A few summers ago, I went to Queen's University to participate in a program they had for high school students. It was a week-long summer camp where I attended a creative writing workshop every day. In this writing class, we worked on novel structure, character building, dialogue, setting... basically everything "story" related.
I learned a lot of valuable information, but what I remember most from that class is the 30-second writing exercise that our professor taught us. It was designed to force us to start a story, but it's also a useful tool for working out a tough scene or defeating writer's block (a challenge I struggle with just about every day).
The exercise itself is pretty simple. Personally, I call it the "30 Second Writing Exercise" but I'm sure it has an actual name somewhere out in the world. I have no idea who created this game, but full credit goes out to them, wherever they are!
This is how the exercise works:
PARAGRAPH 1 - SETTING
Set a timer for thirty seconds. Get out a piece of paper and a pencil (or open a word doc; whatever you prefer). Start the timer, and for the next thirty seconds, describe a setting. You can write about the sky, the atmosphere, the weather—whatever you want, as long as it focuses on SETTING. You can go into as much or as little detail as you want, but when your thirty seconds are over, the idea is to stop writing (however, you are allowed to finish your sentence. Or if you're on a roll, you can give yourself a few extra seconds to wrap up).
PARAGRAPH 2 - CHARACTER
Now, restart the timer for thirty seconds again. This time, you're going to introduce a character. That's right—just plop any random character into the setting you just wrote about. You can describe how this character looks, what they're doing, who they are—anything you want! It can also be a character you've already created. When the thirty seconds are up, stop writing.
PARAGPRAH 3 - DIALOGUE
This one is always the most difficult for me. Restart your timer, and for the thirty seconds, write some dialogue. Maybe your character has a bad habit of talking aloud to themselves, or perhaps someone sneaks up on them from behind and says "BOO!" As long as it's dialogue, it counts. And feel free to add dialogue tags—this paragraph doesn't have to be strictly all dialogue; you can add description as well.
PARAGRAPH 4 - A PROBLEM
For your final thirty seconds, you're going to introduce a conflict or a problem. This can look however you want it to. Whether it's your character realizing they've stepped in some gum, or they've just heard some catastrophic news that changes their life forever, it all counts.
Now, the idea of this exercise isn't to produce flawless, masterful writing. It's difficult to remember proper sentence formatting and grammar while you're racing to write as much as you possibly can in two minutes. But it does help to get the ball rolling. Or maybe you're one of those people who just stare at a blank piece of paper for three hours, unsure of where or how to start. I think this is a perfect way to get a story started. And if you don't like what you wrote with the first time, do the exercise again! It's really only two minutes of your time. You don't have to stop after four paragraphs either! Feel free to restart the timer and keep going. Maybe for a fifth paragraph, you can introduce the antagonist. Or write some action. Whatever you can think of!
FUN FACT: It was this exercise that gave me the idea for my (almost) finished novel, Kill the Gods. I specifically remember sitting in that small university classroom, writing as fast as I could, and introducing Cyra and Res (originally written as Lyra and Jys) for the first time. All of a sudden, I had these two awesome characters that felt like they were just leaping out of the page at me. Maybe this exercise will inspire your next (or first) full-length novel, too.
Here's an example of what this writing exercise might look like when you've finished. And, yes, this was the one that inspired Kill the Gods: *all material copyrighted*
(Paragraph 1)
The temple was cold and silent, as it had been for hundreds of years. The floors were made up of cracked black marble, with thick layers of dust on top. Pillars made of grey stone held up the crumbling ceiling, which had the names of the 7 gods carved into it. The temple was huge, resting underground of the city's entire capital. At the very end of it, were the 7 statues.
(Paragraph 2)
Lyra's heavy footsteps echoed, her leather boots slamming hard against the floor as she walked. Her black trench coat dragged behind her as she made her way towards the statues, disturbing the dust. She had left her thick blood-red hair loose around her shoulders. Her skin was pale and cold, like that of the marble marble gods watching over the temple.
(Paragraph 3)
"Well, it took you long enough." Creeping out from behind the third statue was a boy the same age as Lyra, with the same red hair.
She smiled at him."Jys. It's good to see you. How have you been?"
He returned the smile, taking a seat on a stone bench. "Not great. Losing my job wasn't exactly the highlight of the past 200 years. You look good though. Still as young as ever."
Lyra frowned despite the compliment. "You look good, too."
(Paragraph 4)
They remained silent for a while, the unspoken topic laying heavily in the air. Lyra stared at a long, pink scar that ran down Jys's cheek. It hadn't been there the last time she had seen him, nearly 200 years ago.
"You wanted me to come here to help you get your job back. How exactly do you plan on doing that?" she asked.
Jys's smile turned into a wicked grin, his piercing gold eyes locked with hers. "I plan to kill the gods who dethroned me."
Lyra didn't respond for a moment, but continued to stare at him. Finally, she said, "I wouldn't have come here if I had known you'd gone insane."
That's it! That's the rough piece of writing that inspired my 150,000 word novel. I hope this exercise helps you get through your writer's block, or at least inspire a little creativity. Good luck!
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