Writing Exercises

The Bird and the Island

One of the first exercises that we created mixes two that I've seen quite often. The first bit is to create a story based off of a picture. The other is to write whatever you want within a particular time span; in this case, 5 minutes. The basic point? Take the picture, describe it for five minutes, and then switch with your partner.

This was the first we tried, and it is a little raw overall. Also, I didn't expect to be posting it, so grammatically its not the best. The top portion in normal text is what I wrote. The bottom italicized bit is what my friend @Hatsunation wrote. The picture is on the side.

 The Lonely Island

It hadn’t always been such a lonely, desolate area. Once this beautiful beach was a lush jungle, teeming with wildlife and creatures. Even now some life remains, clinging to the rock and thin, loose soil with an admirable desperation.

It was time that destroyed the beauty. Time and Man. The Men came through with their fire-sticks, warriors and scientists tearing up the ground, killing the creatures, and causing a beautiful world to be burned to the ground and dredged up from what it could have been.

Now thousands of years later, it still somehow maintains a different sort of beauty. God is kind to his creations. He saved these trees, creating a little island sanctuary for them and what few, struggling pieces of wildlife remained. He surrounded it with a beautiful beach, with sand and a blue, blue ocean.

Only His subjects remain here, with access limited to a simple wooden ladder and the only residence a single, shabby house.

Yet this little, shabby home is better than a thousand different mansions. It houses an assortment of creatures from The Old Days that freely wander its halls in harmony with one another. Without the threat of Men, there was no need for the status of predator and prey.

Because of this relationship, God’s creations could unify as one and take back what was stolen by Men. But for now, animals and plants alike were content to remain by themselves on their little island sanctuary.

They are proud to call this place home.

You see, one of the best parts about these exercises is how invigorating they can be. I had a five minute window to spin a quick story about this random picture my friend found online, and I did it! Of course, one of the more interesting parts is seeing what other people do with the same picture. That's the next section though :3

Try it out for yourselves! Google 'random pictures', pick one you like, and write something for a short amount of time. Its advised to pick a song you don't know so that you don't get distracted by the lyrics. This sort of exercise is awesome if you're someone like me who works well with music blasting in the background. It helps when you want to get over writers block by making your thoughts flow, and it's excellent for improving the timing for your pieces- when working alone you find that its easier to estimate how long you have left and where you should start wrapping up the peice. You'd be surprised how your grasp of timing increases with something like this.

Here's another example of this sort of prompt. This is the story that my friend was working on while I wrote the previous prompt. Then we switched. The italics is still hers and mine is the normal text.

Let the Sleepers Lie

The kitten slept soundly, her gentle purr humming over the two heartbeats. Her parrot friend laid nuzzled in his companions fur, fully awake instead. Despite having spent the afternoon playing till the point of exhaustion, he couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep. Not yet.

Then he heard it. The small kitten’s heart missed a beat. The parrot snuggled closer, hoping desperately that he truly heard the jump. It had been far too long since the poor kitten had simply let herself go. The parrot wanted for it to be true.

Ba-bump. It was true. The little bird almost puffed up, proud as he was. He had finally made her let go!

Granted it was hard to let go of such a loss. But the older the kitten got, the sadder she seemed to become until finally he had tried with all his might every waking second to make her feel better. And apparently, something about the days play had made her change. He didn’t know what it was that made her feel so much better. They had simply played tag, he dragged a string around for her, what they usually did. He wasn’t sure what made her feel better.

What he did know was that she had acted very strangely since they had met up that day. And he had the strangest feeling that it was something he did.

He just hoped that he could somehow, SOMEHOW, do it again. Make her feel better. Bring the hope back into her little heart.

It would make him feel like the best parrot in the world.

It's kinda silly, but hey, it was for the most adorable picture of a cat and a parrot sleeping on a blue blanket. It called for sap. A lot of sap XD So I hope you guys try this out. Its fun!