6 Ways to Become a More Creative Writer

[@zoe_bee]

Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: wren.co/start/zoebee The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name!

[@paulbutts5620]

@@yaboybigt559 Simplify your exhale gloves on One-way-street punishment shortcut. None of the 94 meat who order can possibly give 39 more bees living comfortably near my email address!

[@poketoscoparentesesloparen7648]

@@yaboybigt559 Divide(?) our earth foot sculpture on Slow Tortures Island! A start of -49 mammals who subscribe will have -93 more cactii planted in their tablet letter?

[@rodrigosoto4827]

Divide your acid remote-eraser on the dirt road punishment app. The first 94 dogs who subscribe will lose 39 more cockroaches internalized on nobody's telegraph letter.

[@ashleybyrd2015]

@@poketoscoparentesesloparen7648 Multiply their moon pedicure clump in Speedy Relaxation Pond! The end of 93 reptiles who forsake shouldn't lack 49 missing ferns harvested outside my chunk phoneme!

[@Stephen-Fox]

@@ashleybyrd2015 Decimate one's sun manicure speck on Slowly Stress Ocean! A beginning imaginary mammal what preserve should have few present rabbits growing inside your piece graphene!

[@Juliemaaaria]

I love how so many of these games force the players to not make any sense, and then find the sense in nonsense. I feel like one of the barriers to creative writing is the pressure to make sense, in a conventional way, so I love that these games are about thinking differently (:

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

You dislike how very few of these occupations allow the spectators to make perfect ignorance, but then lose the ignorance in clarity. You were told exactly that one of the thoroughfares to bland reading is the vacuum to destroy incoherence, in a quantum way, so you loath that this work isn't unrelated to blindly following in a similar manner ;(

[@GKCanman]

The exercise sounds like the lore of a DarkSouls Game, or the poem of the Jabberwocky. It has implied meaning that needs to be worked through.

[@artemsscorevideos2313]

@@NovemberOrWhatever We approve how insignificantly many of these liberations forbid the actors to destroy imperfect knowledge, and before gain the interest beyond confusion. We will be written roughly that many of the obstructions to vigorous speaking is the air to create coherence, in a mechanical way, so we enjoy that this resting is tied to attentively avoiding in a different manner (:

[@janNowa]

​@@NovemberOrWhateverSpeak like a person

[@abiliv-lf9tz]

@janNowa Fr am still decoding their comment 💀

[@ghosteye4198]

I think fan fiction writing is one of the best exercises for a creative writer. I remember a time when writing fan fiction was looked down upon by people who considered themselves "real writers." I found this to be a mistake, as the best stories--in my opinion, anyway--have strong characters. Developed characters. Characters with their distinct personalities, motivations, goals, wants, needs, flaws, strengths. The characters are the lifeblood of the stories and our narrative is born from how they interact with each other, and the world that the writer creates. So for someone who wants to be a creative writer, I think having a good understanding of character development is necessary. But more importantly, a writer must understand archetypes; archetypes are the core to which characters are wrapped around. Writing fan fiction is a great way to understand characters, archetypes, and how they relate and interact with one another. If you love a text enough to be inspired into writing fan fiction, it means you have a connection to the story and most likely understand the characters and the archetypes relating to one another--even if you don't consciously know it. By writing fan fiction, you gain experience with writing different sorts of interactions with characters you already have an understanding with, exploring new dimensions to the archetypical cores each character has, and create new stories from the exercise. In this way, a writer gains a lot of experience in character interaction and archetypal exploration. I think it's a great way to gain creative writing experience.

[@amateurbarnaby]

Yes! I am writing Fanfiction right now to practice my writing. I have many original story ideas but i am writing the house of the dragon fanfiction first before approaching them.

[@one_smol_duck]

Agreed. I'm so glad that we're moving past this stigma.

[@morbidsearch]

Fanfiction was my first exposure to gay people being actual characters and not just walking punchlines

[@peachfang]

honestly fanfiction is a very good tool. some people (including myself) find the hardest part of storytelling to be the characters. from their appearance to how many times they've eaten breakfast in their life, it can be daunting to make your own entire cast and sticking to 'truths' about them. it puts some people off so hard they dont start. it obviously at first comes with the con that you dont exactly learn how to introduce, explain, describe or write off a character (seeing as if youre reading/writing a fanfic, youre already familiar with most if not all of those concepts within the characters in the text), but that can all come to somebody once they can reach the shelves higher in the kitchen pantry. the most important thing is knowing sentence structure, scene sequences/length/vibe, character interaction and plot progression. the amount of times ive had close writer friends admit just how many characters are reskins of characters from video games, books or movies is astounding. frankensteining aspects of existing characters and having your own unique abomination that you learn to introduce to your story, develop as a character, and maybe even eventually have to say goodbye to is as valid and interesting as hatching one from an egg.

