Cambridge Writers’ Group: Exercises

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Thursday February 16, 2006

 

Take 15 – 20 minutes to complete one of these excercises.[1] 

 

1. Take a short piece of your writing that you have written in first person and rewrite it in third person, or vice-versa.

 

2.  Write a short description of a place. You can use any and all sensory descriptions but sight: you can describe what it feels like, sounds like, smells like and even tastes like. Try to write the description in such a way that people will not miss the visual details.

 

3. Think of something -- an object or an action -- that is ugly or repulsive. Describe this thing in such a way that the reader will either begin to see it as beautiful or will believe that the narrator truly believes it is beautiful. Do not resort to falsehood, though. One way to manage this is to adopt the voice of a narrator who thinks each repulsive aspect of your thing is sublime.

 

Writers' Group