Fiction Writing Prompts For All Writers

47 Character Development Prompts To Flesh Out Your Book Characters

99 Fun Flash Fiction Writing Prompts

17. Use your phone or computer to record yourself talking about whatever is on your mind, e ither from your perspective or that of a favorite character. When you’ve done this for at least five minutes (set a timer), use the text-to-speech function to transcribe what you’ve recorded. 

18. Recall your text-to-speech exercise and pretend you’re taking down your thoughts (or your character’s thoughts) from mental dictation. Use a prompt, if it helps, and record their stream-of-consciousness thinking process without editing or filtering any of the content. Write exactly as you (or they) talk. 

19. Imagine you’ve just inherited or won a huge, life-changing sum of money, and you’re discussing it with someone close to you. What ideas do both of you have for its use? Do you disagree on how best to manage the money? Or are you both finally able to do something you’ve wanted to do — together or separately? 

20. Find the day’s Twitter #vss word prompt (140 characters or fewer) and write something using that word — a brief dialogue, a pivotal moment, a shocking advertisement, etc. Write as many as you like, and, if you have a Twitter account, share one with your followers, making sure to include #vss and other relevant tags.

21. Choose a character and write about something they’re ashamed of. How did they learn to be ashamed of it? Who in that character’s past contributed to that? And what could another character do to help them confront that shame and heal from it? What, if anything, does this character need to hear, admit, or do to overcome it?

22. If you or one of your characters becomes physically ill at the prospect of doing something or going somewhere , what’s causing this immediate onset of physical symptoms, and how exactly do they manifest? What could you or your character do to change the way you respond to this perceived threat?

23. Write a letter to yourself to read a year from now. Write as if you’ve accomplished all the things you want to do over the next 12 months. Describe how your life has changed and what you love about it. What changes have you made and undergone that you’re proud of? Where did you begin with the changes?

24. Write about a dialogue between you and an important person in your life. Add any sensory details and body language you remember. What emotions did you feel, and how did this conversation affect you? What did you realize that you expressed to the other person—or that you couldn’t put into words? 

25. Put yourself in a character’s shoes and write about the moment they realized they were in love with someone. What were they thinking and feeling in that moment? What did they do with those feelings? And how did it affect their next interaction with that person? Were they free to express what they were feeling? 

26. Find a small box and tape it securely shut. Let your imagination run loose and write about what’s in the box and why you can’t risk opening it (at least not until the time is right). Or write about what will happen when the box is opened and its contents revealed. What or whom are you protecting? 

27. Describe your perfect bedroom down to the smallest sensory detail. What do you love most about it—the colors, the bedding, the furniture, the closet, etc.? What descriptive words come to mind when you think of that space? Whom do you allow to enter that room (as long as you’re there and they knock first)? 

28. Create a timeline of important moments in a character’s life. What experiences shaped them as a person? What pivotal moments have contributed to the life they live now? What choices have they made that led them to where they are? How might you explain their biggest fears or characteristic tendencies? 

29. If you’re writing a story, describe a pivotal moment from the perspective of an outsider who witnessed that moment but is not part of the story . What do they notice that your characters do not? How do they interpret the situation since, as an outsider, they’re not privy to important background information? 

30. Take a character of your own making (or someone else’s) and put them through something that pushes their limits and deeply affects them, leaving them uncertain as to how to make sense of it. Show how it changes their perspective and their behavior from that point forward. 

31. Brainstorm a list of at least five ideas for something related to a story you’re writing: five surprising or defining facts about your main character, five things your antagonist would do to mess with your protagonist , five important details about your story’s setting, five ways your main character could get what they want, etc. 

32. Choose a book written by an author you admire and write about an important moment in your life using the voice from a particular character in that book (protagonist, villain, etc.). How would they express what they’re feeling or how they’re inclined to react? What would they do that you would not—or vice-versa?

33. Describe in detail the kind of relationship you want for yourself. Make a list of must-haves and of nice-to-have qualities in a partner. You can also pretend you’re writing a profile description for an online dating site. Or write a letter to your current or future partner about what you really want to have with them. 

34. Pick one of your characters and describe the best day of their life in detail. What made it their best day ever? When did it happen, and how? Have they tried to recreate that day more recently? And if so, how did it go? What (if anything) went wrong? Or what happened as an unintended consequence? 

35. Write down three random nouns, four adjectives, two verbs, and one adverb for a Mad Libs exercise. Now, write at least 500 words of a story that uses all ten of those words. It doesn’t have to make sense. In fact, the goofier, the better. This can be a self-contained story or the first chapter of a longer one. 

Now that you’ve looked through all 35 creative writing exercises, which ones stood out for you? And which one will you try today? The goal here is to get you so comfortable with writing it becomes second nature. 

You don’t need perfect; you just need to start somewhere. 

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Writers.com

Creative writing workshops can take your writing to the next level. The chance to experiment with your writing in a community is invaluable, and getting live feedback on your work will propel you through your writing career.

That said, there are plenty of writing workshops where writers get less than what they bargained for. Finding the right group of writers to workshop with is a slow process—no different than dating or finding a therapist. Where can you find the best online writing workshops for you?

Consider this your go-to guide for navigating the internet of adult writing workshops. We’ll talk about different workshopping models and how they might work for you, and we’ll also look at how to get the most from your fiction, nonfiction, and poetry writing workshops.

But first, we ought to define this particularly nebulous aspect of creative writing education. What is a writing workshop?

Looking for the best online writing workshops?

If you’re looking for the best online writing workshops, look no further. Writers.com has been running online creative writing workshops since 1995. View our upcoming calendar to view the best writing workshops for you!

You can also navigate our courses by category:

  • Short Story
  • Personal Essay
  • Lifestyle and Wellness
  • Single-Day Zoom Sessions

What is a Writing Workshop?

People use the phrase “writing workshop” differently in different contexts, although it’s a rather vague term that writers use inconsistently. Here are some common ways you might see the term used:

  • Online , a workshop is a complete writing course, including both lecture materials and opportunities for feedback from fellow students.
  • In universities and MFA programs , a workshop is the aspect of a writing workshop where students give feedback to one another to improve their writing overall.
  • At some online writing schools , a workshop is specifically a single-day Zoom-based workshop.

That said, “writing workshop” is a rather nebulous term that has a lot of applications. A workshop is any space where writers come to grow as writers. In short, a writing workshop is an open-ended term that describes different styles of creative writing education.

What is a writing workshop? An open-ended term that describes different styles of creative writing education.

For the purposes of this article, we are addressing multi-week online writing classes, as well as single-day webinars that have a workshopping component. Basically, we’re looking at any type of online learning space where students share their work, receive feedback, build new craft skills, and engage with a writing community.

Here’s what online writing workshops might look like, as well as tips for finding the best ones!

12 Things to Look For In the Best Online Creative Writing Workshops

Are you thinking about enrolling in a creative writing workshop? The best online writing workshops have these 12 things in common:

1. The Best Online Writing Workshops Have Well Respected Teachers

At most online writing schools, the instructor is the person who sets the syllabus, writes the workshop, and gives feedback to students. As a result, a good writing teacher makes all the difference in online writing workshops.

You want to be excited to learn from an instructor.

In addition to being a great writer and teacher, a great workshop instructor will be community-oriented, empathetic, and capable of tailoring their teaching to your writing needs.

Before you enroll in a writing workshop, do some research on the writer teaching it. Most professional writers and teachers will have a website, where you can peruse their work, degrees, and teaching history.

Some questions you might ask:

  • Does the instructor have a terminal degree? (M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D., etc.)
  • What do prior students say about this instructor?
  • Does the instructor have a significant publication history?

On terminal degrees—they’re not necessary for running good creative writing workshops. But, they do indicate a certain level of craft training and teaching experience. Many terminal degree programs require students to learn how to teach creative writing. While you don’t need an M.F.A or Ph.D. to publish or teach writing, they certainly help.

Most importantly: are you excited about this instructor’s work? Do you like it? Do you connect with it? You want to be excited to learn from an instructor. They’re not just teaching craft, they’re teaching you their approach to crafting good writing.

2. The Best Online Writing Workshops Have a Clear Description

Enrolling in creative writing workshops involves a certain level of trust. If you haven’t taken a class with the organization before, you might not know how they run their classes or what you’ll get out of working with them. Writing programs should honor their side of the bargain by telling you exactly what you’ll get from their writing workshops.

Writing programs should honor their side of the bargain by telling you exactly what you’ll get from their writing workshops.

The descriptions for online writing workshops should tell you the following:

  • What will you learn and write during the workshop?
  • Who’s teaching the workshop, and what have they accomplished?
  • How will your time be spent while taking the workshop?
  • Who is this for? At what stage of your writing should you be in?

It helps to know what you’re looking for from your workshop. If you have certain goals in mind or ways you want to grow as a writer, be clear about these goals, and don’t spend money on workshops that simply won’t fit your needs. (That said, it can also be fun to enroll in random workshops and learn new writing skills—you’d be surprised what you’ll learn from a class that has nothing to do with your projects.)

If the description of the writing workshop aligns with your goals and needs, it should be a good fit. And, if you’re on the fence, it never hurts to ask the program administrators before you enroll. They’ll be glad to hear from you!

3. The Best Online Writing Workshops Prioritize the Student

Creative writing workshops place your experience front and center. The goal of a workshop is to expand your learning, work, and writing journey. If a writing course doesn’t promise to uplift your writing life, why would you take it?

If a writing course doesn’t promise to uplift your writing life, why would you take it?

A good writing school will acknowledge the risk involved in taking an adult writing workshop. Since online schools can’t confer college credit, and since you probably haven’t interacted with the workshop instructor before, you’re spending your time and money on a program that you haven’t used before.

So, why wouldn’t that school prioritize you ? You want to be confident that your writing, your creativity, and your time will be valued, otherwise you’re wasting your money on an experience you hardly learned from.

Check to see if the program itself has a student promise before you enroll in their writing workshops. If it doesn’t seem like the school will center your learning and growth as a writer, don’t take the risk—there are plenty of other schools to choose from.

prioritizing the student in adult writing workshops

4. The Best Online Writing Workshops Give Constructive Feedback

The feedback you receive in creative writing workshops will often prove the most valuable aspect of the course. Because most workshops are run by writers with Masters or Doctoral degrees, they’ve spent a fair amount of time giving and receiving feedback in competitive and community settings. As a result, they know a ton about the craft skills that make for good literature, and they know how to transmit those skills to their students.

Most importantly, a good writing instructor will tell you what you’re doing well in your writing.

The feedback you receive in online writing workshops will vary by the scope of the workshops and the backgrounds of the instructors. You might receive feedback on:

  • Where the writing is effective
  • Word choice that isn’t clear to the reader
  • Ideas that can be expanded or shortened
  • Sentences that are too long or too short
  • Corrections in spelling and grammar
  • Opportunities to improve the writing structure
  • Feedback related to the elements of fiction , nonfiction, or poetry

Most importantly, a good writing instructor will tell you what you’re doing well in your writing. When you write a really great simile , have well developed characters , or find a moment of deep insight, your instructor will highlight this.

While it’s good to know what needs to be improved, writers can’t begin to improve until they also know what works in their poems and stories. This is how you build a foundation for good writing: start with what works, and sculpt from there. Writing workshops are the best spaces to build this foundation!

5. The Best Online Writing Workshops Focus on Craft

The best online writing workshops are centered around the craft of writing. Unlike English and composition classes, which focus on grammar, literacy, and the mechanics of language, creative writing workshops look at using these mechanics to write compelling, effective stories. And, in a writing workshop, you don’t just use the rules, you get to break them!

In a writing workshop, you don’t just use the rules, you get to break them.

The craft elements you focus on will vary based on the kind of course you’re in. If you’re taking poetry writing workshops, for example, you’ll focus on employing effective literary devices and studying different forms of poetry .

Likewise, in novel writing workshops, you might study elements like plot , point of view , and the art of storytelling .

Good writing workshops will break down great literature into the components that make it great, allowing you to read like a writer and employ these craft skills in your own work. And, learning the craft of creative writing helps you with everyday tasks, like sending emails or expanding your vocabulary.

6. The Best Online Writing Workshops Respect Your Creativity

The workshop is a space of unfettered creativity. Writers get to share their ideas, their experiences, and their creative, collaborative minds in the same space, making workshops the place to experiment with ideas. Of course, this is only possible if the workshop respects your creative authority.

We don’t “earn” the title of “writer,” we simply are writers, and a good writing course will uphold your integrity and creative vision, no matter where you are in your writing journey.

What does respect for your creative authority mean? It means that no one judges, criticizes, or condemns you for your writing and ideas. The best writing workshops will:

  • Help you explore your ideas, rather than impose ideas upon you.
  • Teach you the ropes of writing craft without telling you what to write.
  • Show you what you’re already doing well in your work.
  • Point out opportunities where the writing can be expanded, restructured, or clarified—in ways that help you carry out your creative vision.

Most importantly, this is true no matter how “new” you are to creative writing workshops . Whether you’ve submitted the first poem you’ve ever written or your thousandth, you deserve the same level of respect as everyone else in the room. We don’t “earn” the title of “writer,” we simply are writers, and a good writing course will uphold your integrity and creative vision, no matter where you are in your writing journey.

In a writing workshop, you may encounter many different ideas, but you also encounter the freedom to accept or reject those ideas. It’s your writing. You get the final say!

7. The Best Online Writing Workshops Create Community

What is a writing workshop without community? Writing can be a lonely practice, but a writing community makes all the difference. The best creative writing workshops foster a sense of community. In fact, many writers have come away from our courses with friends and writing partnerships that last for years and years!

A writing community can give you the motivation to create, the license to experiment, and the potential to learn even more about the craft of writing.

A writing community can give you the motivation to create, the license to experiment, and the potential to learn even more about the craft of writing. Because we all have very different literary backgrounds, we all have studied different authors and elements of the writing craft. When we write in a community, we naturally share what we’ve learned with one another, creating a culture of growth and inspiration.

Additionally, a strong writing community creates valuable feedback. When you write alongside people who know and enjoy your work, it is much easier to give and receive feedback, especially when these writers know what you’re trying to accomplish.

Many well-known authors throughout history have been a part of valuable writing communities, such as The Beat Poets, Stratford-on-Odeon, and these famous writing groups . Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and when you enroll in community-oriented online writing workshops, you foster the kinds of relationships and connections that can sustain your literary career.

community in creative writing workshops

8. The Best Online Writing Workshops Motivate You to Write

Because writing is often solitary, it can be hard to motivate yourself to get work done. Taking online writing workshops pushes you to put words on the page.

Sometimes, the biggest barrier is beginning, but creative writing workshops will spark your writing practice.

For one thing, these classes cost money, and when you’re spending money to write and learn about writing, you’re more likely to actually write and learn about writing.

But, it’s not just the monetary transaction that motivates writers in adult writing workshops. Your course might provide you with:

  • Creative writing prompts
  • Daily journaling assignments
  • Helpful revisions
  • Inspirational readings
  • Ideas to combat writer’s block
  • Different approaches to writing

Some writing workshops are even designed to motivate you, such as our class Write Your Novel! The Workshop With Jack . Sometimes, the biggest barrier is beginning, but creative writing workshops will spark your writing practice.

9. The Best Online Writing Workshops Jumpstart a Writing Habit

Because writing workshops require you to submit work every week, students will have to set up a consistent writing practice in order to meet these deadlines. Not only does this prepare you for your life as a published author (where deadlines are less flexible), but this also helps you master a key aspect of the writing life: a consistent writing habit.

To make the most of creative writing workshops, try to find time to write every day.

Writing every day isn’t just good advice, it’s essential to building a writing life. Writers who want to build careers out of their work, or at the very least publish books some day, will have to dedicate time every day to their work. When you engage with language each day, you build the skills necessary to write good books, and you also keep yourself creatively motivated. This is true especially for the days that are hardest to write on.

Of course, most of us lead very busy lives. How do we steal time as artists? Here are some ideas:

  • Write with your morning coffee.
  • Keep a journal on your phone during work and lunch breaks.
  • Write on your commute to and from work. If you’re driving, keep an audio journal, where you write by speaking into your phone’s recorder.
  • Write on your phone while running on the treadmill.
  • Put pen to paper while taking a bath.
  • Journal for 15 minutes before you go to bed.

These ideas won’t work for everyone, and it all depends on your schedule and lifestyle. Nonetheless, to make the most of creative writing workshops, try to find time to write every day. It’s best to write at the same time every day, but if your schedule doesn’t allow this, sneak time wherever you can. Balancing a career, a family, and a writing life isn’t easy, but when the work calls, you’ll find time to answer!

10. The Best Online Writing Workshops Broaden Your Literary Horizons

As writers, it’s important for us to know our literary history. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to read every piece of classic literature to start writing—in fact, many books published in the 19th century could never be published today.

If you want to publish your own work some day, it’s important to know what else is being published today.

But it does mean knowing the craft skills that went into both classic and contemporary books. It especially means having a sense of the contemporary literary zeitgeist. If you want to publish your own work some day, it’s important to know what else is being published today.

The best creative writing workshops broaden your literary horizons. When you read classic literature, you get a sense of the foundations of contemporary writing, and the ways that writers before us expanded the possibilities of literature as a whole. When you read contemporary literature, you get a sense of today’s publishing landscape and what people are looking for in the writings of today.

(If you plan to publish books by querying literary agents , reading contemporary work is crucial, because you need to have good comps in your query letter. Comps are books that have been published recently and are similar, in some ways, to your own.)

Now, this doesn’t mean you need to write like other authors. In fact, far from it. It’s better that you learn to write like yourself , because your most valuable asset as a writer is your voice. But, when you expand your literary horizons, you engage with literature and make decisions on what you do and don’t want to do in your work.

What do you like to read? What do you want to never read again? The more you read, the more you hone your own voice as a writer. Great writing workshops introduce you to literature that provokes these kinds of questions.

11. The Best Online Writing Workshops Provide a Creative Outlet

One of the best reasons to take online writing workshops is that they give you an outlet for feelings and creativity.

Writing workshops are a great supplement to a healthy writer’s life.

This is the result of the various reasons listed above for taking writing classes. By building community, creating a writing practice, and engaging with literature, you inevitably nourish your creativity. In doing so, you nurture a healthy space to explore your ideas and emotions—an essential aspect of any writer’s life.

Now, even the best online writing workshops can’t replace the benefits of therapy. We’re not saying you should ditch your therapist for a Writers.com class. But we are saying that writing workshops are a great supplement to a healthy writer’s life, because they create safe spaces for you to experiment with your work and explore your emotions freely on the page.

This is true even for writers of genre fiction or persona poetry. It’s true for participants in fiction writing workshops and memoir writing workshops. We gravitate to writing in part for its emotional release, and a great online class in creative writing will nurture this release. Between the prompts, community, and writing habits that a creative writing workshop fosters, you’re sure to come away from your workshop with renewed emotional health.

what is a writing workshop?

12. The Best Online Writing Workshops Provide Next Steps

The best creative writing workshops are the beginning of your writing life, not the end. When your workshop ends, you should come away with new ideas for writing, new publication opportunities to pursue, and new friends and mentors to nurture your writing journey.

The best creative writing workshops are the beginning of your writing life, not the end.

Throughout the workshop, you’ll find new opportunities for continuous growth. You might find a list of literary journals to submit to, new readings to stimulate your writing, further creative writing workshops to attend, or simply the emails and social media accounts of students you really enjoyed working with.

If you’re ready to move on to the next level of your writing, your instructor will provide you with next steps. And, if you want to learn more outside of the classroom, contact the instructor about this. We’re always excited by writers who want to keep learning and learning!

The Best Online Writing Workshops

Of course, we’re partial to our own workshops at Writers.com . Since 1995 we’ve offered the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book writing workshops around the internet, inspiring thousands of writers to embark on their writing journeys, find their voices, and get published.

We offer both single-day webinars and multi-week workshops in all genres, and also offer opportunities for private coaching with our instructors. If you’re looking for the best, you’ve already found it. Drop us a line if you have any questions!

Check out our full schedule of upcoming classes here.

In addition to Writers.com, here are some online writing workshops that we’ve found offer fantastic creative writing education:

  • Loft Literary
  • Brooklyn Poets
  • Creative Nonfiction

In Creative Writing Workshops…

You get to find great literature, meet fellow scribblers, build a writing habit, and, most importantly, take your writing journey to the next level. Why wait? Enroll in an online writing workshop today!

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Sean Glatch

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Thanks for the information it’s really enlightening

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So glad I found this writing site. I have more exploring to do. I’m sure I will be back.

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365 Creative Writing Prompts

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Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to help inspire you to write every single day! Use them for journaling, story starters, poetry, and more!

365 creative writing prompts

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If you want to become a better writer, the best thing you can do is practice writing every single day. Writing prompts are useful because we know sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about!

To help you brainstorm, we put together this list of 365 creative writing prompts to give you something to write about daily.

Want to Download these prompts?  I am super excited to announce due to popular demand we now have an ad-free printable version of this list of writing prompts available for just $5. The  printable version  includes a PDF as a list AND print-ready prompt cards. {And all the design source files you could ever need to customize any way you would like!}

Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to Inspire:

Whether you write short stories, poems, or like to keep a journal – these will stretch your imagination and give you some ideas for topics to write about!

1. Outside the Window : What’s the weather outside your window doing right now? If that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?

2. The Unrequited love poem: How do you feel when you love someone who does not love you back?

3. The Vessel: Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now.

4. Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?

5. Food: What’s for breakfast? Dinner? Lunch? Or maybe you could write a poem about that time you met a friend at a cafe.

6. Eye Contact: Write about two people seeing each other for the first time.

7. The Rocket-ship: Write about a rocket-ship on its way to the moon or a distant galaxy far, far, away.

rocket ship writing prompt

8. Dream-catcher : Write something inspired by a recent dream you had.

9. Animals: Choose an animal. Write about it!

10. Friendship: Write about being friends with someone.

11. Dragon : Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.

12. Greeting : Write a story or poem that starts with the word “hello” or another greeting.

13. The Letter: Write a poem or story using words from a famous letter or inspired by a letter someone sent you.

14. The Found Poem : Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines.

15. Eavesdropper : Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you’ve overheard.

16. Addict: Everyone’s addicted to something in some shape or form. What are things you can’t go without?

17. Dictionary Definition : Open up a dictionary to a random word. Define what that word means to you.

dictionary success

18. Cleaning: Hey, even writers and creative artists have to do housework sometimes. Write about doing laundry, dishes, and other cleaning activities.

19. Great Minds: Write  about someone you admire and you thought to have had a beautiful mind.

20. Missed Connections: If you go to Craigslist, there is a “Missed Connections” section where you can find some interesting storylines to inspire your writing.

21. Foreclosure : Write a poem or short story about someone who has lost or is about to lose their home.

22. Smoke, Fog, and Haze: Write about not being able to see ahead of you.

23. Sugar: Write something so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt.

24. Numbers:  Write a poem or journal entry about numbers that have special meaning to you.

25. Dread: Write about doing something you don’t want to do.

26. Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?

27. Closed Doors: What’s behind the door? Why is it closed?

creative writing practice online

28. Shadow: Imagine you are someone’s shadow for a day.

29. Good Vibes: What makes you smile? What makes you happy?

30. Shopping:  Write about your shopping wishlist and how you like to spend money.

31. The Professor: Write about a teacher that has influenced you.

32. Rewrite : Take any poem or short story you enjoy. Rewrite it in your own words.

33. Jewelry: Write about a piece of jewelry. Who does it belong to?

34. Sounds : Sit outside for about an hour. Write down the sounds you hear.

35. War and Peace: Write about a recent conflict that you dealt with in your life.

36. Frame It: Write a poem or some phrases that would make for good wall art in your home.

37. Puzzle: Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles.

38. Fire-starters: Write about building a fire.

39. Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!

40. Car Keys: Write about someone getting their driver’s license for the first time.

41. What You Don’t Know: Write about a secret you’ve kept from someone else or how you feel when you know someone is keeping a secret from you.

42. Warehouse : Write about being inside an old abandoned warehouse.

warehouse writing prompt

43. The Sound of Silence: Write about staying quiet when you feel like shouting.

44. Insult: Write about being insulted. How do you feel? Why do you think the other person insulted you?

45. Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you? What might the mirror say?

46. Dirty: Write a poem about getting covered in mud.

47. Light Switch : Write about coming out of the dark and seeing the light.

48. The Stars : Take inspiration from a night sky. Or, write about a time when “the stars aligned” in your horoscope.

writing prompt star idea

49. Joke Poem : What did the wall say to the other wall? Meet you at the corner! Write something inspired by a favorite joke.

50. Just Say No : Write about the power you felt when you told someone no.

51: Sunrise/Sunset : The sun comes up, the sun goes down. It goes round and round. Write something inspiring about the sunrise or sunset.

52. Memory Lane : What does Memory Lane look like? How do you get there?

53. Tear-Jerker : Watch a movie that makes you cry. Write about that scene in the movie.

54. Dear Diary: Write a poem or short story about a diary entry you’ve read or imagined.

55. Holding Hands : The first time you held someone’s hand.

56. Photograph : Write a story or journal entry influenced by a photograph you see online or in a magazine.

57. Alarm Clock: Write about waking up.

58. Darkness: Write a poem or journal entry inspired by what you can’t see.

59. Refreshed: Write a poem about a time you really felt refreshed and renewed. Maybe it was a dip into a pool on a hot summer day, a drink of lemonade, or other situation that helped you relax and start again.

60. Handle With Care : Write about a very fragile or delicate object.

61. Drama: Write about a time when you got stuck in between two parties fighting with each other.

62. Slip Up: Write about making mistakes.

63. Spice: Write about flavors and tastes or a favorite spice of yours.

64. Sing a New Song: Take a popular song off the radio and rewrite it as a poem in your own words.

65. Telephone: Write about a phone call you recently received.

66. Name: Write a poem or short story using your name in some way or form.

67. Dollhouse: Write a poem or short story from the viewpoint of someone living in a doll house.

68. Random Wikipedia Article : Go to Wikipedia and click on Random Article . Write about whatever the page you get.

69. Silly Sports: Write about an extreme or silly sport. If none inspire you, make up the rules for your own game.

70. Recipe : Write about a recipe for something abstract, such as a feeling.

71. Famous Artwork: Choose a famous painting and write about it.

72. Where That Place Used to Be : Think of a place you went to when you were younger but it now no longer there or is something else. Capture your feelings about this in your writing.

73. Last Person You Talked to: Write a quick little poem or story about the last person you spoke with.

74. Caught Red-Handed: Write about being caught doing something embarrassing.

75. Interview: Write a list of questions you have for someone you would like to interview, real or fictional.

76. Missing You: Write about someone you miss dearly.

77. Geography: Pick a state or country you’ve never visited. Write about why you would or would not like to visit that place.

geography writing prompt

78. Random Song: Turn on the radio, use the shuffle feature on your music collection or your favorite streaming music service. Write something inspired by the first song you hear.

79. Hero: Write a tribute to someone you regard as a hero.

80. Ode to Strangers: Go people watching and write an ode to a stranger you see on the street.

81. Advertisement: Advertisements are everywhere, aren’t they? Write using the slogan or line from an ad.

82. Book Inspired: Think of your favorite book. Now write a poem that sums up the entire story in 10 lines.

83. Magic : Imagine you have a touch of magic, and can make impossible things happen. What would you do?

84. Fanciest Pen: Get out your favorite pen, pencils, or even colored markers and write using them!

85. A Day in the Life: Write about your daily habits and routine.

86. Your Muse: Write about your muse – what do they look like? What does your muse do to inspire you?

87. Convenience Store : Write about an experience you’ve had at a gas station or convenience store.

88. Natural Wonders of the World: Choose one of the natural wonders of the world. Write about it.

89. Status Update: Write a poem using the words from your latest status update or a friend’s status update. If you don’t use sites like Facebook or Twitter, you can often search online for some funny ones to use as inspiration.

90. Green Thumb: Write about growing something.

91. Family Heirloom: Write about an object that’s been passed through the generations in your family.

92. Bug Catcher: Write about insects.

93. Potion: Write about a magic potion. What is it made of? What does it do? What is the antidote?

94. Swinging & Sliding: Write something inspired by a playground or treehouse.

95. Adjectives: Make a list of the first 5 adjectives that pop into your head. Use these 5 words in your story, poem, or journal entry.

96. Fairy Tales: Rewrite a fairy tale. Give it a new ending or make it modern or write as a poem.

97. Whispers: Write about someone who has to whisper a secret to someone else.

98. Smile: Write a poem about the things that make you smile.

99. Seasonal: Write about your favorite season.

100.  Normal: What does normal mean to you? Is it good or bad to be normal?

101. Recycle : Take something you’ve written in the past and rewrite it into a completely different piece.

102. Wardrobe: Write about a fashion model or what’s currently in your closet or drawers.

103. Secret Message : Write something with a secret message hidden in between the words. For example, you could make an acrostic poem using the last letters of the word or use secret code words in the poem.

104. Vacation: Write about a vacation you took.

105. Heat: Write about being overheated and sweltering.

106. Spellbinding: Write a magic spell.

107. Collection : Write about collecting something, such as salt shakers, sea shells, or stamps.

108. Taking Chances: Everyone takes a risk at some point in their life. Write about a time when you took a chance and what the result was.

109. Carnival: Write a poem or story or journal entry inspired by a carnival or street fair.

110. Country Mouse: Write about someone who grew up in the country visiting the city for the first time.

111: Questions: Write about questions you have for the universe. Optional: include an answer key.

112. Rushing: Write about moving quickly and doing things fast.

113. Staircase : Use a photo of a staircase or the stairs in your home or a building you love to inspire you.

114. Neighbors: Make up a story or poem about your next door neighbor.

115. Black and Blue: Write about a time you’ve been physically hurt.

116. All Saints: Choose a saint and create a poem about his or her life.

117. Beach Inspired: What’s not to write about the beach?

118. Shoes: What kind of shoes do you wear? Where do they lead your feet?

119. The Ex: Write a poem to someone who is estranged from you.

120. My Point of View: Write in the first person point of view.

121. Stray Animal: Think of the life of a stray cat or dog and write about that.

122. Stop and Stare : Create a poem or story about something you could watch forever.

123. Your Bed: Describe where you sleep each night.

124. Fireworks : Do they inspire you or do you not like the noise and commotion? Write about it.

125. Frozen: Write about a moment in your life you wish you could freeze and preserve.

126. Alone : Do you like to be alone or do you like having company?

127. Know-it-all: Write about something you are very knowledgeable about, for example a favorite hobby or passion of yours.

128. The Promise: Write about a promise you’ve made to someone. Did you keep that promise?

129. Commotion: Write about being overstimulated by a lot of chaos.

130. Read the News Today : Construct a poem or story using a news headline for your first line.

131. Macro: Write a description of an object close-up.

132. Transportation : Write about taking your favorite (or least-favorite) form of transportation.

133. Gadgets: If you could invent a gadget, what would it do? Are there any gadgets that make your life easier?

134: Bring on the Cheese: Write a tacky love poem that is so cheesy, it belongs on top of a pizza.

135. Ladders: Write a story or poem that uses ladders as a symbol.

136. Bizarre Holiday : There is a bizarre holiday for any date! Look up a holiday for today’s date and create a poem in greeting card fashion or write a short story about the holiday to celebrate.

137. Blog-o-sphere : Visit your favorite blog or your feedreader and craft a story, journal entry, or poem based on the latest blog post you read.

138. Mailbox: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry based on a recent item of mail you’ve received.

139. Sharing : Write about sharing something with someone else.

140. Cactus: Write from the viewpoint of a cactus. What’s it like to live in the desert or have a prickly personality?

141. It’s a Sign : Have you seen any interesting road signs lately?

142. Furniture: Write about a piece of furniture in your home.

143. Failure: Write about a time you failed at something. Did you try again or give up completely?

144. Mystical Creatures: Angels or other mystical creatures – use them as inspiration.

145. Flying: Write about having wings and what you would do.

146. Clear and Transparent: Write a poem about being able to see-through something.

147. Break the Silence : Record yourself speaking, then write down what you spoke and revise into a short story or poem.

148. Beat: Listen to music with a strong rhythm or listen to drum loops. Write something that goes along with the beat you feel and hear.

149. Color Palette: Search online for color palettes and be inspired to write by one you resonate with.

150. Magazine: Randomly flip to a page in a magazine and write using the first few words you see as an opening line.

151. The Grass is Greener : Write about switching the place with someone or going to where it seems the “grass is greener”.

152. Mind & Body: Write something that would motivate others to workout and exercise.

153. Shaping Up : Write something that makes a shape on the page…ie: a circle, a heart, a square, etc.

154. Twenty-One: Write about your 21st birthday.

155. Aromatherapy: Write about scents you just absolutely love.

156. Swish, Buzz, Pop : Create a poem that uses Onomatopoeia .

157. What Time is It? Write about the time of day it is right now. What are people doing? What do you usually do at this time each day?

158. Party Animal: Have you ever gone to a party you didn’t want to leave? Or do you hate parties? Write about it!

159: Miss Manners : Use the words “please” and “thank you” in your writing.

160. Cliche: Choose a common cliche, then write something that says the same thing but without using the catch phrase.

161. Eco-friendly : Write about going green or an environmental concern you have.

162. Missing You: Write about someone you miss.

163. Set it Free: Think of a time when you had to let someone or something go to be free…did they come back?

164: Left Out : Write about a time when you’ve felt left out or you’ve noticed someone else feeling as if they didn’t belong.

165. Suitcase: Write about packing for a trip or unpacking from when you arrive home.

creative writing practice online

166. Fantasy : Write about fairies, gnomes, elves, or other mythical creatures.

167. Give and Receive : Write about giving and receiving.

168. Baker’s Dozen: Imagine the scents and sights of a bakery and write.

169. Treehouse: Write about your own secret treehouse hideaway.

170.  Risk: Write about taking a gamble on something.

171. Acrostic : Choose a word and write an acrostic poem where every line starts with a letter from the word.

172. Crossword Puzzle: Open up the newspaper or find a crossword puzzle online and choose one of the clues to use as inspiration for your writing.

173. Silver Lining : Write about the good that happens in a bad situation.

174. Gloves: Write about a pair of gloves – what kind of gloves are they? Who wears them and why?

175. All that Glitters: Write about a shiny object.

176. Jealousy: Write with a theme of envy and jealousy.

Want to Download these prompts?  I am super excited to announce due to popular demand we now have an ad-free printable version of this list of writing prompts available for just $5. The  printable version  includes a PDF as a list AND print-ready prompt cards. {And all the design source files you could ever need to customize any way you would like!}

177. How Does Your Garden Grow? Write about a flower that grows in an unusual place.

178. Jury Duty : Write a short story or poem that takes place in a courtroom.

179. Gifts: Write about a gift you have given or received.

180. Running: Write about running away from someone or something.

181. Discovery: Think of something you’ve recently discovered and use it as inspiration.

182. Complain:  Write about your complaints about something.

183. Gratitude: Write a poem or journal entry that is all about things you are thankful for.

184. Chemistry: Choose an element and write a poem or story that uses that word in one of the lines.

185. Applause: Write about giving someone a standing ovation.

186. Old Endings Into New Beginnings:  Take an old poem, story, or journal entry of yours and use the last line and make it the first line of your writing today.

187. Longing: Write  about something you very much want to do.

188. I Am: Write a motivational poem or journal entry about positive traits that make you who you are.

189. Rainbow : What is at the end of a rainbow? Or, take a cue from Kermit the Frog, and ask yourself, why are there so many songs about rainbows?

end of the rainbow writing idea

190. Museum: Take some time to visit a nearby museum with your journal. Write about one of the pieces that speaks to you.

191. Cartoon: Think of your favorite cartoon or comic. Write a poem or story that takes place in that setting.

192. Copycat: Borrow a line from a famous public domain poem to craft your own.

193. From the Roof-tops:  Imagine you could stand on a rooftop and broadcast a message to everyone below – what would you say?

194. Time Travel: If there was a time period you could visit for a day, where would you go? Write about traveling back in time to that day.

195. Changing Places: Imagine living the day as someone else.

196. Neighborhood: Write about your favorite place in your neighborhood to visit and hang out at.

197. Pirates: Write about a pirate ship.

198. Interview : Write based on a recent interview you’ve read or seen on TV or heard on the radio.

199.  Hiding Spaces : Write about places you like to hide things at. What was a favorite hiding spot for you as a child playing hide-and-seek?

200. Extreme Makeover: Imagine how life might be different if you could change your hair color or clothing into something completely opposite from your current style.

201. Empathy: Write about your feelings of empathy or compassion for another person.

202. Opposites: Write a poem or story that ties in together two opposites.

203. Boredom: Write about being bored or make a list of different ways to entertain yourself.

204. Strength : Think of a time when you’ve been physically or emotionally strong and use that as inspiration.

205. Hunger: Write from the perspective of someone with no money to buy food.

206. Greed: Write about someone who always wants more – whether it be money, power, etc. etc.

207. Volcano: Write about an eruption of a volcano.

208. Video Inspiration : Go to Vimeo.com or YouTube.com and watch one of the videos featured on the homepage. Write something based on what you watch.

209. Sneeze: Write about things that make you sneeze.

210. Footsteps on the Moon:  Write about the possibility of life in outer-space.

211: Star-crossed: Write a short modern version of the story of Romeo and Juliet or think of real-life examples of lovers who are not allowed to be together to use as inspiration for your writing.

