Creative Writing Exercises

Creative writing is a fun and exciting activity no matter what age you are! No matter what standard of writer you are – student or professional – you can still benefit from doing creative writing exercises to help improve your writing and spark your imagination.

In this guide we shall look at the types of creative writing exercises that are available and where you can find them.

Why Use Creative Writing Exercises

There are many purposes to using creative writing exercises next time you begin writing a story. They are particularly helpful in the classroom when you are trying to teach often unenthusiastic kids the basics of creative writing.

Creative writing exercises can be great fun and can make children forget that they are learning something if the right ones are chosen.

The main purpose of creative writing exercises – no matter what age they are used by – is to trigger the imagination and help you come up with great ideas for your story. They are also used to perfect your creative writing skills and help you or your children master different aspects of the English language such as metaphors, spelling, character profiling and much more.

Creative writing exercises can be as specific or general as you want and essentially are there to help you improve your creative writing.

Types of Creative Writing Exercises

There are many different types of creative writing exercises. Many are designed to specifically work on a certain element of story writing such as language skills or plot development.

While other creative writing exercises may simply help give you or your children a way to begin writing their story and give them ideas and inspiration.

A great creative writing exercise – particularly for use in the classroom – is providing them with the first line of a story and letting their imagination run wild. This first line could either give a setting or could be a question such as: “Who did it?” Sometimes this is all it takes to write an entire story.

Using creative writing exercises to help master your craft and technique is a great idea. Many professional writers will do creative writing exercises to help them learn more about their craft and perfect their writing technique. For example, there are creative writing exercises that help you think about figurative language and add metaphors to your story to make it really stand out.

Where to Find Creative Writing Exercises

Creative writing exercises can be found in a variety of places. Many people, particularly teachers, choose to create their own writing exercises. However there are also plenty of places you can find ready-made creative writing exercises.

The internet is a fantastic resource and one of the best places to easily find creative writing exercises at your fingertips. There are hundreds of websites offering free-to-use creative writing exercises both for adults and children. Many of them are websites that have self-tests on them so you can test your create writing skills online.

Other websites are full of creative writing prompts that you can use to begin writing your story. Whilst others are simply lessons and exercises in language skills that can help increase your knowledge and writing abilities.

Most websites are free however some of the more elaborate websites may require a subscription fee. These websites are great for teachers who will regularly need to refer back to the website for more teaching tools.

Another place to find great creative writing exercises is heading to the ‘old-fashioned’ library or bookstore. Before the days of the internet, teachers and writers would use some of the hundreds of books that are on the market containing creative writing exercises. There are plenty of different types of books on offer to suit all different abilities and age ranges. You can also find these books online, where you will usually find a better selection at a lower price.