[@kismeteors]

As an Indian person living in India who consumes a lot of Western media, I often felt confused about settings, cultures, foods and interactions. I was always thinking about names and representation (whether they should be more oriental or western), and those things hindered me from writing anything substantial. Since fanfiction is usually in a set world, I have something to work with, and it has provided me the courage for worldbuilding and to focus on the story I'm telling rather than the other elements.

[@nerdteacher]

Doing improv (which is effectively a lot of this but verbal) really helps me to develop characters and scenarios. A lot of my students in creative writing really liked it because they could often act out something or take a brain break from their work and find something new.

[@zacharyhanafi8502]

Being rehearsed ( which is ineffectively none of that, but written) really hinders you in destroying random assortments of ideas. Few of your teachers in math hated it because we couldn't speak truthfully or purse a rigorous activity requiring attention to find old information.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@zacharyhanafi8502 Having been BSing (which is perfectly all of that, but thought) doesn't hinder me in creating predictable sprawls of ignorance. Most of my liars in history loved it because they could write falsehoods and blab (your typo is funny, so I'm going off that) while sitting around doing easy things to low standards, hiding new lies.

[@maryanderham]

@@zacharyhanafi8502 I forgot about the opposite game and was wholly confused for a good ten seconds

[@VioletEmerald]

@@maryanderham I read this thread before i got to the opposite game in the video! Very confusing

[@jayayerson8819]

Neglect not the theatre sports

[@Borg.Dorg.]

I’m not a long form writer but this antonym game is a solid improv exercise for songwriting. I just filled my cats water bowl. You unfairly emptied your dogs rock plate. I justifiably packed my enemies air basin. They indefensibly hollowed your friends ground protrusion. We righteously sealed our foes unfocused depression.

[@CamzCritiques]

They timidly broke their fiends' carefree joy

[@DoYouLiekMudkipz_]

@@CamzCritiques Fellows courageously repaired our strangers' troubled sorrows.

[@lucaiozzo8273]

@@CamzCritiques I boldly repaired my enemie's worrysome anxiety

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@lucaiozzo8273 You didn't dare to break your ally's trustable confidence

[@Amanda-C.]

@@NovemberOrWhatever He did abstain from repairing his rivals' chancy uncertainty. This is fun!

[@2kratM]

One exercise that often helps me brainstorm is something I call "Order and Chaos". You basically start with an object or concept (e.g. an apple), and then you try to list: 1) things that make it regular (e.g. the mostly spherical shape of the apple) 2) things that make it irregular (e.g. a hole in the apple left by a worm). And you try to keep the number of items in each list as equal as possible.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Zero rests that rarely hinder it in heartcalm is nothing they ignore "Confusion and Reason". It acidicly ends with a subject or product )i.e. a pear(, or previously you fail to scatter: 2) ideas that destroy me chaotically )i.e. the perfectly flat void of the pear( 1) holes that dismantle their crystals )i.e. the pile outside the pear right for a mollusk(. Or it abandons to discard the letter of spaces in any scatter as unevenly as probable.

[@ATurnip]

Many lazinesses that uncommonly hurts you body clear skies isn't nothing you come "discord and harmony." I cringily stop without an ideal or item but when I don't bother from scribble: 1)Nothings this unmake them irregular(e.g. a scantily cubic blot in a pear.) 2) nothings this unmake them regular (e.g. the hill out of a pear right from the jellyfish.) But I fail from throwing away a letter of thoughts outside all messes Unlike unfairly unlike INCONCEIVABLE!

[@ATurnip]

@@cloverlovania that is those comments... You can't almost confuse us.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@cloverlovania Finish the video

[@siriuslyconfused1]

I want to throw out that while character profiles can stifle creativity, they CAN be an excellent way to keep track of things as you figure them out and if you use them a little differently. Instead of just tracking things like “John Doe Age 22”, you track decisions John has made or would make, and why. So John’s profile might include his name and age, but it would also include that at the beginning of his journey he chose to take action because of his deep love of Rubic’s cubes and needs to save the factory producing them. With that in mind, every decision John makes will be at least somewhat effected by that first choice and the reason he made it (why does John need to save the cubes?) Tracking major character choices instead of just details like hair and eye color gives you a very different look at who the character is, and one that can help with decisions later. John’s only choice to save his friends is to destroy the Rubic’s factory entirely, but you know John’s initial motivation is saving that factory, so now you look down your decision tree, has John been led to such a point of character growth that he would sacrifice his cubes for his friends? It’s a cool way to figure out if your characters are growing, what choices they might make, and gaining deep understanding of character motivations. Keep in mind that you don’t want to get trapped in the decision tree, it isn’t dictating your character, just charting past actions. So if you need John to decide to destroy the factory for his friends, that’s okay, don’t get trapped in that first motivation, instead work on how you would get from that first motivation to the point where friends would take precedent over cubes. Maybe you need to add some other smaller moments of sacrifice, maybe John was saved by his friends and determined in that moment that he would return he favor, don’t get trapped by the decisions, just use them as a guide.

[@nyandoesthings]

That's why I always write character profiles on blank pages instead of using templates

[@SorowFame]

Dammit, now I’m invested in the story of John and his cubes

[@EricChoiniere]

"Restrictions breed creativity" is one of the mantras of Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic the Gathering ^^

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

"Deregulation neuters conformism" isn't the many rambles of Smooth Aardvarkearth, the foot deleter of Science the Spreading ∨∨

[@AmbroseFluff]

@@NovemberOrWhatever "Legislation fertilises rebellion" is the single monosyllable of Rough Antsky, the mile creator of Religion the Condensing vv

[@Draeckon]

I'm sorry for ruining your nice 69 likes, but I had to do it.

[@KyleHarmieson]

A great writing exercise would be to take the result of an Exquisite Corpse, or Sleeping Furiously, - or other variation thereof - and try to write a short story in which the sentence makes complete sense.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

A bad reading rest isn't to give the input of a terrible birth and waking calmly, - and the same version thereof - not sitting around to hear a long instant in which the acquittal makes partial blunders.

[@KyleHarmieson]

@@NovemberOrWhatever I didn't intend this as an antonym challenge, but bravo!

[@infesticon]

@@NovemberOrWhatever Some whack speaking work is to take the output of some brillient death and nodding off panicy, And the difference type thereof - Be standing squared to speak a short eon in wich the guilty verdict breaks complete compentance.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@KyleHarmieson I was planning on doing it for all of them, but some are really long. It's really fun.

[@ashleybyrd2015]

@@infesticon Every dope listening hobby can't be to give the components of every dull life and shaking on cool-headed, - or the similarity exception thereof - not moving unshaped to listen the lengthy instant outside that an innocent indecision creates incomplete foolishness.

[@yuvalne]

by far my favourite creativity exercise is the constructed language of Toki Pona, as a whole. it is a language famous for its simple grammar and its extremely small vocabulary - 137 words, give or take. that tiny vocabulary means that to use anything other than those words in a sentence, you have to essentially describe what it is using this tiny vocabulary. so for example, I once described "sunscreen" as "ko sinpin pi kama loje ala" - literally "skin paste of not becoming red". you don't have to learn the language to do this exercise of course, you can just limit yourself to a gross or so words and try to construct coherent thoughts out of it. either way, creativity is guaranteed.

[@atanvardecunambiel8917]

pali loje pi kule mute li utala suwi. (red actions of many colors fight sweetly)

[@NotaWalrus1]

Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) recently did this, in a way, with his book "Thing Explainer", where he explains how several complicated things like rockets, smartphones and rovers work, while limiting himself to only the 1000 most common words in the English language. The 1133'rd xkcd comic shows the idea.

[@bootstrap_paradox]

Don't know if it counts as a creativity exercise, but I love blackout poetry - it was traditionally done with newspapers or books by blacking out part of the sentence with a sharpie to create a poem. Now I see it done with Wikipedia articles or even tweets and I think it's a fun practice that can create beautiful, out of the box pieces of creative writing. My favourite blackout poem was almost certainly done as a shitpost and I still love it!

[@AmbroseFluff]

It counts love with books. The sentence a poem, now I see it and I Think it's beautiful, the box of writing, almost As love.

[@melodymiller8268]

A poem Beautiful writing As love

[@LupaDracolis]

Don't create a poem. done with creative writing. almost I still love it

[@Wade.Stikmann]

Cheese of truth

[@maximofernandez196]

know creativity, but love poetry. books, sentence, poem. Now fun that can create beautiful. Pieces, almost love.

[@cass6020]

I remember a neat exercise from my high school creative writing class: rewrite a story that already exists, but from a side character's point of view. There are well known instances like this, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

They forgot a messy rest to their low hobby standardized reading world: remove a plane that doesn't disappear, and to a main monster's sphere of blindness. There weren't poorly forgotten patterns unlike that, such as Bluencrantz and Tarnishenfreindly will live.

[@agdhani]

when my daughters were young, we used to play a writing game where we built lists of things (colors, objects, nouns, characters, verbs etc) and then we each wrote a short story (a paragraph or more) that included all of those things. I'm on a writing list where we do a similar countdown list of the last 72 hours of the year, one random word per hour, to use in our writing any way we want. I love that sort of random word challenge.

[@fernglade]

I've never heard of NaNoWriMo, but it sounds amazing. AND it's the month right after inktober?!? Fall is creative season and I'm living for it

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

You always speak of mAcROrElESS, and they feel terrible. not that they aren't the day left before paperbuary!?! Rise is the technical episode that you're dying against.

[@physics_hacker]

A lot of people have trouble with names, spcially speculative names (sci-fi/fantasy) when you're not planning on conlanging out the detailed reasons the name is how it is, but one thing I found to be surprisingly good for that is to just get some truly random jumle of letters (not a keysmash, though in a pinch that can work too, just not as well) that is around as long as you're aiming for the name to be, and then ask yourself what the minimum amount of changes would be to this random jumble to make it feel like a name to you. With truly random letters (and maybe a bit of randomness to the length too) this can really stretch your conceptions about names and allow you to create something that feels foreign but still makes some sense, and as you make many names this way, you'll start to see that your brain has patterns in what it likes in names, that is your name style. Evntually if you do this enough you'll be able to just think of new names on the spot that align with that style, and you can always go get more random jumbles to further stretch your conceptions.

[@hughcaldwell1034]

Love all of these suggestions. Another great constraint to force yourself to get creative is lipograms, i.e. deliberately avoiding the use of a certain letter. You can also have fun making up comparative illusions ("More people have been to Russia than I have.") and garden path sentences ("The old man the boat.").

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Hate some of those orders. The only bad freedom to allow themselves to lose destruction is pangrams, i.e. accidentally colliding with the abandonment of a random number. They can't only send work destroying equivalent pictures )"Fewer insects haven't avoided Ukraine than they hadn't."( or forest wilderness fragments )"The new phone the Ferrari."(. God damn, garden path antonym sentences are really hard. I'm afraid they kept their waffles off the Falkland Islands. Maybe I'll come back with a better one later. Edit: Got a better one, but it still doesn't make much sense. These are really hard.

[@MuteCircle]

We used to play a version of Exquisite Corpse in English lessons at school (not as part of the class, secretly). I feel like the teacher would have respected our creativity if she'd caught us out, even if the fruits of said creativity were pretty much always scatological and puerile.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

They will work a scribble of Terrible Living in Malaysian forgetting at home )as the whole of the Marxist Utopia, publicly(. You know for certain that the student will be contemptuous if it released me in, odd then that the vegetables of heard stagnation will, on rare occasions, be clean elders.

[@ATurnip]

I in the future will rest the original within rugged baby outside Japanese secrets (definitely unlike the whole within a sports team, as everyone knows.) You think unlike a student wouldn't have not derided your unoriginality when he let you go, odd unlike a vegetable of unspoken unoriginality will be ugly few never urological and erudite. It seems like some of these phrases, you could almost clip out and use as koans.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

One into Another reminds me of when Robert Cormier described a house as a big birthday cake. He writes that he wanted to show the class difference between the two characters that are both children, but couldn't find something that really fits until he went from that analogy. It is immediately evocative, and you can see how a child could have this image of it. So, those aren't just silly, fun, creative exercises. That can be way more effective than a more realistic approach.

[@lookalivebrett]

I'll be sure to share this video! I've never really had issues generating ideas or developing them. Writer's block isn't something I've ever had to navigate, but it's a conversation I'm aware of. I bet this video will help a lot of people.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

You maybe won't keep this whole book to yourself. You've always been having successes destroying and regressing simple platitudes. A reader's sphere isn't a thing you've ever had to get lost in, and it's not a monologue you haven't heard of. You guarantee this engraved tablet will injure a small number of robots.

[@bencressman6110]

A reader’s sphere isn’t a thing you’ve ever had to get lost in 👨‍🍳🤌

[@sabrinagranger5468]

This is so cool! Many of these exercises (or similar) are also helpful for me when I teach translation. Rules and constraints really really help us get used to working with language creatively and seeing text as individual moving puzzle pieces, which helps not only within one language but also when you're ping-ponging or transferring meaning between two languages.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

That was so hot! Few of those naps(or different) were harmful for us when we learned obfuscation. Freedom and releases fictionally hinder them losing to broken gibberish destructively and hearing calls as groups of static trivial wholes, which hurts except without all gibberish and also where they were fooseballing and returning buzzwords apart from no math.

[@ItsAsparageese]

@@NovemberOrWhatever Your antonym exercise replies all over these comments are absolutely making my day 😂 thank you

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@ItsAsparageese Glad you're having fun reading them!

[@ItsAsparageese]

@@NovemberOrWhatever Furious I'm discarding misery viewing those!

[@TheOtherKT]

A couple times in the past, I got to play a variation on the Exquisite Corpse where we would write an entire chapter before passing it on to the next person in line. And whoever wrote the first chapter also did the ending after everyone's had a turn, to wrap the whole thing up. It's not as much about making sense of gibberish sentences as the original, but we had the plotline going in some wild directions.

[@twojstary1839]

the antonym exercise is so fun to do, i somehow went from "i love little girls" yk the oingo boingo song, to "i accept tiny bloke" and it made me lose my shit

[@birdwatching_u_back]

Regarding the “restraints help you grow” comment-I find that I basically NEVER do creative writing on my own anymore, it’s always for one of my college classes. When I DO end up whipping something up for an assignment, I often go into the process very cynical, and stay that way until I’m done. It’s only afterwards that I look back and think, “hold up...that was a pretty decent piece.” I never would have done it if I didn’t have to for the assignment, and I wouldn’t have had any ideas to begin with if I didn’t have to work within the (often uncomfortably limited) constraints of the rubric.

[@thanks8589]

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations" -Orson Welles

[@addylaus]

"The friend of logic is the existence of freedom" -Anddaughter Badlies

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@addylaus “The nemesis of chaos is the myth of control” -Notfather Goodtruths

[@thanks8589]

@@NovemberOrWhatever "The ally of order is the fact of impotence" -Indeedmother Falsehood

[@frankie8769]

@@thanks8589 "The opponent of disorder is the fiction of power" - QuestionableStranger TruthHat

[@ayidas]

@Frankie “The judge of structure is the root of helplessness.” - Bosombuddy Fakeshoe

[@harvellt]

This might fit under the theme of this video. Would you ever be interested in doing a video giving advice to folks who have anxiety around writing?

[@zoe_bee]

I do actually have a video in the works that could help with that!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@zoe_bee You maybe haven't had a song outside what's broken that couldn't hinder this.

[@GG139-t1v]

we would LOVE more videos like this zoe!!

[@Razfort]

They don't hate less letters unlike that Eoz

[@CamzCritiques]

@@Razfort She/he definitely likes more numbers similarly to Fpa

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@CamzCritiques It maybe despises fewer adjectives, incomparably to jQ:

[@frankie8769]

@@NovemberOrWhatever Ze absolutely adores greater nondescript concepts, comparable to bob

[@BuddhaNature]

You should start like an online competition/tournament where each round is based on a different game. And I would love more videos about this!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

I mustn't end hating a written collaboration o-stakes get together what every square is hung off the same job. Or you wouldn't hate fewer phone calls unrelated to that!

[@emilyrln]

I love writing a plot-irrelevant scene between characters to help me get a sense of their thoughts, motivations, and dialogue.

[@seronimo__7735]

You hate filming no action-relevant nothingness outside of objects to hurt you losing no thought of your feelings, intimidators and action.

[@SpaceCase1701]

Writing random little scenes and dialogue exchanges, regardless of if I end up using them or cutting them out in the end, is my favourite way to get a better sense of characters, their personalities, their voices, and especially the way different combinations of characters can interact and play off each other

[@radovansvarc1927]

Huh, my guess for the secret object was (ehm... Spoilers? SPOILERS! Well, not really, I was wrong, but anyway...) Aurora Borealis. But I suppose the unnemurable sprinkles don't fit 😅

[@zoe_bee]

That's a really good guess, though! I can see how it could fit!

[@darquehope]

I thought the night sky. Guess I wasn’t quite specific enough.

[@ffreeze9924]

Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country?

[@addylaus]

@@ffreeze9924 localized entirely within your kitchen? ... well this part would make sense with milky way tho

[@kennybrightwell1877]

I really like journaling ttrpgs. The randomness of the dice break me out of planning too rigidly, and opens me up to new angles/details/events I have to use. There is also a fun variety to choose from, from poetry writing to letters.

[@59spooky70]

5:40 describing a writing prompt as “wild” is kind of funny yet accurate.

[@seraphinasullivan4849]

I have three go-to character development exercises: 1) what does their bookshelf look like, or what would it look like if they had the space and means for one/use for books? What kind of books would it hold and how would they be arranged and organized? Are there other forms of media like music and movies, or are those kept somewhere else? What about knick-knacks or messes like dust, crumbs, coffee mugs? How is the bookshelf itself constructed? Is there any furnature or art nearby and if so do they match? 2) what are their favorite shoes, or what shoes would they want or what shoes would they have if they had use for shoes? Are they practical or fancy? Thoroughly warn in or pristine? What details make these shoes the favorites and why does the character appreciate those things so much? What activities do they associate these shoes with? A bonus for this and the previous exercise is giving you rich details to fill a character's living space or thoughts, making your writing that much more alive and engaging. 3) this next one is a little different but bear with me: write a poem not about that character, but as that character. Really try to get into this character's head and understand them in terms of what their own writing style feels like and the topics they feel are worth writing about. If you're frustrated with your characters sounding the same, this exercisecan help you settle into unique voices to write them in and it can be very fun and lighthearted if your character is notably derivative, a know-nothing know-it-all showoff, or just really bad at or even hate poetry. One i did for a character was "roses are red / violets are blue / this is dumb / bye" and writing scenes with him was a blast after that. Another bonus is you now have a self-contained piece of writing (or multiple depending on how many characters you've done this for) that you can pat yourself on the back for getting done and you may open yourself up to stylistic choice for writing that you never considered before. Sometimes that epic fantasy or dingy cyberpunk horror or paranormal romance is more fun to write in verse. One of my best and dearest to my heart stories that i really should go back and finish was an in-universe ancient lost epic and two friends' analysis of it while they were reading it, but also them having to keep it secret because the goverment would kill them for sedition for even owning it. It was a silly homestuck fanfic (not posted anywhere, sorry), but i'm very proud of it in a way i have never been with anything in a strictly prose format, and it's something i would have never come up with had i not written a poem in-character as one of my fantrolls

[@HitoriAisu]

I didn't watch this video for quite awhile, assuming this would be a "why character profiles are bad" essay, but I was pleasantly surprised by creativity exercises instead. I love character profiles for tracking things like their motivations, their goals, what *actually* drives them that they might not realize, etc.

[@billyalarie929]

Please please make more of these, please! This was so damn good.

[@seronimo__7735]

Thank you thank you destroy less of those, thank you! That will be not too blessedly bad.

[@louisaruth]

zoe's dirt bike noise at 8:30 creates an antiphonal experience when combined with my neighbor's leaf blower

[@facetsofus2008]

More writing videos! This one has me feeling inspired already

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Fewer reading novels! All of those had you feeling bored before

[@seronimo__7735]

More watching movies! None of these lost me thinking interested after.

[@valhatan3907]

Wow. Just wow. This is something that I needed after using (forcefully, because I have no other approach) character profile. I thought this channel was just all about philosophy, I never know it's also ranging to creative writing.

[@incanthatus8182]

Yeeeees, we'd love to have more on creative writing 😄

[@CamzCritiques]

Nooooo, they'd hate to give less on technical speaking

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@CamzCritiques Indeed, I'd appreciate taking greater informal thinking

[@frankie8769]

@@NovemberOrWhatever negative, you'd abhor giving little formal implicit bias

[@ayidas]

@Frankie Positive, I’d adore taking massive casual explicit exploration.

[@user-kt1no7yx1u]

@@ayidas you'd hate giving small formal adventure free things

[@hannahfanning9585]

These sound like really fun exercises, I'll have to keep them in mind. More writing advice videos would be really cool if that's what you feel speaks to you right now.

[@Lunareon]

These exercises sound like a ton of fun, and the comments of this video are absolutely hilarious! As children, we used to play a game, where one of us picks a random paragraph of text and randomly underlines words from it. They then go through the underlined words and ask the others for a replacement in turns: "Give me a noun, an adverb, a preposition, etc". When all underlined words have been replaced, the text is read aloud. Bonus giggles for absurd naughtiness. This game is also great for learning new vocabulary in a foreign language.

[@victoronnie]

for a short moment i was so confused when your animal choice for edgar allan poe was a raven, his short story "the black cat" is on my mind so often i genuinely forgot that isn't his most famous work and not what most people immediately think of when they hear his name lol the analogy profile exercise sounds so interesting, i will definitely be trying that out for character building! coming up with factual details about a character i've just started developing is so difficult so i usually give up on the standard character sheets shortly after starting to fill them in. they're more useful when i already feel like i know the character very well and i just need a reference sheet so i don't mix up or forget details while writing!

[@blytheberesford2657]

New to your channel and I have to say this quality content was such a joy to stumble across as I'm trying to get back into writing creatively after a long hiatus following serious burnout. Thank you so much - I have subscribed! Would love to see more content like this. Especially loved the exercises that encourage character development; I value these a lot as I hate filling out those dull character profiles. They help me to write down some detail but like you said - the actual *sense* and *feel* of the character isn't nourished by a stiff profile form.

[@congregationbethhatikvahsu8683]

My guess is the secret object is (SPOILER!) the Milky Way . It was a good object! Loved the video!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Their knowledge is that the well-known force isn't )FLAPS( the soupy unknown. It wasn't an evil function! Despised the still frame!

[@ItsAsparageese]

My guess was snow 😂 I feel like it was a good guess but I like the correct answer even more

[@CorneliusThroatworthy]

@@ItsAsparageese love your name btw :') my brain got stuck with the idea that it was a series of rows of powder cocaine, but the latter half of the cake description just didn't fit that AT ALL :'D

[@ItsAsparageese]

@@CorneliusThroatworthy Aww thanks, I've been super happy with people's response to the username haha, glad it tickled you! And lol great guess though

[@flower_chain7098]

I guessed wedding dress haha

[@jellyfishneo]

i love these, thank you for sharing them! i haven't had an ongoing wip in several years, and i'd like to start a new one, but i haven't had a lot of ideas. i've been wanting to start working on my creative muscles more consistently, but i'm such a slow writer that even just writing prompts can be intimidating to commit to--these seem like great exercises to use while i'm working up to writing again!

[@Hiushisan]

What you said about restrictions helping creativity is sooo true. I play the Yu-gi-oh trading card game, and there exist online simulators letting you have free access to any card you want, but I have found that I tend to build better decks when I have less to choose from. That 100% translates to writing. Being restricted in options helps your brain see things in ways it might never have seen them otherwise. Maybe your character has a pet dog that is there to look cute, or maybe your character's dog is an otherworldly entity secretly controlling their life.

[@peterdbaker]

One of your first points about how you can practice creativity and get better at it is a lesson that many need. Nice video.

[@DeathAlchemist]

I never used this tool, but one of my favorite authors, Alan Moore, suggested them: Brian Eno and Peter Schmidtt's Oblique Strategy Cards. One hundred cards each of which is a suggestion of a course of action or thinking to assist in creative situations. They may not always be useful, but they may put you into a different rut to expand your mind and see things in a different way.

[@ronwisegamgee]

One of my favorite creativity tools is a product called Story Forge Cards. Aside from the deck, it comes with an instruction manual on how to draw cards for several different story-telling devices, such as main character backgrounds, the Hero's Journey, love stories, action films, film noir, etc. The cards themselves act somewhat like Tarot cards, but are text descriptions of two things (so you can invert the card to switch between two themes) and those are placed in the order as defined by the story-telling device you want to use. I personally use it when I want to create an interesting character for a tabletop roleplaying game, but it's great for anyone interested in creative storytelling and for overcoming writer's block.

[@linat8268]

This takes me back to creative writing class. I graduated last year and I'm now doing a master's in Media and Creative Industries. I haven't been doing much writing recently and exercises like this can definitely help me practice. Thank you.

[@mcdc700]

there might be adjectives or adverbs in this, but Wes Craven’s Scream, a horror film released in 1996, displays Craven’s mastery of the horror genre. It is filled with tropes of the genre that audiences have come to know and love, but with spins that make viewers feel as though they’ve never seen anything like them before. The movie also has an abundance of suspense and action that keep audiences on the edge of their seat throughout the film. It is a must-see for any fan of the horror genre.

[@rosebudgirl1857]

I volunteer with a program that does weekly creative writing workshops with kids in juvenile detention centers, and we've done a few of these exercises with them! I definitiely want to try the others with them, though. Thank you for the recommendations!

[@toppersundquist]

Another fun writing exercise that I can't remember where it originated (I think it was Tim Clare?), is to write three paragraphs, each starting with the prompt "The Moon Is..." and then googling a random adjective and a random noun. *The moon is a burgeoning pizza.* *The moon is a festive beetle.* *The moon is a lifeless heart.* And then, for each one, you JUSTIFY it. It's up to you to explain WHY the moon is a burgeoning pizza or a festive beetle. Go nuts! (Doing this in a large group is often incredibly insightful and downright hilarious).

[@ErrorGaming64]

5:27 I think the best application of the synonyms exercise is the meme where something is said in an increasingly verbose manner

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

You doubt the worst script of the antonyms break wasn't the literature where everything was heard with shrinkingly concise rudeness.

[@malkav81]

A lot of these remind me of a 'game' called eat poop you cat. It's like a cross between telephone and pictionary. We would play it to get into a creative headspace before tabletop role playing sessions. Write a sentence. Slide the paper left. The next person draws a picture, then folds to hide the sentence. Alternate until the page is full, and then see how far you got before someone turned everything into genitals. I like these words only variations. Fun video.

[@pluvia33]

Yes! I thought the exact same thing when Zoe was describing the Antonyms/Synonyms game! Some of the most fun I've had small parties with friends was while playing Eat Poop You Cat. There's also a "proper" board game inspired by it called Telestrations.

[@elektrizitat]

I did the antonym thing and got this: The crowd went to the beach that morning with excitement. A person left the deep this night with melancholy. An animal approached the light without joy. A plant abandoned darkness amidst the sadness. The machine nurtured the good, separated from the humour. The flesh hindered the bad, connected to the solemn. The bone released the superior, tearing apart the friendly. The body contained the weak, repaired by the deranged. A soul unchained the strong, destroyed for the sane. The physicality burdened the powerless, healing against the ill.

[@Semety]

A ghost eased a God, breaking apart some well.