212. Font-tastic: Choose a unique font and type out a poem, story or journal entry using that font.

213. Schedule: Take a look at your calendar and use the schedule for inspiration in writing.

214. Grandparents: Write about a moment in your grandparent’s life.

215. Collage: Go through a magazine and cut out words that grab your attention. Use these words to construct a poem or as a story starter or inspiration for your journal.

216. Oh so Lonely: Write a poem about what you do when you are alone – do you feel lonely or do you enjoy your own company?

217. Waterfall: Think of a waterfall you’ve seen in person or spend some time browsing photos of waterfalls online. Write about the movement, flow, and energy.

218. First Kiss: Write about your first kiss.

219. So Ironic: Write about an ironic situation you’ve been in throughout your life.

220. Limerick: Write a limerick today.

221. Grocery Shopping: Write about an experience at the grocery store.

daily writing prompt ideas

222. Fashion : Go through a fashion magazine or browse fashion websites online and write about a style you love.

223. So Close: Write about coming close to reaching a goal.

224. Drinks on Me: Write a poem or short story that takes place at a bar.

225. Online Friends: Write an ode to someone online you’ve met and become friends with.

226. Admiration: Is there someone you admire? Write about those feelings.

227. Trash Day: Write from the perspective of a garbage collector.

228. Mailbox: Open your mailbox and write something inspired by one of the pieces of mail you received.

229. Fresh & Clean: Write about how you feel after you take a shower.

230. Energized: Write about how you feel when you’re either at a high or low energy level for the day.

231. Rhyme & No Reason: Make up a silly rhyming poem using made up words.

232. Tech Support: Use computers or a conversation with tech support you’ve had as inspiration.

233. Hotel: Write from the perspective of someone who works at a hotel or staying at a hotel.

234. Underwater: Write about sea creatures and under water life. What’s under the surface of the ocean? What adventures might be waiting?

underwater life picture

235. Breathing: Take a few minutes to do some deep breathing relaxation techniques. Once your mind is clear, just write the first few things that you think of.

236. Liar, Liar: Make up a poem or story of complete lies about yourself or someone else.

237. Obituaries: Look at the recent obituaries online or in the newspaper and imagine the life of someone and write about that person.

238. Pocket: Rummage through your pockets and write about what you keep or find in your pockets.

239. Cinquain: Write a cinquain poem, which consists of 5 lines that do not rhyme.

240. Alphabetical: Write a poem that has every letter of the alphabet in it.

241.  Comedy Club: Write something inspired by a comedian.

242. Cheater: Write about someone who is unfaithful.

243. Sestina: Give a try to writing a sestina poem.

244. Fight: Write about witnessing two people get in an argument with each other.

245. Social Network : Visit your favorite Social Networking website (ie: Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Twitter, etc.) and write a about a post you see there.

246. Peaceful: Write about something peaceful and serene.

247. In the Clouds: Go cloud watching for the day and write about what you imagine in the clouds.

248. At the Park: Take some time to sit on a park bench and write about the sights, scenes, and senses and emotions you experience.

249. Sonnet: Write a sonnet today.

250. Should, Would, And Could: Write a poem or story using the words should, would, and could.

251. How to: Write directions on how to do something.

252. Alliteration: Use alliteration in your poem or in a sentence in a story.

253. Poker Face: Write about playing a card game.

254. Timer: Set a timer for 5 minutes and just write. Don’t worry about it making sense or being perfect.

255. Dance: Write about a dancer or a time you remember dancing.

256. Write for a Cause: Write a poem or essay that raises awareness for a cause you support.

257. Magic : Write about a magician or magic trick.

258. Out of the Box: Imagine finding a box. Write about opening it and what’s inside.

259. Under the Influence: What is something has impacted you positively in your life?

260. Forgotten Toy : Write from the perspective a forgotten or lost toy.

261. Rocks and Gems: Write about a rock or gemstone meaning.

262. Remote Control: Imagine you can fast forward and rewind your life with a remote control.

263. Symbolism: Think of objects, animals, etc. that have symbolic meaning to you. Write about it.

264. Light at the End of the Tunnel: Write about a time when you saw hope when it seemed like a hopeless situation.

265. Smoke and Fire : “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Use this saying as inspiration to write!

266. Railroad: Write about a train and its cargo or passengers.

creative writing practice online

267. Clipboard: Write about words you imagine on an office clipboard.

268. Shipwrecked: Write about being stranded somewhere – an island, a bus stop, etc.

269. Quotable: Use a popular quote from a speaker and use it as inspiration for your writing.

270. Mind   Map it Out: Create a mind map of words, phrases, and ideas that pop into your head or spend some time browsing the many mind maps online. Write a poem, story, or journal entry inspired by the mind map.

271. Patterns : Write about repeating patterns that occur in life.

272. Scrapbook : Write about finding a scrapbook and the memories it contains.

273. Cure: Write about finding a cure for an illness.

274. Email Subject Lines: Read your email today and look for subject lines that may be good starters for writing inspiration.

275. Wishful Thinking: Write about a wish you have.

276. Doodle : Spend some time today doodling for about 5-10 minutes. Write about the thoughts you had while doodling or create something inspired by your finished doodle.

277. Chalkboard: Imagine you are in a classroom. What does it say on the chalkboard?

278. Sticky: Imagine a situation that’s very sticky, maybe even covered in maple syrup, tape or glue. Write about it!

279. Flashlight : Imagine going somewhere very dark with only a flashlight to guide you.

280. A Far Away Place : Envision yourself traveling to a fictional place, what do you experience in your imaginary journey?

281. On the Farm : Write about being in a country or rural setting.

282. Promise to Yourself: Write about a promise you want to make to yourself and keep.

283. Brick Wall : Write a poem that is about a brick wall – whether literal or figurative.

284. Making a Choice: Write about a time when you had to make a difficult choice.

285.  Repeat: Write about a time when you’ve had to repeat yourself or a time when it felt like no one was listening.

286. Outcast : Write about someone who is not accepted by their peers. (for example, the Ugly Ducking)

287. Scary Monsters: Write about a scary (or not-so-scary) monster in your closet or under the bed.

288. Sacrifice: Write about something you’ve sacrificed doing to do something else or help another person.

289. Imperfection: Create a poem that highlights the beauty in being flawed.

290. Birthday Poem: Write a poem inspired by birthdays.

291. Title First : Make a list of potential poem or story titles and choose one to write from.

292. Job Interview : Write about going on a job interview.

293. Get Well : Write a poem that will help someone who is sick feel better quick!

294. Lost in the Crowd: Write about feeling lost in the crowd.

295. Apple a Day: Write about a health topic that interests you.

296. Cravings: Write about craving something.

297. Phobia: Research some common phobias, choose one, and write about it.

298. In the Moment: Write about living in the present moment.

299. Concrete : Write about walking down a sidewalk and what you see and experience.

300. Battle: Write about an epic battle, whether real, fictional or figurative.

301. This Old House : Write about an old house that is abandoned or being renovated.

302. Clutter: Is there a cluttered spot in your home? Go through some of that clutter today and write about what you find or the process of organizing.

303. Go Fly a Kite: Write about flying a kite.

304. On the TV: Flip to a random TV channel and write about the first thing that comes on – even if it is an infomercial!

305. Fruit: Write an ode to your favorite fruit.

306. Long Distance Love: Write about a couple that is separated by distance.

307. Glasses: Write about a pair of eyeglasses or someone wearing glasses.

308. Robotic : Write about a robot.

309. Cute as a Button: Write about something you think is just adorable.

310. Movie Conversation: Use a memorable conversation from a favorite movie to inspire your writing.

311. Easy-Peasy : Write  about doing something effortlessly.

312. Idiom: Choose from a list of idioms one that speaks to you and create a poem around that saying or phrase. (Ie: It is raining cats and dogs)

313. Playground: Whether it is the swings or the sandbox or the sliding boards, write about your memories of being on a playground.

314. Romance: Write about romantic things partners can do for each other.

315. Rock Star: Imagine you are a famous rock star. Write about the experience.

rock star life

316. Come to Life: Imagine ordinary objects have come to life. Write about what they do and say.

317. Airplane: Write about meeting someone on an airplane and a conversation you might have.

318. Health & Beauty: Take some time to peruse your medicine cabinet or the health and beauty aisles at a local store. Write a poem, short story, or journal entry inspired by a product label.

319. Determination: Write about not giving up.

320. Instrumental Inspiration: Listen to some instrumental music and write a poem that matches the mood, beat, and style of the music.

321. Wait Your Turn: Write about having to wait in line.

322. Personality Type : Do you know your personality type? (There are many free quizzes online) – write about what type of personality traits you have.

323. Decade: Choose a favorite decade and write about it. (IE: 1980’s or 1950’s for example)

324. I Believe: Write your personal credo of things you believe in.

325. Lost and Found: Write about a lost object.

326. Say it: Write a poem or story that uses dialogue between two people.

327. The Unsent Letter: Write about a letter that never made it to its recipient.

328. The Windows of the Soul: Write a poem about the story that is told through someone’s eyes.

329. Trial and Error: Write about something you learned the hard way.

330. Escape : Write about where you like to go to escape from it all.

331. What’s Cooking: Write something inspired a favorite food or recipe.

332. Records : Go through your file box and pull out old receipts or records…write something inspired by what you find!

333. Banking: Write about visiting the bank.

334. Sweet Talk: Write about trying to convince someone of something.

335. Serendipity: Write about something that happened by chance in a positive way.

336. Distractions: Write about how it feels when you can’t focus.

337. Corporation: Write about big business.

338. Word of the Day: Go to a dictionary website that has a word of the day and use it in a poem, story or journal entry you write.

339. Pick Me Up:  What do you do when you need a pick me up?

340. Unfinished: Write about a project you started but never completed.

341. Forgiveness: Write about a time when someone forgave you or you forgave someone.

342. Weakness: Write about your greatest weakness.

343. Starting: Write about starting a project.

344. Mechanical: Think of gears, moving parts, machines.

345. Random Act of Kindness : Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone or someone has done for you, no matter how small or insignificant it may have seemed.

346. Underground: Imagine living in a home underground and use that as inspiration for writing.

347. Classic Rock: Pick a classic rock love ballad and rewrite it into a story or poem with a similar theme.

348. Night Owl : Write about staying up late at night.

349. Magnetic : Write about attraction to something or someone.

350. Teamwork: Write about working with a team towards a common goal.

351. Roller-coaster : Write about the ups and downs in life.

352. Motivational Poster: Look at some motivational posters online and write a poem or journal entry inspired by your favorite one.

353. Games: Write about the games people play – figuratively or literally.

chess game story starter

354. Turning Point: Write about a point in life where things turned for the better or worse.

355. Spellbound: Write about a witch’s spell.

356. Anniversary: Write about the anniversary of a special date.

357. Gamble:  Be inspired by a casino or lottery ticket.

358. Picnic: Write about going on a picnic.

359. Garage: Write about some random item you might find in a garage.

360. Review: Review your week, month, or year in a journal entry or poem format.

361. Detective: Write about a detective searching for clues or solving a mystery.

362. Camera: Take your camera for a walk and write based on one of the photographs you take.

363. Visiting : Write about visiting a family member or friend.

364. Trust: Write about putting trust in someone.

365. Congratulations : Did you write a poem, short story, or journal entry every day for a whole year? Write about what you’ve learned and celebrate your achievement!

We hope you enjoy these creative writing prompts! And of course, if you write anything using these prompts, we’d love to know about it! Tell us how you’ll use these everyday creative writing prompts in the comments section below!

And of course, if you’d like the printable ad-free version of these prompts to reference again and again or to use in your classroom, you can find them at our Etsy shop !

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Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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191 comments.

I have been on a reading binge since being on vacation from school. By rereading Little House, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women among others, one wonders about writing a book. I stumbled across this while looking up unit supplements for my kiddos, and thought, hey, write a page a day and see what happens! Thank you for this collection of prompts! I’ve linked back to this page several times so others can try their hand at writing. Thank you again!

The Flicker, The Teeth, and A Warehouse in the Dark (the warehouse prompt)

I am in a large abandoned warehouse with a flickering light The only light in the whole room. It flickered leaving me in temporal darkness It flickered again and as it was dark I swore I saw something glowing It looked like glowing teeth The lights return and I see nothing Flickers on Flickers off I see the teeth closer Flickers on I see nothing Flickers off The teeth so close Flickers on An empty warehouse Flickers off The glowing teeth are inchings away bright red blood drips from their tips Flickers on Panic rises in my chest but nothing is there Turns off The mouth of bloody teeth is before my eyes I wait for the light to flicker back on I wait in complete darkness I wait And wait And wait The teeth open wide I try to scream by the darkness swallows it A hear the crunch of my bones I see my blood pore down my chest But I wait in darkness for the pain I wait And wait And wait The mouth of teeth devours my lower half I wait for pain and death I wait And wait And wait The light flickers on I see no monster Only my morphed body And blood And blood And blood And so much blood The light flickers off The monster eats my arm Flickers on I wait for pain Flickers off I watch as the creature eats my limbs Flickers on I wait for death Flickers off Slowly the teeth eat my head All I see is dark I wait for it to flicker on Where is the warehouse light? Where is the only light in the room? Where is the flicker? Where am I? Where are the bloody teeth? I wait for the light to come back And wait And wait And wait And wait And wait And wait And wait in eternal darkness

WOW. Thank you!

This is such a helpful tool! I’ve learned a lot about my self through picking a random prompt and writing the first thing that comes to mind. I’d love to see a follow up list of possible! Definitely a recomended sight!

I agree. Very helpful.

I am new at the blogging game. You have provided some wonderful ideas for blog posts. Great ideas just to get used to writing every day. Thanks

This list is really impressive and useful for those of us who are looking for good topics to blog about. Thanks!

Thank you! That somes in handy

Very nice list. Thanks for compiling and posting it. It’s not only good for bloggers, but poets, as well.

yess im using it for my new years resolution, which is to write a poem daily!

Wow, thanks so much for all these wonderful prompts! They are lots of fun and very helpful. I love how you’ve provided 365 of them–A prompt for every day of the year! 🙂

Not if it’s a leap year…

Haha. Yea. This is great though all the same.. ;-;

Lol actually there’s 364 days in a year and 365 in a leap year so……yeah

are you fucking stupid

There are actually 366 days in a leap year so… yeah

I use this for my homeschooling-I love it! Thank you so much!! This is a wonderful list. So creative! 🙂 🙂

Thanks! I’m preparing for writing every day next year and this will come in really handy. It’s just 364 writing prompts though. 164 is missing. 😉

MiMschi is wrong 164 is there i looked

I think they meant that as a joke, 164 is called left out…

Good it is useful

no its not you nonce

You Don’t Love Me, Damn You

things left unsaid

and then some

anger strangles the baby

in its crib,

flowers wilt,

rivers dry up

harsh words clatter upon the day,

echo unfortunately

till silence smothers

in its embrace

you wish you could take it back

what’s done is done

never to be undone

though things move on

part of you remains

locked in the middle of protesting

one last thing,

mouth open,

no words emerging

why must you be misunderstood?

why must everything you say

no way of straightening things out

gestures halted mid-air

an accusatory finger

shoulders locked

in sardonic shrug

dishes smash on the floor

spray of fragments

frozen mid-air

slam the door

it doesn’t open

but in spite of yourself

you turn and look

one last time…..

(Greg Cameron, Poem, Surrey, B.C., Canada)

Love these. Thank you!

This is really amazingly deep. I love it so much. You have so much talent!!

Thanks SOOO much for the prompts but I have another suggestion!

A Recipe for disaster- write a recipe for a disastrous camping trip…

that one sounds awesome.

Haha. Reminds me of the old twin’s show.. what was it.. where the two girls switch places when they meet at camp?

Pretty sure I know what you’re talking about. The Parent Trap, right? Never seen the whole movie, but it seems funny.

and also #309, everyone should have thought of a hamster “write” away XD!

May I have permission to use this list at my next Ozarks Chapter of the American Christian Writers meeting. Thank you for consideration.

Hi Leah, please send some more info here: https://thinkwritten.com/contact

i am using it for my homeschooling and i love it

i am using it for my homeschooling

where is prompt 165?

sorry I meant 164, my mistake.

well kay, there is a 164 AND 165. So your head is clearly ????????????

What I like most about these is how you can combine them and get really weird ideas. For example, empathy from the rooftops: what if you shouted something positive in public every day – or if everyone did so? It might be fun to try, and then write a diary about it. Online time travel: if people could live virtually in incredibly well=constructed versions of different time periods, what would the effects be on today’s society? Could it change our language or customs?

It would be cool if we could have goggles that showed places during a certain time period. Like Seattle 1989. And you could buy special plugins, like specific people you want to hang out with, famous or non.

That one about online time travel is crazy brilliant!!! And highly thought-provoking.

It is amazing what creative writing could do to you. Daily prompts have proven to be very inspiring and overtime writers develop their own style of writing depending on how passionate they are about it. I would love to write about all 3, online, space, and time travel. cheers! and Don’t stop writing!

I belong to a writing club. We seem to have a lot of prompts to use. I love stories having to do with rain. Would you join me. I am jim

Wow! Inspiration right here.

May I use this list for a speech at my Ozarks Chapter of the American Christian Writers?

Love the inspiration

THANK YOU. THAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS THANK YOU.

What about a leap year? You’re missing one topic.

Wonderful! I love writing and these prompts are very helpful. Thank you very much! ♥

It’s been really useful in getting me to write again! Thank you very much!

I really love the list of writing ideas you have compiled here. I will be using it and others to get myself back into writing every single day if I can be away with it. Also, I have noticed a few problems with this list. One is a repeat topic. Those are numbers 76 and 162. And you skipped a number. And have only 364 days of writing. Still through! All these ideas are absolutely amazing and awesome ideas! I commend you for putting it all together in an easy to read format too. Thank you so very much.

I think we have the list all fixed now, but thanks for catching a couple of early mistakes!

Thank you for helping me edit Lora! I don’t always have a second pair of eyes + appreciated this to fix + update the post! I always say my readers are my best editors. 🙂

these days get brighter, mine gets darker, why does it has to be me , why not life.

Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you?

u r awesome man

Wonderful compilation of ideas! I will send your blog along to my many Creative Writing students. I’m enjoying reading your posts.

wow!! great tips! but how long did it take you to write that? its a lot of words!! lol great stuff though..

This is so cool! I love these prompts and will definitely recommend some to my teacher!!

The promise “I made a promise with my best friend, I said i’d never break, Our personalities really did blend, But then I lied awake, The people disappearing, Her gaze was always leering. I never thought she was serious, I always took it as a joke, But it really made me curious, When she was digging around that oak, My best friend is a serial killer, And i knew the truth, My life turned into a thriller, And eating at me took away my youth, I couldn’t take it any long living with this weight, To the police I went to tell my tale, Looking at me with eyes of hate, she smiled and said, without her I would fail. Now i sit in the prison cell, Waiting for my call My friend across the room smiling, my eyes begin to swell, My neck snapping on the, from my sides my hands fall

Although my writing style is dark, that’s the way I enjoy writing, and thank you for this list, even though I didn’t do one per day, scrolling through I was able to see keywords that formed ideas in my mind

I love this <3 It's amazing :))

These are really nice I absolutely love them.

This is very helpful and I’ve been finding a way to help improve my creative writing!!! Thank you very much!

You are such a life developer, who can virtually transform a life busy with unnecessary activities humans are posted to through internet. And who can restore the appetite of people to purchase pen and paper which have considered the last commodity in the market at the expense of that great vampire ‘social media’ that left both old and young paralyzed. Thanks to the proponent of this great idea.

These are great. The Closed door one gives me a great idea for a new story! Thank you so much!

man what the fuck is this shit! i was looking for short story writing prompts and I get stuck with shit like “write about the weather outside”. Damn this shit is disappointing.

Hi John, the weather might seem boring, but there are a lot of ways you can springboard from that – maybe you write a story about a character who despises the sunshine or melts if they get rained on or they live in a underground tunnel and the house gets flooded…You can also use it as an exercise in developing more descriptive writing that shows, not tells for the scenes in your story. Writing about the weather seems “easy and boring” but seriously challenge yourself to write about it in a way that makes it interesting – it is not so easy to avoid the cliches as you might think!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH i do not know why but my kids, they will just like come on this website every time it is time to have a little bit of video games! XD

The weather outside that day was dark.

It was a perfectly reasonable sort of darkness. The kind of darkness you might get if you wake up an hour before sunrise. But it was late in the morning.

He had to make sure of that. He checked his alarm clock, his microwave oven clock, and his cell phone.

The sun was supposed to be out. But the moonlit sky was starlit and clear.

And as he looked outside again, he saw that people were out, going about their business, as if none of this really mattered at all.

What was he missing here?

(There. Now you have a short story writing prompt..)

You know what “John” i think this website is great so fuck you.

yeah you tell him john

It depends on how you view it. That one topic for instance has given me a beautiful story telling. I am currently about to round up with it and trust me the feedback has been amazing.

That is great! I’m glad it helped inspire you!

Dude kids go on here so stop swearing “John”

Maybe you need to work on improving the quality of your writing. Your use of expletives is totally uncalled for. I see nothing wrong with “writing about the weather outside”. In fact, this is a great topic and can lead to awesome discussions.

Very useful indeed. Thank u

i think this is a good prompted

I think it’s awesome, I looked for inspiration, I found inspiration, thank you

well! i fall in love with all these ideas! i loved this page! thanks for sharing these amazing ideas!

Great stuff mat Keep up the good work

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH IT IS VERY HELPFUL BUT FOR A SUGGESTION YOU COULD DO DIARY STUFF MAYBE

When I read your comment, I thought you said “DAIRY,” not “DIARY.”

So… why not both? Write something based on a dairy farmer’s diary. Or… a dairy COW’S diary. Tell their stories, their private dreams. Or hidden shame…

That’s the way to think + use this list 🙂

Great idea!

Awesome list! Thank you!

Thanks so much! I’ve always been told I’m a great writer and should publish. I haven’t done a lot of leisure writing because I’m afraid I might realize I’m NOT a good writer. My therapist wants me to write more and these prompts are perfect!

This is fun i will keep doing this no matter what every year. I can’t stop writing either. Thanks for making this, it is very fun.

This helps so much! love these ideas

Can this website give me a write on the following topic. –

Imagine that the scientists could replace the human brains with computers or invent the computers with human feelings. What do you think would happen?Would the world become a better place to live in???

I’ve been looking for prompts to work through my creative art/collage journal for 2017…and love the ones you offer here….LOVE THEM! I like that they are more than just one word and give me something to think about before I start creating each day as a warm up to what is ahead.

I hope don’t mind, but I shared them on both Instagram and my FaceBook page in hopes to get my artist/creative friends to follow along with me in creating each day. I would like to include a link to your page in a near future blog post about my creative journal.

Thank you for posting and sharing you prompts…I’m excited to get started!

I’m on number 43 and I’ve already discovered a whole bunch about myself! These prompts are amazing and I can’t wait for the next 322 of them. I’ve recommended this to several of my friends. Totally worth several notebooks chock full of prompts and a years worth of writing 🙂

Very inspiring….

Hello! Is it alright if I add some of these to a little book I’m making for my Grandmother? She hasn’t opened a computer in her life but I know these prompts would do her a world of good. I believe in the importance of asking permission to use the creative property of another person 🙂 Cheers!

Hi Maxx, of course you may share with your grandmother – the only thing we would worry about is if you were to publish them for monetary gain. Enjoy! 🙂

This is really helpful. I’m glad I saw it first. ♥

OMG!! I’ve never been in this website before!!

Thank u so much this was so helpful. Idk how u came up with all thoughts prompts. It was very helpful. Thank u again.

For the first time in a long time it finally felt like I knew was going to happen next. I was gazing into her eyes and she was gazing back. I remember it like it was just yesterday, when she was still the one for me but never forgave me. I miss the sweet sound of her laughter and now all i hear are friends. I have tried to go back and apologize to her just to see if the answer will change but even I know that it will never change because I will never be enough for her. But if she ever decides that she wants me back she can have me because a life without love is one not worth living.

gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood

can u give me one using the prompt “normal”

Thanks for this!!!!! Will definitely help me in learning to tap into my creative writing genius 🙂

Thanks, this helped me a lot!

u have a typo!!!! 364

Thanks for pointing out, got it fixed 🙂 Sometimes my brain goes faster than the computer. 🙂

I wrote this, tell me what you think; prompt #4-dancing You see her tapping her toes, always listening to music. Although she doesn’t like the music, what she doesn’t know yet is it will be stuck in her head for the next year. She’s as graceful as a butterfly yet as strong as a fighter. Many only see a pretty face yet those close enough to the fire know the passion burning deep inside of her. At home she’s quiet, always in her room yet making loud noises through the floorboards. Her parents know what she’s up to but her little brothers don’t quite understand yet. All they know is that when she goes up there she’s listening to music and soon she will play it for the whole neighborhood to hear. They don’t know that she’s practicing, practicing for the most important day of the year. The one she’s been waiting for since she’s been a little girl. Tapping her toes at the table only stops when her parents beg her to rest. Even in her dreams she on stage, dancing like a swan. Yet deep down she’s scared of the failure that she will feel if this one day goes a bit to south. Tapping her toes to the beat of her music gives her a bit of pip in her pep when she walks down the halls. No one quite understands the stress she’s going through. Through her smile she’s worries, scared that one misstep might end it all for her. But she won’t let anyone see that she’s nervous. She’s used to getting bruises, she falls on the ground but always gets back up. Because she’s a dancer, the show must go on.

