119 Best Creative Writing Exercises for Authors in 2026

"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind, but not in one ahead" _ Bill McGlashen. Your protagonist is one or the other. Pick one, and roll with it. Go!

Your protagonist opens a purse or a desk drawer and finds three objects. By the end of your piece there's only one item left. What happens to the other two?

Your protagonist has been asked to showcase a little-known, unusual talent at a community fair's talent contest. Begin on stage and show not only the performer but also the crowd's reaction to this talent unveiling.

Good worldbuilding is when the author can bring a place to life for the reader. Using your powers of description, describe (in 2-3 paragraphs) a place or setting with which you're familiar. Then show your work to somebody who knows the spot and see if they are able to guess it through your words.

Write an advertisement putting your 12-foot long crocodile on the market. Then write the story behind why you had to sell your pet crocodile in the first place.

Think of writer's block as a symptom, not a condition that can't be remedied. When we're stuck and can't get to our creative work, there's usually a reason - and therefore a way to move forward.If you're experiencing a block and can't seem to work on your novel, try the following:

1. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. Connect.
2. How do you feel?
3. Nervous because you're coming up on a tough scene?
4. Starting to wonder why you embarked on this project?
5. Bored with sticking to your thorough outline and not wanting to admit it?

Feel what you're feeling without attaching or rationalizing or arguing. Now, refocus on your breath. Imagine gentle snow or waves. When you're calm inside, grab a notebook and pen (computers can amplify pressure instead of opening room for free scribbling) and write without stopping for three minutes, starting with the prompt, "I'm not blocked becauseÄ" After that, go for another three minutes, using, "The path back to my writing looks likeÄ" Let yourself go. Let your hand tell you whatever you need to hear.

We've all read about the grey autumn day, the crisp spring morning, the dewey summer evening. Flex your descriptive muscles by spending some time writing about your surroundings. Look for new, interesting, evocative ways to explain the world around you. For instance, instead of writing, "a breeze blew in through the open window, try, "papers fluttered in the gust that swept in through the window, throwing dust into the air like confetti."

There's one powerful motivator that led your reader to your book - curiosity. Our brain doesn't stop asking questions because it knows that's how it learns and evolves. Questions raise uncertainty. Unknowns. And if there's an unknown, then humans want to make it known. There will be a big question that drives your story, so take a couple of minutes to consider the mother-question that propels your book from beginning to end.Your manuscript also needs to be powered by lots of little questions. Your book will need a variety of whos, whens, whys, and wheres to keep your reader engaged. In fact, every scene in your book needs to have a question define it. It's what will keep your reader turning those pages. Review each of your scenes and identify the question/s hanging over it, because once you nail that, their mind will be asking the most important question of all - what happens next?

Pick a scene or passage you've written that you feel dissatisfied with. Take a short time - maybe 10 or 20 minutes - to read the passage as though it were someone else's work. Take a red pen and make notes in the margins. If you didn't know anything else about the story, where else could this scene go? Try to get a feel for how malleable the words and the story can be.

At the root of all writer's block? Fear. You'll recognize it by the questions you ask yourself when you sit down to write: Can Ireally finish an entire story? Am I a good enough writer to pull this off? Will this story matter to anyone? Or am I wasting my time? And what if I sound dumb?But the specific fear doesn't matter if you know how to soothe it. Here's what to do: Lie down. On the couch. In bed. In the tub (Hey, don't knock it! Sometimes it's the only place writers can find some time alone!). Lie down where it's comfortable and quiet, and write fifty words.That's it.Either the exercise helps you break through the anxiety, and you keep writing. Or you have fifty words more than you had yesterday, and you try again tomorrow. Either way, lie down and write fifty words.