Find the perfect editor for your next book
Over 1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.
Back to list
A Writer's Block Writing Exercise
Beginnings
Getting started is one of the most difficult tasks that faces every writer. Julie Parsons is an international bestselling author. For this exercise, she's giving you the opening lines from some of her books. Take the following lines and use them to write the beginning of your own chapter:
- You could say it began with a phone call."
- Michael had watched them both for weeks."
- She remembered the way it was the first time she saw the prison."
- Midsummer, no time to be in New Orleans."
- With the dawn came the light."
Respond to this exercise
Feel inspired? Share your story below.
Similar exercises
Get your creative juices flowing with these similar writing prompts.
The Food Critic
Write a review of a restaurant at which you recently ate. Describe the food as much as you can. Feel free to be eviscerating as well.
The Power of Words
Write a list of random, free-association words. For creative writing, list ten words across ten columns. Then go to each column and add nine more words so that the result is ten columns and ten rows, a total of one hundred words. Just reading the list and noticing the creative leaps your mind has made may surprise you. If you like, continue the exercise by using all one hundred words in a short fiction piece. For poetry, select the words that suggest a common theme.
Pick-Up Line
Cheesy pick-up lines are the worst...but sometimes (when they work), they're the best conversation starters out there. Pick one of the pick-up lines from below and write down a conversation that you can imagine following afterward.
- "Your smile is like Expelliarmus. Simple but disarming."
- "Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?"
- "Are you a parking ticket? You've got fine written all over you."
- "Are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only ten I see."
- "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together."
NEW VIDEO COURSE
How to Write a Novel
Your story matters. Unlock your potential with daily video lessons from bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley, and finish your first draft in just 3 months.Learn more →
Change Up The POV
Write about a well-known scene from a popular story - but write it from a new perspective. Write about Romeo and Juliet's death from the perspective of the vial they drink from. Write about the scene where Bilbo finds the ring in¾The Hobbit from the perspective of the ring. Write about the ghost of Christmas Past taking Scrooge on a walk down memory lane from the perspective of the ghost. You get the idea.
The Word Salad
Our subconscious minds combine items in unexpected, sometimes whimsical ways. Set a timer for twenty minutes and use at least three of these words in your draft. Write without stopping: a red scarf, windshield wiper, chrome, doily, blowtorch, spatula, CD-ROM, postage stamp, frittering, static cling, radio silence, kismet, calamity, heartburn, bandage.
