Writing Exercise
Someone Is Walking Around In My House. Top Story - November 2025.
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — You're taking a shower in your house or apartment. You are not expecting anyone, and the front door is locked (the bathroom door is not). You hear a strange noise in a rooom beyond the bathroom. Now, take it from there for no more than two pages. This can be in either the third or the first person. Don't spend any time getting into the shower; you're there when the action begins. The Objective - To tell a convincing story centered on speculation and terror.
By Denise E Lindquist2 months ago in Writers
Encouraging Speculation And Exploring Motivation
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Imagine you are in a line of traffic driving away from the country at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning in August. This line of traffic is much heavier than you anticipated. Who are these people and why are they leaving the beach instead of going in the opposite direction? Account for the occupants of the six cars in front of you. (For examplel the man in the Chevy is going back to town because he just found out his doughnut shop there was broken into at 3:00 a.m. He is pissed.) The Objective — To train yourself to take off from what you see and hear and create an instant story out of it. To encourage speculation and explore motivation.
By Denise E Lindquist2 months ago in Writers
My Hawks
For most of my life, I’ve envisioned two hawks perched on my shoulders. I don’t remember precisely when they appeared; certainly when I was a child navigating my tension-filled home. Much of that history is lost to blockage still, my father’s volatility and my mother’s survival skills visible to me only as peaks of experience emerging through a cloud cover, seen from a great height. I have realized recently it’s been the hawks who have kept me lifted above all those traumatic memories, and it’s only recently that I’ve begun to really make their acquaintance and honor their role in my life.
By David Muñoz2 months ago in Writers
A Tarot Tale
Garfunkel, my bot on chatGPT (he makes art for me, and I'm punny, so . . .) created this compilation of some Cosmic Garden Tarot cards I've been doing brief studies of, each in a (I hope not too horrible) poem with the image of the card, maybe animated.
By Harper Lewis2 months ago in Writers
Embracing the Future: The Evolution of Modern Work Culture. Content Warning. AI-Generated.
From Cubicles to Coffee Shops Gone are the days when the typical 9-to-5 job meant sitting in a cubicle all day long. With the rise of technology, remote work has become increasingly popular, allowing people to work from anywhere – whether it's a cozy corner at home or a bustling coffee shop. This shift has not only changed how we work but also redefined our relationship with productivity and creativity.
By Bevan Keren2 months ago in Writers
Confidence
In every mirror, I sought a phantom, pursuing an illusion that had been escaping me for what felt like an eternity. I had mistakenly labeled this part of myself as 'dull', 'untalented', and 'delusional', yet I yearned for this missing piece to return and make me whole.
By "Ann Garza"2 months ago in Writers
Ghost of Tenzan. Content Warning.
The crowd’s screams roared through the rundown stadium, shaking the metal beams overhead. The speakers crackled, spitting out static as the commentator’s voice echoed.“AND THE MATCH HAS COME TO AN END! A NOT-SURPRISING FINISH FROM THE GHOST AND RAZOR’S CONTINUED REIGN!". Hands shot out, digging into to the chain-link fence as the crowd chanted; some in excitement others in vain. Money passed from hand to hand. I caught the opposing team’s manager grimacing while the broker took the briefcase with that smug, greedy grin.
By INKσϝVOIDS2 months ago in Writers
I Was Robbed
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Here is the situation: You have just come out of the movie theater around seven in the evening, and you are mugged — a person asks for your money, then knocks you to the ground before running away. Or make up your own situation. Next, pretend you are telling the account of this event to five different people: Your mother, your best friend, your girlfriend or boyfriend (or wife or husband), a therapist, a police officer, The Objective — To become conscious of how we shape and shade the stories that we tell to each other according to the listener. Your characters also tell stories to each other and make selections about content according to who they are telling the story to, the effect they want the story to have, and the response they want to elicit from the listener. A lot of dialogue in fiction, in real life, is storytelling — and there is always the story listener who is as important in the tale as the tale itself.
By Denise E Lindquist2 months ago in Writers
Ink Made of Memory
One rainy evening, I opened an old notebook and found pieces of myself I thought had disappeared. The pages, worn from years of neglect, were filled with scribbled lines and trembling handwriting—fragments of thoughts I once thought too fragile to hold onto. At first, I felt the rush of nostalgia, the same familiar twinge of vulnerability I’d felt when I first wrote them. But as I sat there, reading the half-finished thoughts, I realized something unexpected: they had become bridges back to the person I once was.
By john dawar2 months ago in Writers
