Creative Writing Activities for Short Stories

Struggling with creative juices for short stories?  Here are some workshops to help:

Color Coded. Ask students to write a short story that begins with the word "blue," and in which the first word of every paragraph is a color. Use the "color word" only once in each paragraph, but suggest the colar in as many ways as possible. For example:

The world had turned grey. Nothing but mud and asphalt surrounded the unpainted house, little more than a box made of concrete blocks. Charlie, dressed in faded work pants, rubber boots, and a thick wool sweater, steadied himself with a hand on the top rail of a weathered cedar fence. Behind him, nothing but ash-coloured sky, bare trees, and plumes of smoke belching from the factory in the distance. A lone sparrow rested on a branch, one beady eye watching.

Turn a poem into a short story. A poem uses tight language to convey emotional or intellectual ideas in an imaginative and new way. A single poem can provide a rich source of creative writing ideas for fiction writers who can use specifics in the poem as a starting point for a narrative. Using the poem of their choice for inspiration, have group members create a character, a setting, a situation, and a character goal, from the poem and write a short story.

For example, a whimsical visual poem by the late poet bp nichol contains only two words, blob and plop. If you write the word blob, draw a line under it and align the word plop under it, the visual suggestion is that of the word blob reflected in water, and overturned, to plop. (It's a clever little poem that has to be reproduced visually for its full effect.)

What sort of character do these two words suggest, in what setting, and what situation? What would a character in this setting and situation want more than anything else, and what obstacles would he or she have to overcome to attain that goal? With these components or ones inspired by a more conventional poem, individuals may construct a story.

Dictionary Detail. A somewhat easier creative writing activity is to have each individual choose ten random words from a dictionary and use them to suggest a character, a setting, and a problem. Put the character into a situation where the problem is not easily overcome and write a short story.

Unusual Sretches Often ideas come when strange or contradictory words or phrases are strung together. When you use this creative writing activity, provide a list of mixed nonsense proverbs and have students literalize them and write a paragraph on whichever one fires their imagination. Explain that the paragraph needn't be perfect or polished but should "free their muse."

[a] Beauty visits once a year.

[b] Bad news is the best medicine.

[c] Silence makes the heart grow fonder.

[d] Strike while the head wears the crown.

[e] A rolling stone is worth two in a bush.

[f] Uneasy lies the head that gathers moss.

[g] A penny is the mother of invention.