Brilliant. Loved it.

Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m working on a site in Danish about writing and I would love to translate these awesome prompts into Danish and use it on the site. Would that be OK? I’ll credit with links of course!

Hi Camilla, you cannot copy + post these on your site, but feel free to link to the article – our site is compatible with Google translate 🙂

Hi Camilla, this list cannot be republished, even if translated into another language. However, if you would like to link to our website that would be great, your readers are able to translate it into any language if they use a web browser such as Google Chrome.

My goal is to write all of these prompts before 2018

This is amazing! I am writing for fun and this is a list of amazing prompts!

Ha, Ha . I see what you did , #164 was missing and now it say write about being left out .

Thanks a ton !!!

This link has been really helpful for my blog, loved the ideas.

Thanks for not publishing my email address

You are welcome! We never publish email addresses. If you’d like to learn more about how we collect and use information you may provide us with on this website, you can read more on our privacy policy page. Hope that helps! https://thinkwritten.com/privacy/

I have another suggestion, What about “The Secret Journey to the Unknown”. I reckon it’s awesome!

I was wondering if you could please send new ideas to me, much appreciated thanks.

I love all of these so much and i try to write referring to these at least once everyday thank you so much for these!

Trust, It is a beautiful thing. You give it to others, For them to protect. They can keep it forever, Or they can destroy it.

Wow what a treasure! Am glad I have found the right place to begging my writing journey.Thanks guys

Super awesome! Thanks so much for this collection of writing prompts!!

Today is the last day of the year 2017. I’m proud to say that I was able to complete this challenge. Thank you for the inspiring prompts! 🙂

That is awesome! We might just have to think of some new ones!!

how about one with sports like the NBA

I thought my life was over when I couldn’t access this for a couple weeks. These prompts are excellent. I write two page short stories on one every day. I hope you guys never take down this site but I’m printing these for insurance because it truly was devastating. I’m very emotionally attached to this list. Thank you so much for sharing.

Yes, we did have a small glitch in our hosting services for a few days! Fortunately, it was only temporary and unexpected! {Though I’m sure it did feel like 2 weeks!} Good to hear you are using the prompts!

Very nice article. Very useful one for improving writing skills

Thank you Sid! Glad it is useful for you!

Oh my god.. This is something a different, thought provoking and a yardstick to those who cultivated passion on writing, like me, beginners. Wishes for this website. I really wanted to try this 365 days of writing. Thanks in tons.

Glad you find it helpful! I hope it keeps you inspired to keep growing as a writer!

i love writing too! i am writing a book and this website inspired me too!

i have been writing lots of things and am getting A + on writing

thxs for your time with the web

i am making a epic book. it is because of this website. you really help. i will share a link of my book once i am done with it to your awesome cool really helpful website! thank you for your time

That is great to hear Christopher! Would love to see some of your work when you are ready to share! 🙂

WOOOOOOOOW BEST SITE!

I’m going to write few marvelous essays based on ideas in your impressive list. Thanks!

Just to tell some people that 165 or 164 is not missing because some people probably can’t see but just to let u know that 164 is a prompt called “Left Out”

Dang. The second idea about writing about what it feels like to love someone who doesn’t love you back, I wrote something like that BEFORE I found this website.

You can always try writing it again, maybe from the other person’s perspective this time? That is the beauty of the open-ended writing prompts – you can always interpret them in a way to push and challenge you as a writer!

Thank you for these prompts! I enjoyed looking through them and writing them! They gave me great ideas and inspired me so much.

This is my favorite website to find inspiration to write. I had run out of ideas and i had a huge writers block but this made it all go away. Here’s something i wrote:

He is a mess She is beautiful He has tears streaming down his face She glides across the room as if it were her kingdom And she’s The reigning queen He’s curled up in a ball In the corner of the room He looks at me I wonder what he thinks I can’t take my eyes off her The way she subtly smiles when she realizes Someone is looking She seems to be happy all the time But I can see through the smile It’s my first time noticing It’s not complete That was the first time I wanted to say hi But I thought Why would he look at me? The nerd with all the answers in her head All the books in her hands And Her sleeves full of hearts She looked at me From the corner of her eye She saw me looking The boy with the tear stains She saw me His tears were no longer streaming He had finally stood up Tall and handsome As he is Eyes Bluer than the blue jay that sat outside my bedroom window She had opened a book and started reading She hadn’t changed pages for a while Safe to assume She was distracted She looked up and Without knowing I was in front of her “Hi” Her brown eyes Stared in to my soul Erased the memory of why the tears Were streaming in the first place “Hi”

I love it Cynthia, thank you for sharing and glad that it inspired you to keep writing! 🙂

Thank you for so many amazing ideas! I love the sound of mirror, mirror!

Glad you found it inspiring Ar!

read the whole thing and didn’t find anything I’d enjoy writing 🙁

What kinds of things do you like to write? We have a whole collection of additional writing prompts lists here. Sometimes challenging yourself to write something you don’t like all in its own can be a good exercise for writing. Hope that helps!

These are ingenious!

I love these prompts! They’re inspiring! I’ve chosen to challenge myself by using one of these prompts every day of this 2019 year. I posted my writings for the first prompt on my Tumblr and Facebook pages with the prompt and a link back to this article- I hope that’s alright. If not, I can take it down, or I would love to discuss a way I could continue to do this. I hope more people can see and use these prompts because I have already found joy in using the first one.

Hi Elizabeth! Glad you are enjoying the prompts! You can definitely post what you write with these prompts as long as you do not copy the entire list or claim them as your own. Linking back to our website or this post will help others find the prompts so they too can use them for writing! If you have any questions feel free to contact us anytime using our contact form. Thanks!

Amazing original prompts Thank you so much!

Good list, but you’re not supposed to mistake it’s for its. Not on a website for writers, of all places!

I appreciate your comment, especially because after triple checking the article AND having a few grammar-police personality type friends do the same we could not find any typos. All of the instances of its and it’s are the correct usage.

However, one thing we did remember is that it is very easy for the person reading to accidentally misunderstand and not interpret it the way as the writer intended.

To clarify when we should use it’s vs. its:

We use it’s when we intend the meaning as the contraction. This is a shortened way of writing it is . We use its without an apostrophe when we use it as a possessive noun. Any instances you may note here are correct for their intended meaning.

Some examples:

Prompt #141 It’s a Sign : In this case we intend it to be interpreted as IT IS a Sign , where the usage is a contraction.

Prompt #7 The Rocket Ship : In this case we intend it to be interpreted as the possessive form.

I hope that helps clear up any possible confusion for you!

Thank you soooo much! That helped me a lot!

You’re welcome Keira! Glad you enjoyed our list of writing ideas!

It is so rich in bright and thought-provoking ideas. Thank you so much. Get inspired to have more, please

Thanks for this. I love to write things like this. Some of these though, weren’t as interesting as I wanted it to be, not saying that they aren’t interesting. I like the help you’ve added in, such as being led into a dark room with only a flashlight to help so it gets us started. Great job!

Thanks Maya, I’m glad you like the prompts. Sometimes the prompts that seem boring are the best ones to help you practice your skills as a writer to make them interesting topics. Some of the best writers can make the most mundane topics fun!

Nice….I don’t think I’ll ever lack something to write on … I so appreciate your ideas ..,they are great

Thank you, glad you enjoyed them!

Thank you for providing these writing prompts! They are great!

Thank You so much, these are amazing to start of with to get the creative juices flowing

Thank you very much

Sweet! Thank you so much! I plan to use some of these for some creative writing on CourageousChristianFather.com

I’m glad they inspired you Steve! I always love seeing what everyone writes with these prompts – I really enjoyed your post about the cookie ad jingle! 🙂

Thanks so much for this list. I needed something to kickstart my writing. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for! I just wrote #1. WooHoo!!

Thank you for your list. This is great!

I write feature articles for our church library’s monthly newsletter. Perusing this list has helped me come up with a couple dozen ideas to consider for future issues! Thanks much for putting this together – it is being used beyond the scope of what you intended, I think!

That’s wonderful Debbie! There are so many ways to apply these prompts to any sort of project – thank you for sharing how you are using them!

Thanks for your prompts, an idea I have for a prompt is write a story based on your favorite story for example I’m writing a fantasy book based on the game dungeons and dragons…

i guss its ok

cgv hbvkd vjvhsvhivhcickbcjh

Just needed to ask: I’d like to think these prompts are for free writing with no pauses? But, does one edit and polish the piece after that? I keep reading about writing every day…like brain dumping. But, there is never a mention of what one does with the piece after that??

This article has been written with sheer intelligence. Such 365 creative writing prompts has been written here. This article is worth marking as Good. I like how you have researched and presented these exact points so clearly.

Thank you for this list! You’ve inspired me to take up the challenge, though I haven’t written anything in years!

I have even created a blog to post my ideas, and keep myself accountable. I hope this is okay, I will credit, and provide a link back to this page on each post. https://thefishhavegotitright.blogspot.com/

I love it Ariadne, I’ll definitely come check out your site! Keep at it!

This is really Helpful thanks I love it😊

I never knew how much I had to write about. This should definitely keep me busy! Thank you so much for the list.

Hi! I saw a note saying this had been updated for 2020. I was curious if there are plans to update it for 2021. If so, when would the 2021-updated list become available?

Hi Gabrielle, I am not sure when we will next update this list, but feel free to check out some of our other writing prompts lists if you’ve exhausted this one! Writing Prompts for Kids {which is for grown-ups too!} and Poetry Writing Prompts are two great ones to check out. Hope that helps!

Loved this a lot! I would like to ask permission for using these prompts for my poetry and stories page on Instagram. Kindly let me know if I can use these and let my followers write on them too.

Hi, Piyusha, I’m just a user of the site like you, so I’m not “official”. But if you hit CTRL + F in your browser, that should open the “Find” dialog. Search on “Camilla”, and that will take you to a post and response concerning your request. Have a great and productive writing day. K. B. Tidwell

very informative thank you

I have always had problems finding something to write about. My problem is solved🥰 Thank you

I love this

Oh great. Good for everyone who enjoys picking the pen and writing something readable

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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Feb 07, 2023

The 50+ Best Writing Websites of 2024

The Internet is full of writing websites and blogs to help people reach their creative goals . If you’ve always dreamt of writing your own book, but don’t know how to get there — or if you’re in the process of writing, but feel unsure about what to do next — then it’s your lucky day! Here we have all the best writing websites of 2024 in one single place for your convenience. They’re also organized by category, and alphabetically within each of those categories, to make each one easier to find. Enjoy!

Best writing websites for writing craft and inspiration

writing websites

1. Almost an Author

Offering up new content every day, Almost an Author covers a grand scope of writing topics. From genre-specific advice to emotional support on your writing journey, there's tons of useful info here for beginner and veteran writers alike.

2. Association of Writer & Writing Programs

Having just marked their 50th anniversary, AWP is one of the premier authorities on writing. The AWP website provides resources and ample opportunities for authors, teachers, and students at every point in their career. Here you’ll be able to find information about writing programs, career options, and conferences all over the world. Keep in mind, though, that access to some of these features is restricted to members only.

3. Creativity Portal

This is a wonderful hub for creative resources that has been around for a whopping nineteen years! Here you can find writing prompts , creative coaching, printable writing templates, and interviews with authors that will help nourish the right side of your brain.

4. Daily Writing Tips

As the name suggests, this site offers daily writing tips ranging from open-ended prompts and exercises to grammar, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. It also covers all writing levels and professions, so it doesn't matter how far along you are in your writing career — DWT is sure to help you out.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a master’s degree, you can get your own "DIY MFA" right here! This site (founded by Gabriela Pereira ) aims to cover everything you would learn in a graduate program, while giving you the freedom to choose your own areas of concentration and allocate your time as you please. 

6. Electric Literature

While not exactly a craft-focused website — so no straight-up writing advice or prompts — this nonprofit digital publisher showcases literature-related essays, criticism, and recommended readings. If you're looking to brush up on both literary theory and recent literary trends, Electric Lit is the place for you.

