10. Exercises

The following exercises will help you practice concepts discussed in this seminar. Don't just think about them for a few seconds, then say, "I've got a pretty good idea of what I'd do for that, so I don't actually have to write anything." The world is full of people who have ideas—I meet them all the time at parties. People who can put ideas into words are vanishingly rare.

Therefore, if you're going to do these exercises, take them seriously. Assemble words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. Learning to write means developing appropriate neural connections in your brain; the only way to do that is to do the work.

[Note: These are writing exercises, not story exercises. If you can make interesting stories from the exercises, good for you! But don't feel bad if what you write is less than brilliant. These are just exercises—like lifting weights to build muscles, so that later you can use those muscles for something more fun or interesting.]

1. Write a first-person narrative of someone landing in a spaceport, walking through the spaceport, and meeting someone at an appointed place. (If you prefer fantasy to science fiction, you can change "spaceport" to "castle" or "village" in this exercise and all the following.)
2. Same as in Exercise 1, but the viewpoint character is thrilled and excited to be in the spaceport. The VPC should walk past exactly the same things the narrator did in Exercise 1, but should perceive them according to his/her/its upbeat mood.
3. Same as in Exercise 2, but the viewpoint character is annoyed to be in the spaceport.
4. Pick any of the preceding exercises and rewrite it with different background circumstances. For example, the spaceport might be under attack by aliens, its life support systems may be on the fritz, there might be a riot in progress, or the director of the spaceport has gone a little funny in the head and has embarked on a massive "redecorating" program. As before, the VPC passes exactly the same things, but they may have changed due to circumstances.
5. Pick any of the preceding exercises and rewrite it in third-person rather than first person. The viewpoint character is the same as before.
6. Pick any of the preceding exercises and rewrite it from the point of view of someone other than the original viewpoint character...perhaps someone watching or following the original VPC. You can use either first-person or third-person.
7. Pick any of the preceding exercises and rewrite it in third-person omniscient. Remember that this involves creating an authorial persona to perceive the action.

It's up to you how long you want each exercise to be. Good luck!

Copyright © 2001, James Alan Gardner