Category: Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: What is Missing?

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I mentioned in the Editing Rant: What did you see? (7/14/2026) “readers have an easier time of visualizing what is there rather than what is removed.”

But as a writer, you often need to write about something that is no longer there. A clue that went missing, something missing that becomes a clue. It could be someone missing or the loss of the senses of smell. The Point of View character could be blindfolded or temporarily deaf. Someone might have been pickpocketed, or “Dude, where’s my car?”

WRITING EXERCISE: Write about a void. Something is missing: an object or a person or something that had been registering on one of the senses. Per normal, this is an exercise. Keep it under 500 words and post below if you want.

My attempt: Silence of the Forest (7/19/2026) is based on the lack of sound. This is a device often used in fantasy: The FoResT GOes siLENT!! But often you don’t “hear” it go silent because nothing was heard before. Yes, the characters might have been talking, but the readers haven’t been told about all the noise the forest is making all the time. The fact it went silent isn’t impactful. I wanted to see how it would work if I built sound into everything within the story. How do you think it worked, specifically in relation to help the audience hear the forest go silent. 

Writing Exercise: The Purchase Funnel

Erin Penn Leave a comment


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“Stick Like Glue until Chapter Two” – this is what you need to sell a book now-a-days. Today’s writing assignment is an advanced one, related to the recent Unputdownable posts (see the writing exercise last month Unputdownable (6/4/2026)). If you want to write to sell, either to a publisher or a reader, you need to get the reader’s attention.

Selling books works several different ways. Word of mouth is a favorite. The person already is aware of you; we all have auto-buy authors.

But essential to all of these is the first sale, and the second, and the third. Word of mouth doesn’t happen until a sale happens. Auto-buy doesn’t happen until that first book sale happens.

Most sales are based on the Free-Look-Inside (Amazon) or Pick up the book in the book store and read the first chapter. Somehow the book needs to be Unputdownable from the very start.

The cover provides awareness of the book. The first sentence of the book needs to grab enough interest to get them to read the first paragraph. The first paragraph needs to engage enough to get a reader to scroll through the first page. The first page needs to raise enough desire to get them to read the first chapter. And the first chapter activates the action to buy the book.

As a writer, your job is to craft that first sentence, first paragraph, first page, and first chapter to sell the book. Either to a publisher or a reader (and really, if to a publisher, it will eventually be to a reader). How do you make them buy the book? How do you keep them burning with questions and interest to make that first chapter draw them through to purchase?

WRITING EXERCISE: Concentrating on your first chapter, what techniques can you use to activate the Interest-Desire-Action cycle to a purchase? What have you learned gets people interested quickly? What questions do you need to ask yourself to hone that first chapter? Share your thoughts below.

My Attempt: The first thought that pops into my head is have I started the book in the right place. Am I where things change? Second, have I defined the character enough to interest people? The trade-off of character development and plot-defining action; does my reader know the story AND the character they are signing up to take this ride with. Is the reader invested enough to invest in me?

I guess then the next thing is look at that first sentence – am I describing the grass or the snake in the grass? Look at the first paragraph, what is actually happening with it. First page, first scene, first chapter. I hate the tradeoff between story and first book sale, be there has to be a little. Later, if I get a book sold, I can back off of this front-load work, but the first book is the funnel of sentence to paragraph to page to chapter to sale. If I want to do sales.

Off to get the “Stick like glue until chapter two” in place.

Writing Exercise: Unputdownable

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Last month I had an Editing Rant (Chapter Ending Questions 5/12/2026) and recommended an Other Cool Blog (Alyssa Matesic – Unputdownable 5/28/2026) on the topic of creating chapter endings which pull a reader through a story, making it Unputdownable (yes, still a word!).

Today’s writing exercise is to wordsmith a work-in-progress (WIP) chapter ending to pull the reader.

In grade school we are taught to end chapters with bows. The advice of “beginning, middle, and end” within a chapter, creating an arc, wasn’t defined, except for the end – you need to END a chapter.

