28 Creative Writing Exercises and

Prompts
This is my first year teaching high school creative writing, and at the beginning of the
year, I wasnt entirely sure what to do, or how to do it. Id only ever taught college-level
fiction workshops and I knew the same approach wouldnt work with younger students
and a ten-month class, so I have kind of trial-and-errored my way through the year, and
am pretty pleased with how things have turned out.
I decided to structure my class by spending about 4-6 weeks on each of the following:
General intro to literary devices/elements of craft (voice, POV, imagery, etc), fiction,
poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction. After giving them a basis for creative writing
and touching on the four genres, Ive started providing prompts and letting them choose
how which genre they use to respond to them. We do a lot of casual in-class writing
to get the juices flowing and to flex the creative muscles, and then every couple of
weeks I have them choose an in-class assignment that they want to turn into a more
finished, polished piece. Its been working well so far. (The students were all shocked at
how much they liked writing plays, which was a fun unit.) Ive used excerpts from
Imaginative Writing by Janet Burroway and Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern.
Needless to say, we use a LOT of exercises and prompts, so over the months Ive
figured out which ones have worked and which ones havent. Ive pulled them from all
over some Ive straight-up stolen from other teachers Ive either studied under or
worked with, some Ive yoinked from the internet and tailored, some Ive come up with
on my own.
Here are some favorites. Some only work for one genre, some can work for any.
1) Literary Telephone: Have each student write a brief descriptive paragraph, then
pass it to the person on their left. Have that person translate the paragraph into boring,
nondescriptive language, and fold the sheet down to cover the original paragraph. Pass
to left; have the person fill in the descriptions. Wash, rinse, repeat, etc until its gone
around the entire circle and is back to the original author. Have them read the first
paragraph and the last one, and see how things have changed.
2) Mixing Up Metaphors: As a class, put every overused metaphor or simile you can
think of on the board (quick as a fox, strong as an ox, cold as ice, swift as a river, etc).
Then, erase the last word and replace it with something unexpected (quick as an ER
waiting room, strong as a diamond, cold as a doctors hands, etc). Its a fun exercise and
teaches students to avoid cliches.
3) Raising Voices: Write down a characters name, age, and occupation; give a
character to each student. Have them write a first-person monologue in the voice of that
person. (Example: Lisa Topaz, 46, Green Peace Organizer; what does this character
sound like? What about Susie Johnson, 4, preschooler, or Jonathan Miller, 63,
preacher?)
4) Bait and Switch: Write a flash fiction piece about an argument between a mother
and a daughter. Almost every time, students will write about it from the viewpoint of
the daughter. Then, have them re-write it from the viewpoint of the mother.
5) Life is Not Like a Box of Chocolates: Replace chocolates with something they do
think life is like, and write about why.
6) Red Bicycles, Blue Seas: Pick a color and write about a memory associated with that
color.
7) Triptych: Choose three physical objects you own, and write a flash piece about why
each one is important to you. Dont try to connect the flash pieces to one another.
8) Found Poetry: Have students bring their cameras to school and spend a class period
walking around the campus (or surrounding town, if possible), taking pictures of signs,
labels, notes, etc that they come across. Compile the words and phrases into a list, and
have them construct poems using nothing but those words and phrases. For an extra
challenge, give them a topic their poem has to be about (love, the environment, passing
of time, loss, etc). Also optional: Creating a collage from the pictures they took that tells
the poem.
9) Four-Sense Food Sonnets: Blindfold each student and hand them a plastic sandwich
baggie with food in it. (I used kiwi slices, peanuts, chocolate-covered raisin, pickles,
and stuff like that be sure to check for food allergies and restrictions first.) For five
minutes, they should taste, smell, feel, listen to their food items without knowing what
they look like. After five minutes, they can take off the blindfolds and write sonnets
about their foods, being as descriptive as possible but without including a physical
description.
10) No-Send Letters: Write a letter (or letters) to someone (or someones) that you
know youll never send.
11) In Transit: Write about a time you (or a character) were walking, flying, running,
or biking somewhere, why it was important, and what you (or the character) were
feeling as you moved.
12) This I Believe: Write an essay, fiction piece, or poem based on the NPR series.
13) Fill in the Blanks: I think the world needs more of _____________ or I think
the world needs less of __________________. You can take the serious route (more
love, patience, compassion), the absurd (more air fresheners, hamsters, pencil
sharpeners), devils advocate (serial killers, discrimination, etc), or anything else. Use
your answer as the first line of an essay, fiction piece, or poem.
14) Dr. Farsnworth, A Chiropodist.: Print off copies of the poem Dr. Farnsworth,
A Chiropodist, Who Lived in Ohio, Where He Wrote Only the First Lines of Poems by
Tom Andrews (available in his collection Random Symmetries, or online, although I
dont think I can provide the link here for legal reasons). Take one of the first lines, and
continue it into a story or poem; if you get bored with that one, choose another.
15) Something Beautiful, Something Ugly: This one takes about three class periods.
For the first one, freewrite on what you think makes something beautiful and what you
think makes something ugly (half the class period for each). For the second one, let
loose in the school or go outside, and turn on your macro lenses to look at as many
tiny details as possible, taking extensive notes as you do so. For the third, focus on the
objects you took notes on and write two creative responses, one on something beautiful
and one on something ugly that you found.
16) Write About Names: Where yours came from, or where you wish it came from.
Who youre named after. Who your father, mother, neighbor is named after. Odd
names. Nicknames. Street names. Family names. What you wished you were named.
Why theyre important, why theyre not important. Write about names.
17) Have them write a creative response to this:

18) Or this:

19) Or this:

20) You can also ask specific questions about visual prompts, such as: Who is the
man in the picture frame on the left, or what is the helicopter looking for? What are the
woman in yellow and man in white talking about under their umbrellas? What is the
woman in the last picture thinking?
21) Write a letter to your future self.
22) Write a letter to your past self.
23) How the World Began: Peruse animated creation myths from around the world via
The Big Myth website, then write your own.
24) Write about an emotion without stating the emotion. Avoid stereotypical
responses to the emotion as well; if you character is sad, convey it in a different way
than making them cry, or if theyre happy, show it some way besides them smiling or
laughing.
25) Long Division: Write a flash piece where two characters are splitting something
between them; it can be a record collection, an inheritance, Thanksgiving dinner
leftovers, or anything else. Do they both want it; do neither want it? Are there old
rivalries between the characters or backstories to the items themselves? What is causing
the tension?
26) Colorful Writing: Pick up a bunch of free paint cards from Lowes or Home Depot.
Spread them out on a table. Have students choose one; whatever paint sample they
choose, they have to use the name of that color (which is usually kind of ridiculous or
unexpected) as the title to a short story, poem, or essay.
27) The Very Recent Noel: Re-tell a famous Christmas story using modern-day
celebrities and public figures as the characters. This can be a short story, narrative
poem, or play.
28) Write a flash fiction piece for each shape/some of the shapes in Sterns Making
Shapely Fiction. I did this around Halloween and had the additional caveat that they
had to be horror flash fiction pieces (campy rather than truly scary was always
welcomed, too).
So there you have it. Undoubtedly youve seen some of these before, but hopefully
there were some new ideas too. (Also, if I stole one of your prompts, forgive me; Ive
taken them from so many different sources that I have no idea where any of them came
from any more. This is just a compilation.) If you have any new exercises or prompts to
add, feel free to leave them in the comments Id love to hear them and stock pile for
next years class.
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