Writers Thursday #4 in series

Last week we discussed how to improve both your micro and macro levels of language, from vocabulary to speaking in a particular context.

This week I’m suggesting exercises for increasing your originality.

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your characters, setting, or plot. As long as you know the rules and understand why you’re breaking them, you can do some original work and break some new ground, but you may need a boost.

Here’s a five minute game or exercise: take twenty of your favorite novels. Make some slips of paper with the following categories:

Location/ Setting

Era

Main Character

Supporting Character

Plot driver (a wedding, breakup, death, attack, murder, birth)

For example let’s take classic Romance lit Jane Eyre.

1. Thornfield Hall
2. mid 19th century
3. Jane Eyre
4. Mr. Rochester
5. Finds out there’s a mad lady in the attic

Drop the slip with your Location into one bag, Era in the next bag, and so on; repeat with 19 other novels or movies of various genres.

Draw one slip from each bag, so that you end up with something like this:

1. Setting: Tatooine (Star Wars)
2. Era: Prehistoric/ Stone Age (Clan of the Cave Bear)
3. Main Character: Huckleberry Finn (The Adventures of …)
4. Supporting Character: Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)
5. Plot element: All the land is sold to corporate farms and the sharecroppers are evicted (Grapes of Wrath)

Now, sketch the plot of a book. Write a few paragraphs: How does it open and how does it end? This exercise should help you break out of any originality ruts and may even help you develop a ground-breaking novel that crosses over two genres. You may not end up writing any books that you came up with during the exercise, but it can help you break out of your ways of thinking.