But you don’t, not really. Only when the story ends, and even then leave threads for people to think on – for future series, for fan fic. But most importantly, for the Zeigarnick Effect. By leaving just a little unfinished, not completely closing the door, just making sure the core questions are answered for satisfaction, the reader continues to think about your story. This means they will recommend your story to others because they thought about it. They will remember you as a writer, because your satisfied them but also left them something more to think on. The story is both finished and unfinished. Not a cliffhanger, but what happened next; yes the MC and the romantic interest got together, but did they ever decide what color to paint the house. Silly little questions, but enough for the reader to keep filling in the story for a while.

The chapter-ending Zeigarnik effect, the raising of suspense to make the book unputdownable, shouldn’t be silly little questions. It should raise tension, making the reader go “just one more page.”

Remember Alyssa Matesic’s five ways to raise suspense at the end of your chapter (see her video for more details about each of these options – https://youtu.be/8ir5S0Nb_f4?si=MU0dVRr9o57uBdAt): (a) ask a question; (b) create an obstacle; (c) drop a bomb; (d) end with an unresolved emotion; (e) add a time constraint.

WRITING EXERCISE: Go over your present WIP and look at each chapter ending, the final paragraph. Do they do one of the five ways of raising suspense? Write which type of option you use (a-e or 1-5, however you have them written down). Are they all the same, or limited to just two of the options? Fix one of your chapter endings. In the comments, post the final three sentences you started with and what you restructured the ending to be (final three sentences, more or less).

My attempt: I tend to use the “end on a question” option the most. The ending of “Teamup Road Trip” which appeared in the A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to P-Con was as follows.

“So, number three?” Onyx asked.

Annie paused before answering, “Hopefully after the con.”

It ends the story, but as typical of the superhero genre, I left a “to be continued” at the end of the story.  A what happens next which will make the reader want to run out and get the next comic book or, in this case, the next anthology (due out around the September 2026 convention!).

I used both the “ask a question” but also a “unresolved emotion” technique, with a little bit of a “time constraint” tossed in. Things happen in threes in this universe, but the third thing hasn’t happened yet. The call-to-action sword is hanging over the superheroes when all they want to do is take the weekend off and attend the con. We know, as readers who love the genre, that the third thing isn’t going to wait until after the con. Something is going to happen at the Dallas P-Con convention.

Is it a cliffhanger? No, because the story was “What happened on the way to P-Con.” They dealt with an emergent, a medical emergency, and picking up the guest-of-honor for the convention from the airport as a disaster-movie level blizzard hits. But at the end, they had arrived! The story is tied up.

Now let’s look at the chapter endings themselves. I can’t change them at this point, the story is published, but it should be an interesting visit.

Chapter 1: Manuel stepped back as Annie started the engine, giving them a little wave as they backed out of the drive and headed into Austin late morning traffic to get on I-35.

No tension here. This is ending the establishment of “normal” and starting the trip. It is early in the story and the first chapter was about getting to know the characters and liking them. The reader isn’t likely to put down the book at the end of chapter 1. The question is “what is about to happen?” I guess it is enough to say option (a), maybe.

Chapter 2: “Maybe she is hiding it, maybe she is—” As they watched the drama of the last car, the fists the angry driver had been shaking at the agents suddenly formed crackling white plasma around them.

Chapter 2 definitely ends with (c) Drop a Bomb.

Chapter 3: As it was, the blast was contained. Only those within the globe faced the consequences of the explosion.

Returning to my favorite ending-type for chapters, (a) Question: What happened to our MC who was in the center of that globe!!!!

Chapter 4: “No, she isn’t in a coma, but her entire system is out of whack enough there is a danger if I don’t get her to a specialist…

This time a (e) time constraint has been added to the story. Up until now, our heroes have all day to meander to the convention and Orb and Angel are arriving the night before, so even more time. Now, “there is a danger if I don’t get her to a specialist” soon. This ticking clock will increase throughout the next chapter.

Chapter 5: “Hold your horses. It ain’t like nobody’s dying on you.” — “That’s debatable.”

The (e) time constraint is coming due, mixing with the (a) question of “will Orb survive?”. This is the strongest pull through, except I didn’t end on that note. The chapter actually concluded with : The door started rolling up. Angel moved her compact car forward as soon as it fit under the metal. Once she was inside, the door rolled down behind the vehicle.

This ending leaves the scene unresolved. But it could be considered a clear cut scene ending. The character “walked through a door.”

Not the best choice. But I also wanted to create a feeling of claustrophobia in the next POV character. She was enclosed in a situation she didn’t understand. The door closing was important for her emotions. Not everything is driven by chapter endings; techniques are used for storytelling, they are only tools to shape plot and characters into a narrative. Not every tool is needed for every situation.

The superhero story continues with another three chapters. (It was 20,000 words.) Once I get the rights back to both Teamup Road Trip and its sequel, I hope to publish both in one volume with a side story about Vicky and maybe what happened with the ancient ghost  dire bear. Stay tuned!

Oh, and don’t forget to do this writing exercise yourself.

Writing Exercise: The Twist, Make It Real

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash

You have reached the center of your story, the mid-point of the second act, and need to add “the twist.” Somehow you need to change all the rules without changing the rules. If you have read a lot, you’ve been exposed to dozens of twists. Sometimes they work, sometimes they are pretentious, and sometimes they fail badly. What makes a good twist?

First and foremost, the twist cannot introduce anything new. It must follow rules and events previously established. To do otherwise is deux machinst (god in the machine), the writer forcing a change for the sake of change. The challenge is to have the event be cause and effect and still be a twist.

In life, twists are those moments where you imitate Homer of the Simpsons cartoon and go “duh”. Or say “that is so obvious, I wish I thought of that”. Recently I was admiring all the escaped balloons decorating a big box store ceiling. How do they get them down? Then I see two retail workers approach with another helium balloon covered with large clear tape in the little circles one does to attach a bow to a gift and the balloon tied to a very, very long string. They released the balloon to the ceiling until it touched another with the clear packing tape, and then pulled down both balloons. They continued until the ceiling was clear. Pure genius. Obvious, following established rules of gravity and adhesion, but a twist I never saw coming.

For the Ah-Ha video I’ve previously written about in blogs on June 2017 (Agency), November 2017 (POV), and May 2018 (Three-Acts), the heroine was pulled into the story. And when the panel police show up to hunt the intruder to the black and white world, the main characters run. The twist to escape is obvious when it happens, but you don’t see it until the hero does it because you are so absorbed in the chase. If one can be drawn into the comic world, one can rip out of it. The woman escapes, and the comic book character guards her exit.

Comedy is great for studying twists. This Bud LIght commercial starring Cedric the Entertainer captures a twist perfectly. Act one establishes the characters, hot chick and lucky guy, act two has the journey to get the beer and the joyous dance celebration, and act three has the resolution. The twist is delivered with the twist of the bottle. Again we get so absorbed in Cedric’s victory dance we forget he is holding the bottles until he sits back down on the couch. A second before the bottle opens, everything that went before plus the rules of carbonation runs through our head and we shout “no” just as the bottle sprays like a firehose into hot chick’s face.

Amhezer Bush, or their advertising department, is good at comedic twists. The ongoing football game between teams of horses with the spectator ranchers at the fence have established the world over the years. Combined with real-world vocabulary and situations translated from the football scene has made for many the perfect twist. From the streaker (all the animals are naked, but a recently sheared lamb is more naked than the rest) to the ranchers complaining about the zebras, in the body of both a referee and a real zebra, we have been surprised again and again by the twists that are no more than typical effect following cause of established rules.

One famous twist happens Aesop fable of the Snake and the Farmer. Used to happy endings, we expect the kindness of the farmer reviving the snake to be repaid. But in the end, the bitten and now poisoned farmer asks the snake why he returned kindness with cruelty: “you knew I was a snake”. So again, natural real-world cause-and-effect already established in the story creates the twist.

WRITING EXERCISE: For you present Work-In-Progress, review your twists. Do all follow rules you have already defined in the story?

READING EXERCISE: Think about a twist you did not like in a story you read. Why didn’t it work for you?

My Attempt: Flash: Magical Menace Mode Part Two – Special Meeting (2/1/2026) – The group of friends discover not everyone is seeing the same thing. Now they have to figure out who is seeing what.

Writing Exercise: B is for Blocked

Erin Penn 12 Comments

Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash

Today is the second day of the A-to-Z challenge and the letter is “B”. For a writers, what we often face is the beloved Writer’s Block. Something has stopped the story dead.

In November, a person reached out with a question: “I’m writing a futuristic/sci-fi political drama which I was keeping fairly grounded to genre. But now that the main plot is picking up, I need something to happen to motivate my MC, kickstart her into action. So far, my favorite idea is her getting cursed. Which is very much not the tone for a futuristic/sci-fi political drama. I’m still early in working everything out, so not a big thing, but it feels a bit silly to be stuck (for weeks!) debating a curse mixing up the genre. Any help will be welcomed.”

I said it sounded like two things were happening:

  1. You want your MC to start taking action.
  2. You are going for a quick fix, which you know is wrong for what you want to write.

The result for the author was writer’s block. They were stuck because they were trying to drive the story where it didn’t want to go. I’m going to go out on a limb and say, after exhaustion, this is the most common type of writer’s block. Either consciously or unconsciously your story is telling you “don’t go there.”

In this case, the author was introducing an element which didn’t fit the story and they knew it. More often the writer’s blockade is unconscious; they have to have the character hit a story beat so they are making their character act against their nature and the seething-ocean of story creation refuses to throw up words to crash onto the screen.

If something is wrong, then maybe a different approach is needed. I gave three suggestions because each writer and each problem to be solve needs a different approach; writing is NEVER a one-size-fits-all solution.

The Problem: The MC is lacking agency or action, so how to get her motivated to interact with the plot?

Solution One

If motivation is wanted, goals can help. What does she value – short term (today or in the couple of days), medium term (wants to accomplish this month/year), and long-term goal? How are these compatible and how to do they clash – for example, don’t want to cook tonight so want to eat out but also want to save money for a house – the medium goal of getting a better job doesn’t apply at the moment. But that can kick in because while out at the restaurant, she sees a “now hiring” at the establishment next door to the restaurant.

Then, with the typical meanness of an author giving trouble to their characters, you CRASH all her motivations and make her reevaluate her life. Releasing she didn’t have enough money to even by a pizza slice because prices just went up, she walks into the job interview and gets abducted by aliens.

Meme I created after the SAGA 2023 writer’s conference

Less overt, while eating at the restaurant, she overhears something related to the city job situation which she then investigates.

Solution Two

The curse is a stick method to getting the character to interact with the story. They have no choice in the matter. If the stick method is throwing up a writer’s block, maybe try the carrot method. The goal solutions list in Solution One is one method to discover carrots and sticks particular to the character goals; sticks with goals can be they had been thinking about leaving work and something forces them to stay or leave. But other sticks can be of the more common variety: an accident or general life event. Other carrots could be an invitation to a party or seeing their favorite candy on sale. In general, the inciting incident which changes the status quo of the MCs life can be a carrot or a stick. Most authors go for sticks, because most people don’t change their comfortable status quo until something makes it uncomfortable. Using a carrot can be a change of pace to get the MC moving; the stick method can be saved for the dark-of-soul moment. If you have hit a complete block, brainstorm a dozen or so sticks and an equal number of carrots, both at least ten in number and some can be really crazy, and see if any work at getting the character motivated.

Solution Three

Maybe the character isn’t the right person for the story you want to tell. The third option is to interview the character. If the story is fighting you, sit down with your character(s) and have a chat, it can be on paper or in your head.

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Ask them why they don’t want to go along with the story. Ask them if they want to do it (the action required to get to the next part of the story), what DID they want to do. Would they be willing to return back to the plot after that sidequest? How does the sidequest fit in to the main story? Ask the MC if she doesn’t want to be part of the story you are trying to write, if she can recommend someone else. You might get an answer, well, duh, I hate to travel but my baby sister ran away three times while we were growing up. “Can’t it just be you?” “Nope, it is my sister and her best friend.” (Yes, they are imaginary, but we build them to feel real, and sometimes “someone” related to the MC build is the one the story is actually about.)

WRITING EXERCISE: Work with one of the solutions suggested to better understand a character from your present work-in-progress (WIP) or dig out one of your failed stories which had hit a writer’s block. Either do a goal spread for short, medium, and long term; do a carrot and stick brainstorm of at least ten carrots and ten sticks; or sit down and have a conversation with the characters about what they want to do and why.