7. Fiction University

This virtual university, run by award-winning author Janice Hardy, contains tons of advice and concrete examples to help authors build a strong writing foundation. It's full of blog posts by professionals who share their own processes and techniques, providing tips not just on what you should do as a writer, but on how  to make it happen.

8. Helping Writers Become Authors

Longtime author K.M. Weiland offers writing advice that ranges from outlining and structuring to characterization and dialogue — plus all the little details in between. She updates her blog faithfully with topical posts that would pique any writer's (or non-writer's) interest.

9. Insecure Writer's Support Group

Writing is intimidating for everyone , whether you're a multi-published author or you're just starting out. That's why getting support, guidance, and motivation throughout the process is vital! On IWSG, you'll discover a wealth of information on writing, publishing, marketing, and anything else you might need to ultimately overcome your insecurities.

10. Literary Hub

LitHub boasts a superb selection of content for all things literary. Here you can get all the latest book-related news, posts on design and the craft, your daily dose of fiction, and sparkling reviews of new works. One of this site's best features is its section on literature in translation — a great resource for those who want to read books and authors from around the world.

11. LitReactor

The LitReactor blog consists of writing classes, workshops, and a myriad of posts on writing and books ( some of which are even written by us! ). There’s also an online magazine that includes interviews, criticism and analysis, and seasonally appropriate reads and recommendations.

12. LitRejections

An unfortunate occupational hazard of with writing is rejection. This is where a site like LitRejections comes into play! It offers personal stories to help discouraged writers persevere through rejection, and maintain hope and motivation as they move forward in their careers.

13. Live Write Thrive

In this website by professional writer and editor C.S. Lakin, you’ll find plenty of nuanced writing anecdotes and tips. Lakin also supplies annotated critiques that can help you prep your book for publication.

14. NaNoWriMo

Besides serving as the official information hub for NaNoWriMo , this site also lends constant support for those struggling to "win" National Novel Writing Month. Make sure to check out the NaNoWriMo forums, which are chock-full of other people's personal writing tips and strategies to get you through November — and every other month of the year — as a writer.

15. Now Novel

This comprehensive website, founded by author Bridget McNulty , is a go-to for just about every writing-related question you might have. Here you'll also find advice, courses, and even an author dashboard where you can keep track of your own writing progress.

16. Positive Writer

If you often feel uncertain about your creative abilities, this is the site for you. Bryan Hutchinson created Positive Writer to encourage and inspire all those who want to write, no matter how much experience or confidence they have.

17. ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid offers a fantastic manuscript editing software that analyzes your writing and creates reports for you to learn from! This tool also includes a thesaurus, grammar checks, style suggestions, and more — you can learn all about it on the ProWritingAid blog, or in our review of the app !

18. She Writes

A well-established writing website with a feminist bent, She Writes is "the largest online community and content site for women writers... all around the world." The site features thoughtful posts and resources to help writers on their journeys, as well as a personal She Writes blog page for every user who signs up.

19. Well-Storied

Here you can find recent articles, workbooks, tutorials, and fascinating discussions on writing. Kristine Kieffer has an extensive archive of posts as well, where you can procure information on just about any topic related to books and writing.

20. The Write Practice

Fulfilling the promise of their name, every single post on this site emphasizes putting theory into practice! There's simply no better way to become a writer than by creating a routine, and that’s exactly what The Write Practice helps facilitate.

21. Writer’s Digest

Writer's Digest is one of the most encyclopedic writing websites out there — after all, the print magazine has been around for almost a century now! Here you’ll find genre and vocation-organized articles, events and competitions, webinars, templates, tutorials, and so much more.

22. Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed features articles by authors and industry professionals, focused specifically on the craft and business of fiction writing.

23. The Writing Cooperative

Plain and simple, this is a group of people who want to help each other become better writers. On Writing Cooperative, you will find articles that cover just about every aspect of the writing life. They also have monthly writing challenges to keep you incentivized, and there’s even a space where you can submit your own article to the blog!

24. Writing.com

This is an absolutely all-inclusive community for writers . It’s open to all levels and provides a creative, supportive environment for all members, as well as portfolios to store and display their writing. Like most writing websites, it also includes a plethora of writing tools , contests, and rewards.

25. Catapult: Don’t Write Alone

Don’t Write Alone is a blog written by the Catapult team dedicated to helping writers grow their skills. As a publisher and magazine founded in 2005, Catapult has seen a lot of works and now they’re spilling all the details. From interviews, to craft essays, to writer lifestyle essays, Catapult covers it all.

26. Kirkus Review’s Writers’ Center

Kirkus Review is known for its prestigious $50,000 dollar annual prize and its bi-monthly issues where they critique hundreds of recently published books. But, did you know they also have a section of their website devoted to helping emerging writers grow their skills and navigate the publishing industry? They’re always up to date on the latest trends — if they aren’t creating new trends themselves.

27. Writers Write

An invaluable resource for creative writers, business writers, or bloggers, Writers Write offers over 1400 articles, courses, and workbooks to help you take your writing practice to the next level. Alongside their educational content, they offer book reviews, trivia on famous authors, and prompts. Sign up for their inspirational newsletters for regular hits of motivation that will keep you writing.

28. The Narrative Arc

Beginning as a home to Andie R. Cranford’s writing journey, The Narrative Arc is now a treasure trove of practical tips and prompts to inspire your creativity. Breakdowns of popular books are particularly handy for the budding author — but whether exploring writing for the first time or tightening the bolts on your Franken-novel, the site's ideas on craft are elegant and inspiring.

Best writing websites in the publishing industry

writing websites

29. Agent Query

This database allows authors to perform in-depth searches for literary agents . You can narrow your search by genre and keywords, view agents’ full profiles, and see if they are currently accepting queries — all for free!

30. The Creative Penn

Besides being a bestselling author on various topics, Joanna Penn is also a leading voice in self-publishing . On her punnily named site, you’ll find abundant information related to writing, self-publishing, marketing, and everything else you mind need to make a living as a writer.

31. Digital Pubbing

Digital Pubbing provides industry news, interviews with indie authors, and resources for learning all about ebooks and the publishing industry. In accordance with the name, this is the perfect site for any author hoping to absorb some serious digital knowledge.

32. The Independent Publishing Magazine

We know it might seem like we're repeating ourselves, but this website really is all about publishing (both independent and traditional, despite what the name indicates). Whatever info you need about self-publishing, trad pub, or hybrid publishing , you’ll definitely be able to find it here.

33. Publishers Weekly

And if you have a specific question about the publishing world, you’ll most likely find the answer here. This weekly magazine is packed full of news, reviews, announcements, and many other resources on the industry. It has been dubbed as "the Bible of the book business" and with its extensive archive, it’s easy to see why.

34. Publishing Perspectives

Publishing Perspectives is another leading source of publishing info, specializing in industry news and topical articles. Aimed at publishers, agents , and authors alike, it features a variety of posts that cover book fairs, distribution, education, and much more.

35. Query Shark

Not sure where your query letter is up to snuff? Query Shark offers the opportunity to have your query critiqued, and to read detailed query critiques of other authors' letters, so you can get the best possible results for your book. Be warned, though, that this sharp-toothed feedback isn't for the weak of heart.

36. Writer Beware

This amazingly thorough site compiles information on schemes and scams that affect authors , especially those run through email and the Internet. It’s sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, but obviously applies to authors everywhere. If you're a fresh-faced author trying to get published, definitely check it out — it could save you from losing thousands of dollars in an elaborate scam.

37. The Darling Axe

When the industry professionals at The Darling Axe aren’t working on manuscripts, they flock to the internet to share their hot takes on the publishing industry. They also host writing contests throughout the year to build a writing community and give unpublished authors the chance to get feedback from professionals.

Best writing websites for marketing and design

writing websites

38. David Gaughran

An experienced author of historical adventures, short stories, and popular books for writers , David Gaughran is one of the definitive writing experts out there. His eponymous blog contains plenty of info on marketing and self-publishing, plus workshops to help aspiring authors. And similar to Writer Beware, he's the noble opposition of online publishing scams and scammers — so if you're frustrated by these issues, you'll discover a blissfully sympathetic voice on his blog.

39. Kikolani

Focused specifically on marketing, Kikolani offers tips and strategies for bloggers who want to grow their presence and attract more readers. Here you’ll find information on brand development , social media, customer retention, and other useful tips that you can put to good use as a blogger. (If you're just getting started, though, we'd recommend this course .)

40. Kindlepreneur

Dave Chesson is — in his own words — a “digital marketing nut.” His blog has all the information you could ever need about Kindle book publishing , how to write to market, increasing your rankings on Amazon, and lots more practical tips and advice.

41. Storiad

Storiad is a marketing platform that helps authors and publishers sell books. Go here for essential information on writing apps , databases, tools, and budgeting to help you run your own publishing campaign from start to finish.

42. Writers & Artists

Part of the distinguished Bloomsbury, Writers & Artists has quite a few articles on writing and the self-publishing process. They also offer editorial services and events on many different topics, like genre-specific writing courses and how to get connected with agents .

43. Your Writer Platform

Naturally, this site is dedicated to building your very own writer platform. There are tons of tips, resources, tools, how-tos, and even individual consulting services to help you build the platform that works best for you and your marketing needs.

Best writing blogs by industry professionals

writing websites

44. Goins, Writer

Bestselling author Jeff Goins created this blog to share his thoughts on writing and to inspire others to chase their creative dreams. He's especially good at breaking complex topics down into digestible bits — new writers, go here for your primers.

45. Jane Friedman

With copious experience in the publishing industry, Jane Friedman offers online classes and articles on the entire process of book publishing. She's a real goldmine of business knowledge, so keep her in mind for when you're ready to publish your book.

46. Nail Your Novel

As a bestselling former ghostwriter who now publishes under her own name, Roz Morris provides advice about writing, self-publishing, and of course, ghostwriting . If you're interested in becoming a ghostwriter, be sure to check out her courses!

47. Nathan Bransford

Nathan Bransford is a former literary agent who posts all about the inner workings of publishing, as well and information on agents and self-publishing. He also does consultations, edits, and critiques . 

48. Rachelle Gardner

Skillful agent Rachelle Gardner has negotiated over 200 contracts with over twenty publishers and helped more than 100 authors fulfill their dreams of publishing. On her blog, she offers writing, publishing, and social media coaching, along with general writing and publishing tips.

49. Kris Writes

For regular insights from a New York Times bestselling author, look no further than Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog. On Mondays, she posts free short stories for authors to find inspiration in, and Wednesdays she posts in her “Business Musings” collection where she breaks down news from the publishing industry and offers her inside opinions. 

50. The Marginalian  

Maria Popova describes her site as “a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually, poetically — drawn from my extended marginalia on the search for meaning across literature, science, art, philosophy, and the various other tendrils of human thought and feeling.” She sends out a Sunday newsletter with thoughtful deconstruction of the week’s best liberal arts goings-on to help broaden her readers’ appreciation of the creative world.

51. John August

For all the screenwriters out there, John August co-hosts a weekly podcast with fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin discussing both the craft and business of screenwriting while breaking down popular movies. To help screenwriters really get a feel for the process of working with a studio, John has posted multiple versions of scripts from different stages in the production process on films and series he’s written, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Big Fish , and Chernobyl .

What are some of your favorite writing websites? Let us know in the comments below!

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The Practice of Creative Writing

The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers - Fourth Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store

Psychology in Everyday Life

A guide for students fourth edition | ©2021 heather sellers.

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Be bold. Write well. Have fun.

When it comes to writing, The Practice of Creative Writing has a simple message: you can do this, and it’s worthwhile to try. Designed for students in the introductory course, The Practice of Creative Writing teaches writers how to trust their own voice, experiment with form, and develop a writing process that allows them to spend more productive time at the desk.&nbsp;&nbsp; Rather than locking into one genre early, writers are encouraged to work among and in between genres and to focus on creating a writing practice that privileges close observation, patience, and techniques of pattern, energy, and shape. Heather Sellers, who writes in multiple genres herself, has developed a lively, welcoming, student-centered approach that teaches creative concentration, close reading, and generating pages. She provides opportunities to be playful and to experiment at the same time that she teaches students the importance of discipline, form, and craft. Heather Sellers is a certified online instructor, and The Practice of Creative Writing is designed to be used in traditional face-to-face classrooms or in online education. Each chapter begins with objectives for that module. Prompts and writing practices are carefully sequenced. Every chapter ends with both genre-specific writing projects alongside hybrid and experimental prompts. The readings included in this new edition invite students to experience an even wider range of innovative and new literatures.&nbsp; A new chapter on creative ways to approach revision as a shaping practice engaged throughout the writing process helps students work harder on their writing.

