Writing Games

Recently I posted a blog on how an old Star Wars photo inspired the storyteller in me. Afterwards, I received several requests for more tips on how to stimulate creative writing. So with this entry, I'm happy to oblige.

In the original blog, I wrote about a former writing professor who had students create a story around and innocuous image. I'm adding three more the skill-building exercises. The third exercise will actually be a Twitter-worthy online game.

It's important to note that I didn't invent these exercises. All of them are tried-and-true techniques used by aspiring writers. But if you haven't tried them before, give them a shot. After all, they may be the nucleus for something much larger.

• Write the conversation: The next time you're in a public place (a movie theater, a restaurant, the coffee house, a public park, etc.), position yourself close to two strangers who are having a conversation. Spend no more than two minutes eavesdropping, and if possible, write it down what you hear so you can use it later. It doesn't matter if you understand the context of the strangers' conversation, becuase that's what you'll be providing. Then take this snippet of dialogue and develop a story around it, fleshing out the characters and providing back stories.
  

• Dream journal writing: Plenty of people keep dream journals, but for writers they can have a practical value. Ideas for short stories and novels have come to me in dreams, but the problem is I often forget details shortly after waking up. Keeping a dream journal handy will let you write down details before they slip away. Keep your journal for at least a month, then go back and find two dreams you want to flesh out into short stories or character sketches.
  

• Tag this book. If microblogging has taught me anything, it's how to be more economical with words. I still struggle with this, but Twitter's really helped. The goal of this exercise is to provide a tag line for an imaginary young adult vampire book called BLOOD ANGEL using no more than the resquite 140 characters needed for Twitter. I've provided a mockup of the book's cover below, so you can see where the tag line would be placed. Whatever you write should intrigue a reader enough that they want to open the book and start reading. It can be funny, dreary, mysterious... whatever. I'll post the best tagline submissions on my blog and transmit them in my Twitter feed. Keep in mind, by submitting you're giving me permission to use your entry with no compensation promised or intended.
  

NOTE: The Tag This Book activity has now ended, but some of the submissions are shown below:

• Blood on the stone. Blood in the stone. Feed the stone.
  
• If you think angels are holy, you're wrong.
  
• When the sun goes down, you're time runs out.
  
• The blood angle is coming for you. run and hide if you can.
  
• It's made of stone. It's made of blood. It lives on fear.
  
• The fountain sat in the garden for a hundred years. But last night it went missing.
  
• Don't throw a penny in this fountain because it wants more. It wants you.
  
• The statues evil and it will kill you if you let it. Run, run run!
  
• At night the statue comes to life in the pale moonlight and feeds until the sun rises!
  

Let me also know how these exercises worked out for you. Hopefully they'll inspire something great.