Creative writing exercises to beat writer's block

Writer's block is rarely a lack of ideas. More often it's too many options, fear that it'll come out badly, or not knowing what happens next. Each cause has its own fix.

Draw a random prompt and write for twenty minutes

Choosing is exactly what blocks you, so taking the choice away works better than you'd expect. Combine at random a situation, a character, a complication and a formal constraint (pull slips from a jar, open a book to a random page, roll a die against a numbered list) and write for twenty minutes without stopping.

If the block comes from too many options

Impose constraints. “Write whatever you want” paralyzes; “a scene with no dialogue, in present tense, under five hundred words” sets you free. A constraint gives creativity a focus.

If it comes from fear of getting it wrong

Write with the screen turned off, or in a notebook you plan to throw away. The point is to separate writing from judging: they're two different operations, and they can't happen at the same time.

Freewriting (ten minutes without lifting your hand, without correcting, without rereading) is the classic version of this, and it still works.

If it's because you don't know what happens next

Skip the scene. Write the next one, the one you can see, and come back later: the gap often fills itself once you know where it was heading.

Or try “and then everything gets worse”: whatever the situation, write the worst thing that could happen now. You may cut it later, and it still gets things moving.

If you're tired of your own text

Change its voice. Rewrite a page in first person if it was in third, or the other way around. Tell the scene from a secondary character's point of view. You'll rarely keep the result, and you'll almost always learn something about the original.

Four exercises that pay off

• The object. Describe an object for a full page without naming it.
• The impossible conversation. Two characters who want opposite things, and neither one says so.
• The same event, three times. One incident told by three witnesses who don't agree.
• The last line. Write the ending of a story that doesn't exist yet, then write the story.

When chance isn't enough

Two old divination systems, tarot and the I Ching, also work as writing prompts. Used this way they make no predictions: each draw forces an unexpected image on you to work with, which is exactly what you need when logic has jammed.

Frequently asked questions about writer's block

Is writer's block real, or just an excuse?

It exists as a phenomenon, though the name lumps together very different causes: perfectionism, exhaustion, structural problems in the text or simply lack of rest. Treating it as a single thing is what keeps people from solving it. Figuring out which of the four is happening to you is half the work.

How long should you write each day to keep the habit?

Less than people think. Twenty minutes a day, kept up, gets you further than four hours on Sundays, because the text stays active in your head between sessions. What matters most is not breaking the chain: one blank day costs little; three in a row mean starting over.

Are writing exercises useful if I already have a project?

Yes, especially as a warm-up before you get into the project and as an escape valve when it stalls. Ten minutes on an unrelated exercise takes the pressure off the page that matters. And many scenes born in exercises end up finding a place in the book.