New to This Edition

"The Practice of Creative Writing stands out as an inspiring, engaging, and useful text for beginning creative writers. Heather Sellers manages to introduce core concepts and literary techniques with an emphasis on practice that is integral to building a multi-genre course without being overly prescriptive. Instructors can choose from a variety of contemporary literature selections and provide students with the models, writing prompts, and exercises that help them grow as creative writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers is the most useful creative writing textbook on the market. It addresses student writers in an amiable, colloquial way and makes complex ideas about writing craft simple and approachable. The book is an enthusiastic invitation to students to engage the exciting, infinite possibilities of the art of creative writing." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "This text helps students think outside the boxes of genre to instead focus on the building blocks of creativity and the nuances of form and technique. By teaching writers to analyze literature as a careful balance of image, tension, energy, pattern, and insight, they can in turn understand how to employ the same elements in their own work in order to engage and move their readers." — Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, Black Hills State University "Sellers text is very student friendly. It successfully helps the beginning creative writer into the writing field by making solid comparisons to other art fields they may be familiar with and utilize. It talks about writing in practical terms while not dazzling readers with literary terms for the sake of labelling." — Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria College, Buffalo "This is my go-to text in intro to CW. Ive adopted it; Ive recommended it. Its a perfect balance of wit, humility, and intellect. Behind the words, you sense a real person--a writer--not a corporate shadow. Heather Sellers walks readers through the intricacies of creative writing with a lovely balance of humor and rigor." — Jeffrey Newberry, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College "I really think this is an incredibly adroit text in that the writer writes with her audience well in mind. This responsiveness spans many aspects of the book, its structure, its content, its voice and style, even down to paragraph structure. There are many repetitions in the chapter sections and this great; when students don’t know how to read for main ideas, the repetitions aid in reinforcing their learning. The volume begins with students’ reading a graphic comic, something with which they are familiar, and then moves to approaching literary texts, something with which they are less familiar. It draws many analogies using music, again, something that students both know and care about. On these rhetorical levels, this is probably the best introduction to creative writing I’ve even read and used, and I’ve been teaching creative writing for 26 years." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "The literary selections are outstanding, representing a multicultural array of authors with contemporary relevance, high interest, and a mix of well-known and lesser known writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "I generally dont use or like textbooks, but this textbook caught my eye. This is largely because the author approaches creative writing like a practicing artist might, coaching students towards their best and deepest selves, offering surprising insights and exercises, building their close-reading muscles, encouraging honest and specific images and sentences. I love this about the book, and this is what distinguishes it for me." — Maria Brandt, Monroe CC "The Practice of Creative Writing stands out from other creative writing textbooks because it focuses on critical craft principles - such as the use of sensory detail, writing to communicate tension and insight, and revision practices - over a rigid focus on form or progressing through forms. It allows the instructor the freedom to pair the textbook with as few or as many forms as they want to assign in their creative writing classes." — Martha Webber, Cal State Fullerton "This is a creative writing textbook written by an accomplished and articulate WRITER, who understands the writing process and uses a teachable, effective approach for introducing students to writing in multiple genres." — Patricia Francisco, Hamline University, St. Paul "Heather has selected an awesome collection of creative works that exemplify a variety of forms. A number of these shorter/quicker forms (e.g., flash fiction), are great for getting novice creative writers acclimated to the depth and temperature of the water." — Bill Gary, Kentucky Community &amp; Technical College System "This book takes a "personal trainer" approach to the practice of writing. It is a gentle, encouraging voice in the writers ear." — Robert Cowser, St. Lawrence University

Fourth Edition | ©2021

Heather Sellers

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Fourth Edition | 2021

Table of Contents

creative writing practice online

Heather Sellers is professor of English in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs at the University of South Florida, where she was honored with a university-wide teaching award. She offers courses for creative writers in hybrid and experimental writing, fiction, memoir, essays, and poetry as well as a course for teachers of creative writing. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, she earned her PhD in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University. She has taught at New York University, the University of Texas–San Antonio, St. Lawrence University, and for almost two decades, Hope College, where she was elected Professor of the Year. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award for her short story collection Georgia Under Water, she has published widely in a variety of genres. Her work appears in the New York Times; The Pushcart Prize anthology; The Best American Essays; O, the Oprah Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Reader’s Digest; Parade; Real Simple; On the Seawall; Adroit; Longreads; Creative Nonfiction; and frequently in The Sun Magazine. Her memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness was a Michigan Notable Book of the Year and Editor’s Choice at The New York Times Book Review. Other publications include Drinking Girls and Their Dresses: Poems; and Spike and Cubby’s Ice Cream Island Adventure, a children’s book. She lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Her website is heathersellers.com .

Fourth Edition | 2021

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Heather Sellers on why she wrote The Practice of Creative Writing: A Guide for Students

Heather Sellers, An Online Course Is Like a Poem

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  1. 105 Creative Writing Exercises: 10 Min Writing Exercises

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  2. Manuscript Creative Writing Practice Pad

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  3. 😂 Creative writing prompts for kids with pictures. Creative writing prompts for kids with

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  4. 19 Second Grade Creative Writing Worksheets / worksheeto.com

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VIDEO

  1. Healing Words: I Am

  2. 11+ Comprehension and Creative Writing Practice

  3. How persuasive are you?

  4. How It Works: Creative Writing Courses at The Novelry

  5. IELTS writing tips 10

  6. Instant Inspiration #188: 10-Second Journal Prompts For Writing #shorts #journaling #writingskills

COMMENTS

  1. 105 Creative Writing Exercises: 10 Min Writing Exercises

    Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again: Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment. Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour.

  2. ️ 100+ Creative Writing Exercises for Fiction Authors

    Eight. Pick a fiction book from your shelf. Go to page eight and find the eighth sentence on the page. Start with that sentence and write an eight-line poem that connects in some way to your work-in-progress. For instance, write from the POV of a character, or set the poem in a story setting. Don't worry about poetry forms.

  3. 24 of the Best Writing Exercises to Become a Better Writer

    Among both exercises to improve writing skills and fun writing exercises for adults, writing metaphor lists is one of the best writing exercises out there. A metaphor list is simple. On a notebook, create two columns. In one column, write down only concrete nouns. Things like a pillow, a tree, a cat, a cloud, and anything that can be perceived ...

  4. The Write Practice: Helping Writers Get Better Since 2011

    I started The Write Practice in 2011 with one goal, to help writers like me. To help them practice, become better writers, and get their best writing published. The Write Practice is here to kick-start your writing practice. You have to write millions of words no one is ever going to see before you can write the ones that will change someone ...

  5. 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises

    What Is Writing Practice? Writing practice is a method of becoming a better writer that usually involves reading lessons about the writing process, using writing prompts, doing creative writing exercises, or finishing writing pieces, like essays, short stories, novels, or books. The best writing practice is deliberate, timed, and involves feedback.

  6. 8 Creative Writing Exercises to Strengthen Your Writing

    Whether you're taking a break from a work in progress or are in between writing projects and need some inspiration, regular creative writing exercises help you strengthen your writing process. Incorporate these eight exercises into your writing routine. 1. Let your stream of consciousness run. Start with a blank page. Then just start writing.

  7. The Best Free Online Writing Courses for Creative Writers, Fiction, and

    Discover the best free online writing courses, including great opetions for creative writing and authors of fiction and nonfiction. Readers. Book Deals Newsletter; Authors. ... If you want more practice you can also try these creative writing prompts:) pamela on December 14, 2020 at 4:26 pm Hi! I want to help my 10-year-old daughter to read and ...

  8. Creative Writing Exercises and Prompts

    Welcome to Writing Exercises and Prompts. This site provides (completely free) creative writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks - as well as some fun anagram vocabulary games. Generate random story ideas, plots, subjects, scenarios, characters, first lines for stories and more.

  9. 14 Creative Writing Exercises to Improve Your Writing

    This activity is a great creative writing exercise and a way to tap into your emotions. 4. Do a Point of View (POV) Switch. Take a segment from a favorite book. Rewrite that segment from a different character's point of view. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is written in third-person limited POV.

  10. Write & Improve

    Our free online tool helps you to practise your writing and get valuable feedback instantly. Write & Improve is simple to use: just choose a task, write or upload a written response and use the feedback to quickly improve. It shows you how to improve your spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Join over 2 million learners of English who have used ...

  11. Online Creative Writing Classes: Transform Passion into Practice

    Now, in this new class from The Write Practice and bestselling author Joe Bunting, you'll learn how to use the best tools for the writing trade, the book writing software and apps used by pro writers. This 3-part class will be taught live at the following times: Friday, March 1 2024 at 12 pm Eastern / 9 am Pacific / 5 pm UK.

  12. 43 Creative Writing Exercises & Games For Adults

    The alphabet story - creating a story as a group. A question or two. Murder Mystery Game. The obscure movie exercise. How to hint at romantic feelings. A novel idea. Creative writing prompts. Creative story cards / dice. Alternative Christmas Story.

  13. The 7 Best Skillshare Creative Writing Classes ...

    1. High Quality Video Lessons with Transcripts. Video lessons are one of the primary features of Skillshare courses. They are generally well-produced, engaging, and easy to follow. The quality of video lessons can vary depending on the class, but overall, Skillshare maintains high standards for its course content.

  14. 35 Writing Exercises for Adults

    Take a deep breath (or two) and write whatever comes to mind. 1. Write up to ten emotions on as many strips of paper and put them in a container. Choose an object, and then pick out one of the pieces of paper. Write about the object from the perspective of a character feeling that emotion.

  15. Best Creative Writing Courses Online with Certificates [2024]

    In summary, here are 10 of our most popular creative writing courses. Creative Writing: Wesleyan University. Write Your First Novel: Michigan State University. English Composition I: Duke University. Good with Words: Writing and Editing: University of Michigan. Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop: California Institute of the Arts.

  16. 1800+ Creative Writing Prompts To Inspire You Right Now

    If you're ready to kick writer's block to the curb and finally get started on your short story or novel, these unique story ideas might just be your ticket. This list of 1800+ creative writing prompts has been created by the Reedsy team to help you develop a rock-solid writing routine. As all aspiring authors know, this is the #1 challenge ...

  17. Creative Writing Exercises for Beginners

    Exercises for Beginning Poetry Writers. 13x13x13: Choose the 13th book on your bookshelf, open to page 13, find the 13th sentence, and use it in a poem about luck that is 13 lines long. Scrabble ...

  18. Free online writing courses • Reedsy Learning

    Crafting a children's book. Using dialogue to further your plot and develop your characters. Creating an iron-clad writing routine. And more! We've got you covered on all these topics and more. Each 10-part course is delivered to your inbox, making these the most convenient creative writing courses on the internet.

  19. Try These 30-Minute Writing Challenges

    Try These 30-Minute Writing Challenges. Set aside 30 minutes, choose one of the following exercises and, as Tim Gunn from "Project Runway" would say, "Make it work!". Contestants, the four ingredients you must use to create a dessert for our judges tonight are wild ginger, dandelions, miniature marshmallows, and dehydrated seaweed.

  20. The Best Online Writing Workshops

    Sometimes, the biggest barrier is beginning, but creative writing workshops will spark your writing practice. 9. The Best Online Writing Workshops Jumpstart a Writing Habit. Because writing workshops require you to submit work every week, students will have to set up a consistent writing practice in order to meet these deadlines.

  21. 365 Creative Writing Prompts

    14. The Found Poem: Read a book and circle some words on a page. Use those words to craft a poem. Alternatively, you can cut out words and phrases from magazines. 15. Eavesdropper: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you've overheard. Printable Ad-Free 365 Writing Prompt Cards. 16.

  22. Self-paced online courses

    Our self-paced online writing courses are unique in offering: Bitesize, in-your-own-time learning from anywhere in the world, at any time. An easy online platform — all you need is a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer with an internet connection. Learning for all budgets; start with a free course to see if it suits your needs.

  23. The 50+ Best Writing Websites of 2024

    Best writing websites for writing craft and inspiration. 1. Almost an Author. Offering up new content every day, Almost an Author covers a grand scope of writing topics. From genre-specific advice to emotional support on your writing journey, there's tons of useful info here for beginner and veteran writers alike. 2.

  24. ProWritingAid's Online Creative Writing Classes

    Improve your writing with free live online classes by ProWritingAid. Join expert-led sessions to refine your craft and boost your creativity.

  25. The Practice of Creative Writing

    Be bold. Write well. Have fun. When it comes to writing, The Practice of Creative Writing has a simple message: you can do this, and it's worthwhile to try. Designed for students in the introductory course, The Practice of Creative Writing teaches writers how to trust their own voice, experiment with form, and develop a writing process that allows them to spend more productive time at the ...