Short Story Exercises

Inspired by “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber.
  • Create a character in your mind who lives in two worlds - otherwise metaphysically like Neo in The Matrix, or in his own mind like Walter Mitty, or in time through memories of a past that actually happened.
  • Write a sentence that describes this person, his/her problem, and how s/he deals with it or ignores it. For example, “a middle-aged man with a nagging wife he can't get away from, who feels powerless in his own life, so he escapes this humdrum, impotent-ness by imagining himself as the hero of a series of action stories.”
  • Graph your character’s real and imaginary worlds, dreams etc. Use arrows to show plot order and how they all connect. See how in “Mitty” Thurber finds ways to show movement from one reality to another by using ellipsis points … and by having noise or his wife yell at him to jar him back to reality. Or in The Matrix how they have a system of travel via phone and a visual style that is totally different so the reader knows which reality they’re in. Find one for your story and put it in/on the arrows. 
  • Plot this plot graph alternating your main story points at least 3 scenes in each reality. 
  • Structural device: Use a flashback-type system to structure the story, develop a cue to signal the change in realities like …,
  • Narrator: third person omniscient
  • Features / techniques: use action and suspense, dialogue, active voice, simile, and everyday symbols.
  • Time / space: ground your story in a particular time / place - like Thurber's two hours on a Saturday afternoon - do not sweep...
  • Freewrite by hand and extend the exercise to a min. of 400 words single-spaced, loose leaf, alternating worlds at least twice.
Inspired by “The Blue Jar” by Isak Dinesen (or GRP 52 "Can a Corn" by Jess Walter)
  • Choose a symbol to work with - examples include a black cross necklace, a white lily, a willow tree branch, a lucky brown 1956 penny, a dying fish, etc. You see how specific it has to be, and original (ie not a red rose).
  • Cluster / web / mind map this symbol: Put your chosen symbol in the middle and web outward all the possible things it could mean and/or that you or others could associate with it. 
  • Create an outline using 4 columns: Setting, Character, Conflict, and Plot. Plan out your story around this symbol by asking yourself and answering questions such as: who owns this thing? How old is s/he? Do they have a family, what do they wear, do for a living? Where do they live? What's important to them? What's a defining memory? Why is this object significant to them? What the person's problem? Where do they live? Are they rich or poor? Can this thing represent a dynamic or a relationship between two people? Etc.
  • See Sauvé's "The Blue Jar" exercise cluster, story-plotting brainstorm chart, and 300 word exercise model 
  • Narrator: third person omniscient
  • Structural device: Use symbolism to structure the story, this symbol needs to come back throughout the story in different ways and perhaps with different meanings.
  • Features / techniques: use passive voice and/or inverted syntax, figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, imagery), and characterization (to show why and how this object is significant to the main character). 
  • Setting: 
  • Freewrite by hand and extend the exercise to a min. if 400 words single spaced, loose leaf.
Inspired by “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway.
  • Write a short paragraph ranting about a time you were angry at someone, let down, upset etc. You can also make up two people and an argument. (OR someone you know, OR invent a scenario). The point is to GET angry!
  • Now, keep this angry feeling, this argument in the back of your mind - this feeling will create the sub-text of your draft story - it will imbue your freewrite with tension - which you will never directly mention (like Hemingway)
  • Imagine these two people come together somewhere, maybe years after the 'fight' or 'incident, or maybe the next day, or maybe it's ongoing... where are they when they have this conversation?
  • Now, write a short narrative paragraph using a 3rd person limited observer narrator to describe the scene - like Hemingway does.
  • See Sauvé "Hills Like White Elephants" exercise model
  • Structural device: use dialogue to create and characterize two people and have them talk like people really do in public - is make sure that the tension is created by no one actually mentioning what the issue really is about – only you have that in your mind as you write.
  • Features / techniques: use simple syntax such as "They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry", active voice, nature imagery, and at least one significant simile (like the title).
  • Freewrite by hand and extend the exercise to a min. of 400 words single spaced, loose leaf
Inspired by “Roselily” by Alice Walker.
  • Think of a song, prayer, saying, poem etc. that you can split into lines just like the priest’s lines in the model story.
  • Use this to separate your character’s inner thoughts from what’s going on around them.
  • Do what you can to use this ‘outside voice/portal’ into the inner thoughts of the character to structure the story,
  • See Sauvé "Roselily" exercise model
  • Narrator: EITHER 3rd person omniscient OR first person
  • Structural device: dueling or alternating voices 
  • Features / techniques: use sentence fragments (incomplete sentences) such as "Of veils. Covered heads...Joined...Of her father...A romantic hush", precise diction and connotation “yoked”, motif, alliteration and repetition.
  • Use basically a monologue style- ie focus on one character at one moment in time and their thoughts
  • Freewrite by hand and extend the exercise to a min. of 400 words single spaced, loose leaf
Inspired by “The Ostrich Effect" by Ifra Asad.
  • Research a phenomena - whether physical, phychological, natural, supernatural etc. - examples include Stockholm Syndrome, The Butterfly Effect, The Halo Effect, Dirty Thunderstorm, The Door to Hell, The Angel's Glow ... GOOGLE!
  • Choose one to base your story on. Research all that you can about that phenomenon. 
  • In what ways physically, mentally, via plot points, or structure can you create a character, conflict, setting, etc. that use this phenomenon in many ways - ie as a motif that recurs throughout the story and that in some way represents the character, their struggle, or the message you're trying to convey.
  • Structural device: the motif of this phenomenon
  • Narrator: 1st person
  • Features / techniques: 
  • Freewrite by hand and extend the exercise to a min. of 400 words single spaced, loose leaf
Inspired by "The Flowers" by Alice Walker.
  • Imagine a time when you or someone you know or can imagine woke up one day feeling and knowing one thing and then by the end of the day that vision was the opposite or shattered. Examples include being in love and getting dumped, thinking you have a happy family and getting told your parents are divorcing, thinking your best friend is one way and getting betrayed...
  • Follow Walker's example and use nature imagery to begin the story more innocently and then have a shift in mood part-way through
  • Keep the plot-line tight - one day or a few hours.
  • Make sure your last line embodies the symbolic weight of the loss