Your stories now have people in them who have motives for what they’re doing (they do, don’t they?), and places to do them, so it’s time for the next Fiction Writing Exercises – Ideas for Writing Fiction #9:

9. Events and situations:

Here is a sample list of events and situations: a job interview; a pop concert; a telephone call; the arrival of a stray cat; a car breaking down; going on holiday; losing a purse or wallet; finding a body; an eye test; a party; going on a blind date; a birthday party; a child starting school; a circus arriving in town; moving house; starting a new job; a family meal; a football match; a car park; a long car journey; an argument; going back to your old school; a telephone call; attending a funeral; breaking an ornament; a diary or calendar; mowing the grass; visiting a fairground; writing a letter; going round a supermarket.

Take any two of these and think about how they could be combined in a plot. Ask yourself ‘What if..?’ or ‘Supposing…?’ type questions to help develop the plot.

Plotting is one of the hardest things out there for many writers. You may know how you want the story to begin and hopefully how it will end, but you need a way for the characters to get there. The plot becomes the events and situations that occur between the first and last paragraphs… You can come up with interesting characters, fascinating venues, but if the plot has major holes in it, or is too confusing, or doesn’t seem to serve the story’s needs in a way that makes sense, the rest usually won’t save it.

However, the plot doesn’t need to be highly convoluted (unless you’re writing an Agatha Christie-type murder mystery), but it does need to work for the characters and motives you’ve assigned the people who populate your story. Jarring readers out of their ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ by throwing in a plot twist or situation just because you can, but that doesn’t fit the things you’ve already established, tends to tick them off. You want the reader to follow along, staying with the story until the very end, whether it’s a screenplay, short story, a novel, or a Stephen King-sized doorstop, I mean, tome.

So, while asking ‘what if’ or ‘suppose’ this or that happens in the story as you build your plot, make sure you’re doing it from your character(s)’ point of view and motives, not your own, for a better fit.

BTW, one way to know your plotting has worked is when someone reads your stuff and says they couldn’t put it down until they finished it…

(These ideas are adapted from the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )

In the search for ideas to prevent the dreaded writer’s ‘blank page syndrome’, here are more fiction writing exercises – ideas for writing fiction #8:

So far we’ve used dictionaries to jump-start some new ideas, playing with words we might never have ever thought of using. Then we tweaked with other people’s stories to get our brains kicked up to an even higher gear, making up new endings and beginnings to get us past the next white page staring at us. We followed that up by creating characters, picking a strong trait or quirk or two to help us write a story based on those people so we can start to populate our work. For a few more ideas, we’ve been checking newspapers, using proverbs/quotations, and correspondence to help us find fodder for more stories/situations. And then we started ‘filling out’ our characters’ backgrounds/lives by providing them with motives for why they do what they do, working on one of a writer’s holy grails – creating 3-dimensional characters.

Now let’s find someplace interesting for them to do it:

8. Start with a setting

Write a short story with one of the following settings: a small seaside town; a pub, cafe or restaurant; a doctor’s waiting room; a hotel or boarding house; a factory; a busy office; a bus or railway station; a caravan park; a garage; a shop or supermarket; a theme park; a 13th story tower block flat; a school; a nursery; a college campus; a picnic. Perhaps the setting itself could provide the source of conflict in your story: for example, a wife wants to move to the country, while her husband prefers to live in town.

Setting can sometimes be one of the most memorable parts of a story: to me, classic examples of places helping to drive a story are WUTHERING HEIGHTS with its manor on the moors or REBECCA’s gothic mansion Manderlay with its hidden rooms and people. Another more recent one that shows how the ‘scenery’ can influence the plot (and most definitely the characters) is THE SHINING, Stephen King’s classic thriller where the hotel is a character in and of itself.

Whether you’re writing a story, a novel or a screenplay, where you ‘stage’ it can make or break the mood you’re trying to establish, so pay equal attention to the wheres when considering who and what to write about. Then play with the descriptions, adding and taking away as necessary to establish the scene so that the ‘background’ is ‘organic’ (fits the story without being in your face – unless you intend it to be that way, of course.)

