Creative Writing Exercises - Leicestershire County Council

These 3 exercises focus:
on word association and the connections that produce narrative and plot.
They are especially good warm-up exercises for a session which focuses on fiction writing.
Playing with words in this way reveals that it is the process of ‘playing with words’
that actually produces stories.
Tips and hints:
Encourage your group to be as playful as possible, to allow them to surprise themselves
and each other.
Don’t worry if narratives and plots produced are very strange. Sometimes a storyline may
be produced that doesn’t make sense, or doesn’t seem to work like a conventional narrative.
A bizarre or surreal story, one that doesn’t seem to have a proper beginning middle
or end, can be valuable in that it may disturb us, or it may provide a stimulus for
discussion on what makes different kinds of fiction work.
Who?
Suitable for everyone.
With very young children
the focus could be on speaking
out rather than writing down.
“My eyes have seen stories.”
Yvette-Serena de Sylva, Community Artist
“Slightest accidents open up new worlds.”
Jeanette Winterson
Victorian Butcher’s Shop, H93
Section C
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