Got any favorite exercises to jumpstart your writing?  Know of some good books to do so?  Share the wealth, you!

If a writing exercise is anything that gives your writing a much-needed kick in the rear, then my favorite thing to do is fool the sluggish writing sections--you know, the sections that slow down because they're hard, not thought out enough, boring, etc.--by taking a break from the keyboard and writing  longhand for a while. Something about the pen and paper (and my horrible handwriting, I'm sure) frees me up to write crappily, but happily, through the block. Sometimes I start talking myself through the scene in the middle of a scene--what's the point, here? What's this character trying to do? And usually I emerge with an answer that works (for now). At the very least I have some stuff to type in and clean up which gets me through the sticky parts.

Taking this one step further, I recently started writing a screenplay. Oh, I'm not a screewriter by any stretch, but I found that writing up ideas I had for a scene of some future project in screenplay form (or as close as I could get given my utter lack of screewriting experience) captured the idea much better than cryptic, and often, illegible notes on torn envelopes, napkins, and the margins of old work. Plus as a fiction writer, it's a hoot to summarize emotions (nervous). Days later, I can still conjure the scene I want to write, whereas scribbled notes had a half life of roughly three minutes.

So I guess my writing exercise would be to play around like you know what you're doing in a form that's unfamiliar to you. Then bring the kicks you get from it back to your genre of choice. Because sometimes it's good to be reminded that we started writing as play, or at least I did.

This is one of my favorite exercises, and it's adapted from Room To Write, by Bonni Goldberg.  Take a piece of lined paper.  Free-associate a list of words down the left-hand margin, writing one on each line.  (It helps if you start with an interesting word, but you can also grab words you overhear on the bus, for example.)  Now, write a piece--a poem or a snippet of prose) on the rest of the paper, using the first margin word somewhere in the first line of the piece, then using the second margin word somewhere in the second line of the piece, and so on.

This exercise works well for me for a few reasons.  First, it tricks me into writing *something* because it looks like a puzzle, rather than a prompt.  You get to line #7 and think, "Okay, I've been writing a school scene--how am I going to work the word 'pineapple' in here?"  Second, it gets me free-associating, both when generating the list and when weaving in the margin words.  Often we need to trust our subconscious minds to find a way into a story, or a way out of it, and this exercise helps me turn off the more rational part of my brain for a while.  And finally, it helps suppress my perfectionist impulses for a while: there's no pressure to write anything "good," because it's just a random, highly-constrained exercise.  Somehow, turning off that pressure usually lets me create something rich and interesting.

In addition to Room To Write, I've found excellent exercises--both for myself, and for teaching--in Now Write! (by Sherry Ellis) and perennial favorite What If? (by Painter/Bernays).  I'd love to hear about other resources, as well.

A good way to get to know background about an adult character is to write about his or her childhood.  An exercise I often give out in Novel in Progress classes is to write for 15 minutes about your character's 8th birthday; then to write for 15 minutes about the character's 16th birthday.

Great topic Lisa! Including one of my own exercises below. I blogged about this on my own site awhile back (so going to cut and paste!). I also include it in my Problem Solving for Writers classes. The next one is coming up in August so check the schedule!

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How How/Why Why Diagrams

I’m a big fan of Socrates (and yes, I have to admit that Bill & Ted forever messed up the pronunciation of his name for me). However, I think if I had known him in life, I probably would have poisoned him too. Why? Because of that very question–why.

I really believe that Socrates must have created his method by watching a child asking “why?” over and over to an exasperated parent. In doing so, he realized that it was a powerful method for garnering information and really digging deep into the truth of the matter. But he was onto something very interesting–by using a questioning method to solve problems, a learner can evaluate their own level of understanding, deal with misconceptions about the subject very early on and improve the methods of learning that take place in order to fine-tune the means of finding the answer.

Socrates was a proponent of “anamnesis” or the idea of recollection or drawing upon the deeper resources and hidden ideas within an individual. His method of inquiry was geared toward helping an individual explore deep-seeded thoughts and beliefs and bring them to new understandings. Socrates accomplished this through a series of questions, asking over and over, why and how until the final truth was revealed.

Examples of his methods of questioning were first revealed in Plato’s “Dialogues,” in which he illustrates many conversations that his teacher had with other Greeks. Socrates wasn’t well-liked for his method of finding out the truth, for his constant questioning and overturning preconceived ideas made people uncomfortable. But he had a knack for drawing people in, changing mindsets and discovering answers that could only have been discovered by such an engaging process of questioning outcomes. When you challenge the answers, you can discover new truths, new possibilities and new processes.

There are numerous problem-solving tools used in business, science and medical professions today that utilize Socrates’ method of inquiry to ask questions with the intention of uncovering new ideas and possibilities that will in turn lead to improvements, creative divergences and logical answers.

For example, law schools have used the Socratic Method as a way to teach lawyers how to dig into the depths of problems by asking questions on every response given. Lawyers who have learned how to use this method effectively become adept at showing judges and juries new possibilities and truths when the evidence at hand seems impossible to figure out.

One of the best examples of a creative tool that uses the Socratic Method is the Why-Why diagram and its cousin, the How-How diagram. Both tools force new questions that branch from an initial inquiry—essentially they are diagrams that directly use Socrates’ method, asking why, why, or how, how, over and over. Writers can use this tool to identify root causes of problems of plots, characters or decisions that need to be made within the story. One of the greatest strengths of these exercises is the way that they can be used to determine cause and effect of actions within your story.

Why/Why and How/How diagrams both have the same basic structure. Take a piece of paper and on one side of the sheet, write your story question. It could be any sort of question, starting with why or with how. For example:

• Why does Sandra, who is adopted, feel like she HAS to find her birth mother?
• How does Mark cover up the murder of his girlfriend?

At this point, try to come up with at least two answers (but possibly more) to the question. Now, take those individual answers and ask why again and again, recording multiple results with each branch outward. Continue to ask why (or how) to each result until you feel that you have enough information.

Note the diagram below…each branch answers the question WHY? to the previous answer, thus expanding the ideas further and further.

My apologies on the fuzziness…I need to make a new example at some point–click on the diagram to view larger.

Use Why-Why or How-How diagrams when you need to:

• Identify problems that you might be having with plot or characters
• Identify possible causes of key plot outcomes
• Investigate plot problems and find a fix
• Identify potential new subplots and opportunities for character development
• Define specific tasks for a goal (either your own or your characters)
• Visualize all aspects of a problem or goal

While the Why/Why and How/How diagrams are very concrete and clear examples of how problem-solving utilizes Socratic thought, nearly every creative and problem solving tool utilizes his methods in some way or another. The idea of examining your life, your surroundings and absorbing new ideas is very Socratic in nature. He taught others how to develop and grow as human beings (or as he describes in the Apology, living the “right way”) by being drawn out at length, in depth and detail, on issue after issue after issue.

Socrates began using his method of inquiry when he wanted to discover more about what he knew—or didn’t know. He used this same questioning method to show others that they didn’t know quite what they thought they knew. Essentially he showed that there is always room for more thought, to expand upon existing ideas, to better specific projects and to improve our own thinking. One has to wonder if the Oracle at Delphi was correct—that Socrates was indeed the wisest man. In his quest to show that he knew nothing, he discovered and learned more than he probably ever thought possible and in turn, did the same for others.

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Hope that some of you find this useful!

Writing longhand is a great exercise. Amazing to think that every great work before 1897 was written linearly, and long-hand, with few edits. "Dracula" was supposedly the first bestseller ever typed. Typing makes for great editing, but for some folks (not including myself), simply going slower makes for a smoother first draft.