- Joined
- Nov 12, 2015
- Messages
- 84
- Reaction score
- 4
- Location
- Burbank, CA
- Website
- staceyebryan.wordpress.com
Yeah, observational exercises can be very helpful. Just being out in the world and watching as things transpire can spark/deepen an idea. I was just walking around and saw a notebook once, lying on the sidewalk after a rain. It was windy and the pages were blowing open, and they were all empty, and it gave me a great idea. I guess that's a normal thing that happens a lot to people. Intentional observation is more focused and pointed. But the exercise that really helped was bringing a regular story down to a flash fiction word count. Much like someone above who said they used to hate poetry (me too!) until they read some and then applied it to their writing. Having to boil my story down to its most essential ingredients was a challenge to my psyche and my writing habits. And it worked out pretty well, I think.