119 Best Creative Writing Exercises for Authors in 2026

Describe your favorite item of clothing. Is it a favorite because of how it feels, how it looks, or because of an event you wore it to? What do you think the item of clothing shows about you?

Come up with three thought provoking questions. Such as:

1. Who is Sara?
2. Why is she running down the street?
3. What is she holding?

Or:

1. Who is knocking at the door?
2. Do you know them?
3. What do they want?

Without stopping to think or check on your spelling, answer these questions as fast as you can, with whatever comes to mind.

Close your eyes and write down four adjectives at random. Now write down three nouns. Now write down two verbs. Now write down one adverb. Now open your eyes. Your challenge is to write a 500-word short story based off of these ten words.

This exercise encourages you to write a complete story using very few words, and helps you learn how to avoid overwriting. When undertaking this exercise, it's essential to edit your work carefully. Strip out anything unnecessary and make every word count. Here's how it works:

1. Take any novel from your bookshelf
2. Turn to page 9
3. Take the 9th word from the 9th line on the page
4. Use that word to start a story
5. Write a story that is exactly 81 words long
6. If you're feeling particularly clever, use 9 sentences that are 9 words long

You can also feel free to visit this website and submit your story to the 81 word writing challenge.

Have each primary character free-write what they think about the other characters in the story. This will also deepen the secondary characters.

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.

This is a challenge that will exercise your prowess at one of the oft-used components of English: punctuation. To start off, write a paragraph of no more than 500 words about the benefits of skin care. Within this paragraph, use ; : - _ ! ? " ' , . at minimum twice.

If you have 5 minutes, prep for your outlining by making a list of lists. This could include:

• 5 possible endings for your book
• 5 twists
• 5 possible subplots
• 5 ways the subplots could tie into the main plot
• 5 ways the character could grow
• 5 surprising things that we could learn about a character
• 5 ways to add some unexpected elements to the book (humor, suspense, sadness, fear)
• 5 ways to describe the main setting/another setting

You are talking to a blind man who asks you to describe the color of the sky. Write down what you would tell this man without once using the word "blue" in your explanation.

The best way to learn is by reading, so pick up a book that had a plot twist that surprised you and yet felt right. Look for subtle foreshadowing in it. Start at the beginning of the book and find the clues that point towards the twist. Make a list of them. Include the wording, so that you can see why they weren't obvious at first.