Creative Writing Exercises & Prompts

WRITING FORMS/STYLES/EXERCISES
TO PROMOTE PARTICIPATORY DEBATE, PERSONAL MANIFESTO, PUBLIC ADDRESS!


UNIVERSAL YOU
Write a very personal note to someone/something/somewhere. Write what you need revealed to this singular audience. Questions, confessions, stories, memories, thoughts, warnings. Read over your letter. Pull out a single phrase, sentiment, question, word that you feel could be made universal -- writ large, for a wider public, a thought that goes beyond just that singular audience and extends to a more general public.

TEN TRUE THINGS
Make a list of ten true things that are true to YOU. This list can be true only to you, or you can share these truths with another person/group. The point of this list is to name 10 true things that you know to be true about your life, about life in general, at this present moment.

I WAS BORN...
Write about the conditions of your birth, real or imagined. Write out what you were born to do on earth, what you are capable of doing on earth, tell us why we need you, why you are here. Speak it. Own it. Name it!

LETTERS TO A FUTURE CHILD
Write a letter to the future, to an unborn child, to an illiterate student. What is your urgent message to them? What can you promise? What do you hope for? What do you want them to know and what advice can you give them?

ESSENTIALIZATION EXERCISE, based on the work of poet Jenn Morea
Write what you believe in 24 words. Now write that same statement but reduce it to 12 words. Look at your writing again. This time, say it in 6 words. Take away 3 more words. Now choose just one word.

MANIFESTO
Write your personal/collective vision in absolutes by using definitive, authoritative language that declares the present moment as an opportunity for change, and defines a call to action/way of approaching life.

HOW-TO’S
Describe the nuanced, subtle details of a process, tell us the perfect way to make something, feel something, know something, and why.

SPEECH-PREACH
Write a public speech that feels like preach.

ULTIMATE TEXT-MESSAGES FROM A CONCEPT/PERSON
Imagine receiving an ultimate text message from a concept or person. What is that one urgent message, lesson, warning, idea, request. fear, or need for you to know. With limited space, how would that concept/person maximize on language choice to make sure you received the message? Set word max for this exercise.

TRUISMS/REARRANGED
Take a proverb/statement/line of poetry and rework it using only the words that exist in that sentence. Rearrange, remix, reorder, reveal the meanings hidden within that single truism/proverb/statement.

INVENTED RULES
Design a set of rules for being, doing, thinking, feeling, knowing something or someone. Use the language of command, speak from a place of authority an feeling.

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO _________________
Besides America, what are the specific pledges you want to make to specific ideas, feelings, questions, objects of desire, etc.

LATELY I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT…
Free write what you are thinking about in this moment. From the smallest to grandest issues, claim your space in the present moment of your mind.

I WANT A PRESIDENT WHO______________________
Fill in the blank with the absurd, the honest, the real, the surprising, and the unexpected. Imagine what good leadership looks like and why.

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD IS ______________________(true or false?!)
Decide to speak up on behalf or against a rumor of a dramatic event. Clarify from your perspective. True or False? What happened? Give us the report. Where were you? What time of day? How do you know this really didn't or did occur.

IN THIS MOMENT
What is happening right now is this present, historical moment? What goes on every moment of our lives that goes unnoticed, hidden, revealed? Take a moment to be in the moment: what's happening with your body right now? Think of someone you love and see them in a moment of action. Now think of the entire city, moments of action & enconter. Take your mind to the world and scan it for moments of feeling, injustice, action. And last, take your mind to the outer reaches, outerspace, god, heaven, the sky, the ocean, what is happening right now in this moment at the farthest reaches of your mind?

I USED TO BE BUT NOW I’M…based on the work of poet Kenneth Koch
Think of all the ways you, we, us have changed. Use this prompt/phrase to shout out the subtle and significant changes you witness/experience in the everyday of your life.

POETIC REASONING/LOGIC
Create your own personal logic model: if _____________then________________ if ____________________, then of course, ____________________


SHOUT OUT’s based on the work of Sekou Sundiata
Write a “shout out” to the underrepresented, marginalized, muted, hidden beauties of life, people, places, things, actions, feelings, ideas – talk directly to it and praise it, its qualities that often go unnoticed or ignored.


PREACH! THE METAPHOR IS IN THE ROOM based on the work of Eric Booth
Imagine that you woke up this morning and were told that you had five minutes to create a sermon. Look around the room and quickly pick an object or image that is taking your attention. Now use that object/image to create a lesson for people to learn, a moral to be told, a story to convey. Get your preach on!



TEACH ME/TELL ME
Become a student of life. Think about what you still need/want to learn and ask the world to teach you how to do something. Or, think of a person, idea, concept and speak directly to it, asking to learn from it.

DO NOT…

YES TO…

HOMAGE TO…
What deserved to be recognized that often doesn’t? Call on it, your ancestors, the hidden, the buried, and conjure it, pay homage to it, love it.

ODES TO THE UNDER-REPRESENTED
Similar to shout out’s and homage, write an ode to a person, place, thing, idea that needs to be praised.

FROM THIS POINT ON…
Declare that from this point on…what? What will change? What has to change? What needs to change? What can’t change? Write it out.

I AM WAITING… based on the work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti
What are you waiting for? What is the world waiting for? What can’t wait any longer?

DIALOGUES BETWEEN EXTREMES/OPPOSITES
Pick a pair of opposites/extremes and imagine a dialogue and/or simultaneous conversation happening between amdist among them. A conversation between black and white, rich and poor, old and young, powerful and weak. What are utterances of other? What needs to be said that was never yet spoken?

