Let's write a story! But, you have no ideas at the moment. Will, let's stir up some. They are there a-plenty, down in your subconcious. The following exercises are designed to bring up at least one and probably a dozen ideas where you can get at them and use them. Do them in ordered without skipping. Write down your first thoughts quickly and without self-consciousness. Don't just think them--write them down. If this sounds like kindergarten, beware!
1. In two short sentences describe in automobile accident as it appears to the driver while it happens. You are the driver.
2. One sentence. Describe from your own view point an old man taken completely by astonishment.
3. One sentence. You are an eight-year-old only child. Your new baby sister has just come home from the hospital. How do you feel?
4. You are seventy-seven years of age. Your husband or wife of fifty-eight years has just died. One sentence to express your true anguish.
5. In one sentence give the heart of a scene of natural violence--a tornado or hail storm in which you are caught out in the open.
6. In one very short sentence, make me smell the fragrance of old-fashioned red roses on a humid, wind-less, moon-light summer night.
7. Three short lines of meaningful dialogue between a man and wife, arguing violating.
8. Describe the taste of anger in one word. The scent of sadness in a phrase. The taste of apple in a phrase. The aroma of coffee in a phrase.
9. You are a woman no longer in love with your husband. You are returning is amorous, good-night kiss. Tell the how you feel in one sentence.
10. In one sentence, make the reader feel through nostalgia.
11. You are a man just fired from a well-paying job you hate. How do you feel? Two sentences.
12. You are a young mother. You have just run over your children' s puppy in the driveway. How do you feel? One sentence.
13. You are looking directly into the face of a shy, sweet middle-aged woman who has just been informed that her flower arrangement has won first prize at the Garden Club Show. Described her face in one sentence.
14. The smile of martyr in one short sentence.
15. You don't like dogs or cats. While visiting friends who love both, you discover that a flea has attached itself to your ankle. What do you do? One sentence.
16. You are a woman of thirty-eight, snagged on the moment of realization that you have on in love with a no-good man. How do you feel? Two sentences.
17. You are a very beautiful woman; you have just learned that your husband has been unfaithful. Give your first reaction in two short sentence.
18. You are a ten-year-old girl. You are being spanked hard for something you didn't do. How do you feel? One short sentence.
19. You are a forty-year-old woman to whom no man has ever proposed marriage or otherwise. Your face is ugly but your figure is superb. You are towling off after taking a shower one hot evening and look a two see a man staring in through the open bathroom window. What is your first unguarded reaction? One sentence.
20. You are a father seen your first-born for the first time. One sentence to described your feelings.
21. Three short meaningful interchanges of dialogue between a pickpocket and his alerted victim.
22. The sound of an egg frying an butter. A phrase.
23. The sound of fist against flash and bone, in a phrase.
24. One of your acquaintances is a man capable of murder but is unaware of it. Describe him. Make the reader know him in two sentences.
25. Write a provocative three-sentence opening paragraph which would make the reader very much want to read the rest of your story.
26. You are a men who does not hate but does not love a woman completely in love with you. Tell her the truth in two short sentences.
27. By physical description alone, show that a character in your story is completely untrustworthy. One sentence.
28. By physical description only, make the reader know a vulgar person, male or female, in one sentence.
29. Picture a badly scarred woman, without money or prestige, being proposed to by a handsome, healthy man with plenty of money and prestige, who swears he cannot live without her. Why can't he? What is your story explanation of this? As few words has possible.
30. In one sentence show the feeling of a young girl falling in love for the first time.