The Writer's Toolkit: Writing Exercises to Help You Tell Great Stories

Writing is one of those creative careers where you don’t just improve from writing complete novels, you also improve through practice. Many great writers take the time to fine-tune their story-telling techniques with short stories and writing exercises, dabbling with different ideas until they not only have a better grip on their style, but their story as well.

Today, I am going to be sharing some writing exercises that can help you tell compelling stories. Let’s begin!

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Getting the Most From These Exercises

First of all, to get the most out of these exercises I recommend you try writing short stories. Target these particular topics in your short stories and you will make the most of your practice. These short stories can be a segment of your story or standalone ideas that you’ve been thinking about.

While it’s great if your exercises can be altered or directly inserted into your novel, it’s perfectly okay to write something separate.

In addition, if you are in the planning stages of your novel, I also recommend writing these exercises out on a piece of paper. There has always been a better, more natural connection between a writer and a pad and pencil. After completing these exercises, you have a collection of handy references to look at later in your story-writing process or you can rewrite them digitally, whichever suits you.

Finally, these may seem like simple exercises on the surface, but they are fantastic in helping you achieve a better understanding of certain aspects of your story. These exercises can take anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours, but the more time you spend on your writing techniques and story elements, the more capable you will be when you start writing your novel.
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Exercise 1 - The Character Sketch

A character sketch is an in-depth look at a character and focuses on them in a unique scene.

In this character sketch, you will create a character, or choose one from your novel, and write every detail about them down, from their appearance to their backstory. Discuss their motivations, how these motivations came about, their personality, their flaws and fears, their mental or physical obstacles, etc.

From there, take a look at their role in your story. Are they a main character or are they a supporting character? Does the story revolve around them, or are they there to add depth to the story through their own motivations and insight?

Take a moment to collect these details and fully realize your character. Many writers like to jump into a story with characters that are less than a concept and more like a passing idea that they vaguely recall. However, when you take this character and flesh them out in a character sketch, you make them a lot more real. You understand them better and you can write them easier.

Of course, when a character’s personality and make-up are fresh in your mind, it helps to put it into practice. With all your character’s qualities in mind, your next step is to write a short scene. It could be a scene you plan to include in your novel or it can be a throwaway scene you just use to test your character.

Anything can occur in this scene, but what should be clear is its focus on your character and how they influence it. With the scene completed, you have finished your character sketch!
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Exercise 2 - A New Point of View

The second exercise is to write a story, or take a segment from your story and write that scene/story from another perspective. This changes the perspective from one character to another, so the reader can follow their motivations, and who knows, they might even end up rooting for this other character.

This exercise will help you form a better understanding of the influence you have over the reader’s understanding and their attachment to certain characters. If you have ever heard the phrase “Everyone is the main character in their own story.”, it directly applies to this exercise.

When the perspective shifts, you see the world from a new pair of eyes. Suddenly, certain elements that were good before are now bad, and if you are rounding out a character’s motivations correctly, there is a reason for this change. From this new point of view, you can create an entirely new story, one that has a different atmosphere. It might even have a more compelling plot than one’s original idea!

The changing of perspectives helps you in several ways; it will help you avoid story contradictions, it will give you a better understanding of the scene and the character's decisions, and it will help you create well-rounded characters that your reader can enjoy.

It’s also a problem-solving exercise to apply when you are writing your novel and a scene’s atmosphere or logic simply isn’t all there. A change of perspective might help you find the gaps in your story and write a more complete scene.
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Exercise 3 - Dialogue Practice

One of the struggles many beginner writers have is realistic and enjoyable dialogue. It’s hard to capture a conversation that sounds natural and has a purpose in a story. For most of us, a natural conversation is littered with small talk, but novels try to avoid it at all costs. There isn’t a reader that will happily read small talk when there are far more interesting topics worth discussing.

That’s where dialogue practice can come in handy.

First, create two or more characters you want to establish a back-and-forth between. Again, these could be characters from your novel or completely different characters. Once you have your speakers, devise a situation or topic. With that done, focus on their personalities when creating that dialogue, and don’t be afraid to jump straight into it.

While it may seem natural to have small talk, writers tend to ignore it or include a simple line that circumnavigates that boring element, such as “After pleasantries were exchanged, the two turned to more pressing matters,” or something like that.

Now, when writing your dialogue you will pay attention to the topic and the personalities of your characters, but it also helps to look at your structure. Do you have a set structure for conveying dialogue? Do you include the appropriate tags to make it clear who is speaking? Do you break this dialogue up with interesting actions or expressions to capture the emotions and atmosphere?

Finally, once your dialogue is finished, I recommend reading it aloud. Some dialogue looks fine when reading it, but when spoken aloud it doesn’t really fit the characters or sound that natural.
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Exercise 4 - Setting Descriptions

The next exercise focuses on your descriptions. When you start a new scene, you want to clearly establish the setting and atmosphere so the reader can imagine where the characters are and what they might be doing in that scene.

It’s an exercise I often give my students. Create a scene with a positive atmosphere, then establish the same scene with a negative atmosphere. It challenges them to not only establish the necessary elements of the scene, but establish them in a way that captures the atmosphere the scene requires.

Think of it as a similar exercise to switching perspectives, but in one scene you want the reader to be calm, maybe even comforted and in the next, you want them to be anxious, or even afraid of what might happen next. One example I can give you is the forest exercise; one version is a character walking through a forest, happy and enjoying all the positive elements, such as the warm feeling of being close to nature. In the next scene, they aren’t happy to be in the forest, describing the discomforts of the outdoors or similar elements such as a hidden threat.

It’s a short, but effective exercise for practicing descriptions and establishing the atmosphere. 
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Exercise 5 - Writing Constraints

The final exercise is to write a short story, but with certain constraints, such as word count, or a limited time. I recommend taking a good look at your writing style and identifying bad habits or aspects of your style you don’t like, then making that a constraint.

For example, if you overuse a certain word, devise a scene where that word would come up often and force yourself to use it only once, or not at all when writing it. A simple vocabulary constraint can be very challenging if done right, just be sure not to target words that you can’t live without.

Of course, it doesn’t have to just be time, word counts, and techniques, you can also challenge yourself with an unfamiliar scene or genre.

If you are more comfortable writing action scenes than any other, then try writing a comedic scene, a romance scene, or any kind of scene that you try to avoid. Novels tend to include elements from all genres, from darker moments to lighter moments, so it makes sense that even in an action-adventure novel there will be moments that aren’t inherent;y associated with that genre.

I struggle to write comedic scenes, but I know that comedic scenes are a great way to break the tension and introduce a more lighthearted atmosphere when I need it. Every theme has its purpose and it pays to be a competent writer when writing any scene.
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My Thoughts and Experiences

When I was starting out, I had very little confidence in my writing. I  knew that if I ever had a good idea, I would struggle to create a coherent story. Of course, I have read books and have expressed my thoughts before, but writing is a very different ball game.

It does take some study and practice to effectively write something. One of the last things I wanted to do was use up my best ideas when my writing skills were at their worst. That meant taking a moment to write something else, something small and simple. Short stories and other writing exercises are invaluable and I highly recommend them to all beginner writers or writers who also struggle to write confidently.

Of course, if you are an experienced writer, I would like to hear what exercises or advice you would give beginner writers. Do you have a favorite writing exercise? Let me know in the comments below!

Thank you for reading and as always,

Good day, goodnight, and happy writing!
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