STANDING ON THE BORDER BETWEEN____________&_______________
Think again of opposites or extremes. What lives in the space between them? Imagine that space as a border land, a landscape. What do you see? Who lives there? What’s the weather like? What are the rules of this border space?

_________________IS___________________
Pick a big word with multiple meanings and begin to define it. Life is…Love is…War is…Hope is…What are the sensory images connected to that word? What are the multiple versions of that word? What are the stories embedded inside it?

Prompts inspired by Sabrina Ward Harrison, “ the true & the Questions…”

My body holds…

My heart knows.../My heart carries…

I am___________and I am_________________
Wanna show the world…

I Choose…

I have been built for…

I give you permission to…

I never told you…

I want to explain…

Inside the silence…

In love I become…

I want more…

I want to show you…

Take me…

My family carries…



13 WAYS….based on Wallace Stevens
To push perspective-taking, choose a major issue facing you/this world and find 13 different ways of looking at that same issue. Number them and describe the specific realities/images/feeling/knowledge associated with that word/concept.

I /WE/YOU SAY….based on the work of Sonia Sanchez
What do you want to say that might not ever be heard unless you speak it, unleash it? Begin with the words, I say, and surprise yourself with the internal word.

INHERITANCE: GIVE ME…TAKE BACK…
What do you want to keep from your inheritance and what do you want for the world to take back? Speak to that idea in this writing exercise. Start with the words give me…and alternate that with take back…and see what emerges.

FREE WRITE PROTEST PROMPTS:

WHAT IF…

I AM FOR…

I REFUSE…

I WANT…

I DARE YOU…

I NEED…

TELL ME ABOUT…

HAVE YOU EVER…

REMEMBER…

I DECLARE…

I NEVER KNEW I LOVED…

IMAGINARY HOLIDAYS
Create an imaginary holiday that honors what hasn’t been recognized. A day to celebrate hands. A week to celebrate eyelashes. Create the rituals for this holiday. Describe your fantasy for this celebration. What are the guidelines and expectations of this holiday?


FAKE STATIONARY, “FROM THE DESK OF…”
Assume a persona that holds more or less power than you and speak from the voice of that person. What letter would you write?

SUBVERSIVE STICKERS
Create a sticker slogan that spreads a message unheard of yet, but necessary. These could be directions, warnings, reminders, prayers, secrets, dreams, notes, intimacies, connections. Stick them in public spaces or in friends’ or colleagues’ spaces.

IRRATIONAL REQUESTS
Give yourself permission to ask for the unimaginable, the irrationale. Ask it. Command it. Request it. Speak it. Say it. What do you need. What are the conditions of receiving these request. What will you do in exchange?

FANTASY C.V.’S
Again, assume a version of yourself and create your dream C.V. / resume that gives you the powers you need/desire to be the person you want to be in the world you need it to be.

PERSONAL DICTIONARY OF TERMS based on the work of Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein
Choose a common word with hyper personal associations. Borrowing the dictionary format, redefine that common word with your personal associations with it.

UTOPIAN POSTCARDS
Send a postcard from an imaginary dream space. How good can you imagine it? What does that world look like?

RADICAL PRAYER (LET’S…)
Speak to your imaginary congregation. What do you want to call on your congregants to do, think about, feel, say, know?

POETIC DIRECTIONS http://www.poeticdirections.blogspot.com/
Create a set of directions for your friends and publish/print them out for them to follow on their own time. Create a space for them to reveal/unveil the results of these directions at a mutually agreed upon time. In this way, the directions become a participatory poem.

INDEXING SOCIAL JUSTICE based on Harpers Index
What are the numbers of social justice? What is the mathematics of hope? Despair? State real or imagined facts regarding numbers and percentages associated with social issues and concerns.


JUSTICE EQUATIONS
Borrowing from the law and logic of math, create your own equations of justice, playing with the “poetic” forms of algebra and geometry. Riff off proofs, reasons, systems, codes.

LETTERS OF ADDRESS
Write a letter addressed to the public.

OFFICIAL FORM TAKE-OVERS
Borrow an official form of any kind and fill it in with surprising, unexpected, hyper personal or poetic thoughts.

FLASH CARD VIDEO INTERVIEWS
Create a deck of cards with words that conjure feeling. Find a partner and flash that card at your partner. Video tape that person’s response, uncensored, unfiltered.


I HATE IT WHEN…RANT
Non stop talking on what you hate, and then going straight to the page to write it out.

I LOVE IT WHEN…RAVE
Non stop talking on what you love, and then going straight to the page to write it out.

BILLBOARD BELIEFS
If you had free billboard space and five words, what would you say/write? What’s your message?

TRUISM TO NEWISM based on jenny Holzer’s Truisms
Start with a truism and write about it for five minutes. From that free write, select a line. Swap it with the person next to you. Free write on that line for five minutes. Select a line. Declare it the newism.

LOVE LETTER REVIVAL/CAMPAIGNS
Write mini-love letters/notes and distribute them frequently and often.

PERSONAL CONFESSION MADE PUBLIC
Confess something personal and go public.

THE TEST AS A POEM
Borrow the structure of a survey or test (multiple choice) and fill it with poetic questions and answers. Make it so that all choices are possible and/or absurd.

INTERVIEWS WITH THE SELF
Have a serious or playful interview with yourself by asking questions and responding with absurdities, half-truths, multiple truths, or lies.

PUBLIC CONFESSION MADE PRIVATE
Confess a public transgression, write it down, and give it to someone directly.

TEXT CROSS OUT POETRY
Take a piece of text and cross out words until you have a new poem, thought, idea

THE LUNE
a poetic form adapted from the haiku -- 3 words on the first line, 5 words on the second line, 3 words on the last line. No more, no less, with that last line usually twisting or violating your expectations.