You might try writing your story in one locale, getting the other factors, such as characters and situations in place, then try switching the action to someplace completely differently to see what a change in scenery would do to the rest of the framework. It might seem extremely more serious suddenly or you might find it hilarious to find those same people doing whatever they were doing in a wholely unexpected venue. (Think WHEN HARRY MET SALLY – what Sally does in one scene would be ‘predictable’ and ‘expected’ if done in a bedroom, but move it to a deli, and oh my!)

(These ideas are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )

Here’s your next installment of Fiction Writing Exercises – Ideas for Writing Fiction #7. So far you (should) have been writing about what’s been happening to your characters using the various idea-generating techniques. Now, we want to start to fill out our stories with ‘why’ the characters are doing what they’re doing:

7. What’s My Motive?

Start with a character who wants something badly. It might be a new job, a new partner, a holiday, something else. Place obstacles in the path of your character and show how he/she overcomes these (or fails to).

Part of what makes a story good or even great is knowing why a character does what he or she does, or at least thinking you do, so you can either identify with that person, or if it’s not someone you came sympathize with, then maybe you can possibly live vicariously through his or her adventures, read about things you would never do, but have always been curious to experience, even if only in a book.

If the people in your work just walk around like robots (and they AREN’T robots) then your readers won’t connect in a meaningful way and probably won’t want to continue to read your story. You need to provide the why’s along with the how’s, what’s and where’s to keep it compelling, making the people in your work fully realized and at least somewhat recognizable to the general reading public.

But be careful. As a rule, you don’t want to just come out and say “So and so wants X, so they did Y.” (Or maybe you do…) However, that probably won’t engage your reader for very long. Generally it’s best to let the action or situations help the reader understand the “why” along with “how” and the rest, drawing the reader in as the story progresses. (As they say, “Show, don’t tell” for a more visceral, engaging experience.)

Depending on the strength of your characters’ desires, dreams and ‘motives’, they will help drive the actions your characters will take to achieve their goals or help accentuate any disappointments they will suffer when they don’t reach them (or both if you put in a few interesting twists.) The better you establish the motives behind the action, the better your overall story will be, especially as you create longer and more involved works.

(These ideas are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )

Here is the next installment of the fiction writing exercises – ideas for writing fiction #3.

3. The Untidy Professor

Think of a character with a particularly strong character trait, e.g. absent-minded, lazy, domineering. Place your character in circumstances which conflict with this trait. Immediately you have two of the essential ingredients for fiction: characters and conflict. To create a story, all you need to do is build the conflict to a crisis, and show what change results.

Strong character traits also help drive plot and narrative as they help create 3-dimensional people who have distinct wants and needs, desires and dislikes, characters that readers will care about and want to read about, characters that can ‘walk off the pages’. Without enough defining traits, characters become interchangeable and don’t inspire people to want to know more, to keep them reading.

However, beware of adding characteristics just for the sake of adding traits. You want memorable, not laughable or unbelievable. (Unless of course, you’re intentionally creating a parody or comedy…)

(These fiction writing exercises are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His audio book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )

As promised, here is the next entry of Fiction Writing Exercises – Ideas for Writing Fiction #2

2. Take it From Here

Read the first paragraph of a story you have never read before in an anthology or magazine (if the opening paragraphs are very short, read the second and third paragraph as well). Now put the story to one side and write the rest of the story. The chances are that you will end up with a completely different story from the original. All you need to do then is change the opening paragraph(s) in your story to have a completely new tale of your own.

A twist to that for extra practice and some increasing difficulty would be to read the ending of a story (preferably one you’ve already read before so you don’t ruin the ending for yourself!) and then write how the story begins and its new middle. Then change the ending and again you have a new story.

Since you’ll know where you need to go (or where you started) working back (or forth) will help you develop your skills in plotting as you work out the rest of each story and finding ways to achieve your ends (or beginnings!).

(These fiction writing exercises are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His audio book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )