Sometimes at work I get bored and have
some extra time on my hands. Having a computer and word processor at
my disposal, I started coming up with activities that would develop
my vocabulary and writing skills. Over time I developed a fun
writing exercise that fills up time and helps you with creative
writing.
You start by coming up with a list of
words, A-Z, for example: alligator, balloon, capital... Then once
you have your list, come up with an original sentence using each
word. Try to make them interesting and lengthy. You will end up
with 26 original sentences. This is a good start, but if you want to
do the full exercise, you must relate all the sentences together so
they actually make a story. At the end you will have an original
short story using words that start with every letter of the alphabet.
Here is an example that I did. Note,
it is missing a couple letters. After you have done a lot of these
you start to realize that it's hard to keep coming up with new words
for some letters like x and z. J, k, and q are challenging too after
a while. Try to come up with a theme before you start writing your
sentences so you have a little direction, but decide on the theme
after you pick random words.
EXAMPLE:
Words: Accent, border, carriage,
deliver, estimate, fragile, gallop, horizon, indifferent, jam,
knowledge, lentil, mysterious, notorious, origin, proprietary,
quiver, ridiculous, stationary, tractor, unfortunate, valuable,
waffles.
Theme: driving in a foreign country.
Story:
Coming from the US, he had always loved
the accent of the native speakers of the UK.
As he crossed the border from England
to Scotland, he had to be careful to drive on the correct side of the
road.
If he became careless, he might run
into a carriage, another vehicle, or a pedestrian.
He had to deliver a package to a client
before the end of the day.
His estimate was that it would take
about an hour to get to his destination.
The contents of the package were
fragile, so he had to be extra careful when moving it.
Along side the road he saw a horse
gallop through an open field.
It looked so graceful against the
sunrise in the horizon.
The horse appeared indifferent in
relation to its surroundings.
Just then he came up to a traffic jam!
All the knowledge in the world wouldn't
get him out of this one.
The truck in front of him belonged to a
soup company and had pictures of minestrone, chicken noodle, and
lentil soup.
A mysterious looking fellow wearing
sunglasses and a cap was behind him in a Volkswagen sedan.
This road he had heard was notorious
for it's congested traffic patterns.
The origin of the jam was unknown to
him because he couldn't see around the soup truck.
He hoped the proprietary owner of the
package would not be upset if the delivery was late.
The thought of having to explain why
the package was late made him quiver.
Then again, he had until the end of the
day to get there so his thought was actually ridiculous.
After having remained stationary for
about 3 minutes, the cars finally began to move.
Still, it was slow and a big tractor in
the field on the left was moving faster than he was.
He was hungry, but it was unfortunate
he could not open the package.
What was inside was valuable and could
not be opened or disturbed until it arrived at its destination.
What was inside was none other than
fresh gourmet Belgian waffles!
The End
And there you have it! Give it a try. You can even post your story below in the comments section. Good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment