Create a chain of metaphors, similes, allusions, oxymorons, alliterations, spoonerisms or Malapropisms around a subject and/or its attributes. Choose one and develop it further. Try different nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and styles in a sentence to paint a picture or scene. Try different views.
Earth's rotation slows each year. 6 million years ago a day was 21 hours. What would you miss if today ended at 9 p m instead of midnight? Check news, sports, features, TV, events in today's newspaper.
Leaving home you see a great big giant spider web connecting your car to bushes beside your driveway. In the middle sits a great big fat spider. What do you do?
Make a bug movie with the newspaper. Find a story about a city. Write about what it would be like to be a bug in that city.
Rewrite a traditional ballad, myth, fairy tale, Bible story or whatever, in a contemporary setting.
Write from the point of view of a nonhuman object, either living or inanimate.
Write a letter to a famous person real or imaginary, in which you relate an event.
Write a short poem without using the letter S or whatever letter you choose.
Find or make a list. Write substitutes and an account of how you shop for them.
What new use would you have for a paper bag? An extra sock? A paper airplane?
How will you get to Mars? What will you do there? Where will you go next?
Write as an advocate for a person or thing which can't speak for itself.
Pick a word and write down words you think of and associate with it.
Write down words you'd use in a strange world like Coleridge's Kubla Khan.
Think of 3 adjectives for say your favorite team or actor or food.
Try a poem shaped like a letter or other object such as a swan.
Invoke the Muse [of poetry] or someone or something to inspire you.
Open a reference book at random. Write about what's on that page.
Respond to or parody a letter, article, book, poem, film etc.
Write about an abstract idea, with images and details.
Write about a place or event a century ago or from now.
Book of Genesis. Imagine God creating something else.
Write about what you know, what you don't know.
Write automatically. Don't stop for anything.
Write about newspaper or magazine stories.
Write from someone else's point of view.
Invent nonsense words like in Jabberwocky.
Substitute synonyms, antonyms or homonyms.
Pick a character, time, place, event.
Describe a place, real or imaginary.
Substitute words for other words.
Write about an animal or plant.
Personify an object or idea.
Write about a color.
Write an elegy.
Writing SIMILES
Roadkill as flat as -
Party as much fun as -
As orange as -
As eloquent as -
Writing METAPHORS
Fog plumed through gunshot holes in train windows like -
You mine rocks from quarries. You get from a quandary -
The dice rolled from the cup toward him like -
Nothing was the same, now that it was -
Puffy clouds in your glass of wine are -
Up is like down when -
WRITE YOUR VERY OWN POEMS
A million men unite as one
When -- -- failed to get his way
Are you the mermaid/merman come for me?
Thunder cracked above the lake
You - yes, YOU - can write good poems instantly! DO IT NOW!
Line 1 - write a Noun.
Line 2 - write 2 adjectives for the Noun.
Line 3 - write 3 verbs for the Noun.
Line 4 - write a thought about the Noun.
Line 5 - write a word relating to the Noun.
See - YOU DID IT!
EXAMPLE:
Basketball
Hard, fast
Run, jump, shoot
Nothing but net
Swish!
Writing STORIES
He found her attractive but there was something indefinably strange about the look in her eyes.
She suddenly realized the footsteps she heard had followed her for several blocks.
A musky odor, somehow menacing, seeped from the large black box in the corner.
The baby curled up in a peculiar position/ The baby had prodigious strength.
When the doorbell rang she assumed Dick forgot his keys.
His earrings were larger and fancier than hers.
Writing DIALOGUE
MENTAL HOSPITAL VISITING ROOM 2 people talk. End of visit, person whose conversation seems unintelligent and without meaning is seen as visitor, not patient.
HALLOWEEN elderly one mistake 2 hoodlums for kids trick or treat or vice versa
PARENT thinks child stole money from wallet, accuses him/her.