Category: Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: Trope Writing Prompts

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Photo by Glen Hooper on Unsplash

Rachel Brune, a writing friend, posted a slice of life over on the book of faces a couple-few days ago, mostly about attending conventions and getting recharged for writing. Also a bit about planning and moderating panels. Wanting to change things up, she did a twist for a panel. Instead of just talking, they created. Using general writing tropes from two different alphabetical letters, the group – panel and audience – created stories around the idea.

Examples she posted (from a horror panel) included: “evil twins + Renfield” and “ghost hitchhiker + familial cannibalism surprise.”

That sounded like some premium-grade writing prompts, so I sent her a meme of monkeys stealing hubcaps saying “It’s mine now”.

WRITING EXERCISE: Using the first and last letter of your name (you choose which name), pick two tropes from “tvtropes.org” or other trope site. (Aim as always is 500 words.)

My attempt: I used allthetropes.org (Category: Tropes – All The Tropes – https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Category:Tropes) and the letters of “E” and “N” for Erin. “Excited Trope Name! -> Eek, a mouse!” (person mounting a table or chair because of a mouse) and “News Tropes -> News Monopoly” (Every channel is showing the same thing). I will drop the flash “Mouse Monopoly” for my Sunday 6/8/2025 post. Stick around and let me know what you think.

Writing Exercise: Story got Sad

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Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind 

I know last month we talked about B is for Bleed. This week could be entitled T is for Tears. Explore the emotion of grief / loss. It doesn’t have to be loss of life; there are many things devastating to lose.

WRITING EXERCISE: Create a scene where “the story got sad all by itself.” You know that story you told yourself once that went somewhere you never expected. Five hundred words or less. Good luck!

My attempt: Last month I mentioned the Ymir’s Songs duology.

Writing Exercise: B is for Bleed

Erin Penn 3 Comments

   

Photo by Alexandre Boucey on Unsplash // Art of letter B from the 2025 A-to-Z Blogging Challenge website provided to participants

Me on Facebook: “Writing is open-heart surgery on yourself.”

One of my friend’s replied: “Just open a vein and bleed on a page.”

Another one added: “If you can’t make yourself cry, you are doing something wrong.”

You know when they say “Write what you know,” they don’t mean dragons and wizards, or blasters and spaceships, or murder and police procedures. The of-so-rarely-helpful-but-always-critical-they mean emotions.

YOUR emotions.

If you aren’t hurting, the reader/listener won’t feel it.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a conversation between two people, three at max. You know the drill, make it short – a single scene, about 100 words, no more than five hundred (this is an exercise, not a novel). See if you can capture an emotion – laughter, anger, tears, hunger, pride … try to capture the moment to the point you feel the emotions welling within you. Cut and paste it below or drop a link to where people can find it.

My attempt: Negative One is a Value (9/15/24) was never meant to be a cry-fest [I do have other stories for that like the Ymir’s Songs duology Fifteen Minutes (10/09/22) and  Song for Rosalynn (11/26/23)], but Neg-One was meant to capture an emotion … a group of emotions … a moment of emotion? Anyway, frustration, the bone-deep hurt only family can inflict, the deep caring of trying just once to get through. A flash of anger. Rage … against everything. Never, ever being good enough. When you read it, do these emotions come through?

Writing Exercise: Dear Diary, today was an adventure

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Photo 67785157 | © Konstantin Iuganov | Dreamstime.com (picture paid for)

“Dear Diary, Today was an adventure.”

I’ve never personally been much of filling journals or diaries. This blog and the vlog over on TikTok is the closest I get, and I think I miss out on something important with that. Filling a journal keeps track of the amazing things that happen in your life that all blend together over time. An adventure of going to a store you have never visited. Laughter a child shared with you. A near miss on the street. All these peculiar, wonderous, remarkable things. Or you can take the ordinary and mundane and make it extraordinary. The fight to get out of bed. Doing battle with the garden. Drinking the mystical elixir of wakefulness. Life is magic and journals and diaries give a writer a chance to capture it.

Today’s writing exercise is particular helpful if your well is dry or a writer’s block has appeared in your wording road.

WRITING EXERCISE: Create a diary entry taking an ordinary event and making it fantastical. How did you fight gravity today? Any of your drinks containing liquids from other continents? Did you use a tech today that when you really think about it, it becomes amazing (such as running water in the house)? Aim of 100-500 words for your entry. If you are in a writing slump, aim for the higher end.

Writing Exercise: Genderless

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Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Can you write a story with no gendered pronouns? The most common substitution by authors is “them/they’re”.

I’ve been really impressed with the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. Her main character is never defined with gender as a mechanical being. At the book club where we talked about the book “All Systems Red”, half of us thought the main character had “he/him” pronouns and the other half used “she/her” pronouns talking about the character. I went through the first book again and discovered a complete blank and none of us had noticed while reading the books.

That is some awful good writing.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a flash or scene where at least one of the characters’ genders is never defined.

My Attempt: The Dream of You and I (2/4/2024).