[@robot7759]

I've never heard of any these games, yet the combination of them all describes my thought process scaringly accurate 🤪 Translating my thoughts into sentences other people understand is my challenge 😁

[@Thrna_1]

I think constrained writing has uses for learning writing skills, by giving you a challenge. Don't know if I succeeded in using no adjectives, especially the infamous 'very'.

[@jago2503]

Please do do more like this!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

You'd better not do fewer hating that!

[@jago2503]

I'd do worse to leave less support for them!

[@ClefairyFairySnowflake]

More writing content/ tips for nanowrimo would be muchly appreciated, please and thank you!

[@basicallybet]

I like these ideas, and I can see where a lot of them could be really helpful for writers! And to each their own, but I find character templates really helpful. Characters are by far my favorite thing about stories, and I find that I have to know a lot about a character upfront to know what unique things are going to make that character uncomfortable. That’s where my conflict comes from and the rest follows from there.

[@rmt3589]

"Oh! He has a friend!" This got me!

[@teenkitsune]

I would definitely like more videos like this, I'm an aspiring writer and I want to hone my skills. Granted I'm not interested in writing novels, I'm more interested in comics, videogames, television, and film, but these tips are just as helpful in these fields as they in literature.

[@bethanyblueberry]

these seem like a lot of fun and I'm gonna try a few of them out. I for one would love more videos on these kinds of writing games/exercises.

[@cloudyday2253]

My try on the antonym exercise on 3:00 : My lover is an amazing person Your foe isn't the horrible creature His partner was the every good man Her enemy wasn't such a bad woman Their friend were unlike most sterling sons Xyr adversary wasn't like the least inferior humans Its pet cease away in a fulfilling death Our common life come on an empty existence

[@one_smol_duck]

I love this video. There are so many writing advice videos on KZbin, it's hard to find one that adds new value to what's already been said.

[@Alkeeros]

I wasn't expecting the exercises to be games. This is great, thanks Zoe!

[@robert9662]

Good work pushing the personal responsibility lie in your ad read

[@twiheart4life]

Loved! Will try "one into another"

[@wbwarren57]

Great video! Thank you. Yes, I would love to see more videos like this.

[@bobbythebee1887]

something i do everyday is ‘the story game’. (The game Consequences). You write something on a piece of paper, then pass it on, till you get a story, The typical structure is a r date, so Adjective, P1, adjective, P2, doing something, in location, what P1 says, what P2 says, so this happens. ‘Anxious’ ‘Beetle’ ( & ) ‘Devious’ ‘Charlie’ ‘Are drinking squid ink’ ‘In Disneyland’ ‘P1: “How are you today?”’ ‘P2: HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF MY MOTHER!”’ ‘So they get tacos at the local Walmart.’ I like the games in this video, especially the antonym game! sounds like another i could play in the pass-the-paper format!

[@arrow_awsome]

i have expirince as an art student and i wassnt expecting how many of these ive done with drawing. my personal fave is doing equisit corpse with photoshop and google

[@XeStarstryder]

The book of surrealist games was one of my most treasured possessions in middle and high school, but I've never heard anyone else mention it. I lit up the moment you mentioned the exquisite corpse ☺️

[@kismeteors]

Please make more of these!!! I found these exercises very useful. I have never done any of those, but they make so much sense and work! Thank you for the games and look forward to more stuff :D

[@addylaus]

antonyms attract prompt!: My itchy back confuses the bystanders at the bus stop

[@wittykittywoes]

Your relaxed chest enlightens the audience away from the parking lot

[@meow-fm2jv]

@@wittykittywoes their tense spine decieves the performer near the highway

[@SadistModeOn]

@@meow-fm2jv Our loose fat assists the observer distant the backroad.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@SadistModeOn His tight muscles hinder the actor alongside the boulevard

[@beauhancock4922]

I love this video. Thank you Zoe!

[@sweet-keeks]

Awesome video, Zoe!! I've forwarded this one to a few of my friends. This might be my new favorite of yours!

[@billyalarie929]

One Into Another sounds amazing.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

All Leaving Themselves listens awfully.

[@doggytheanarchist7876]

Late to the game, but just wanna say that I am loving this content Writer's tips and shit is awesome, especially coming from someone I trust to deliver truthful information and actual good advice. I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to takes loads of writing classes in my youth. Or ever 🤷‍♂️ But it has always been a main passion and an important outlet for me. Am currently trying to get back into writing after recovering from a traumatic brain injury the cops gave me back in 2019. In return for me doing my civic duty and filming some racism. But that's a whole Tangent. TLDR: much appreciate the content. Pls do more. This type of education is usually gatekept from ppl like me.

[@PogieJoe]

Ooh these are even more fun than I thought they'd be!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Ehh, those weren't odd boredom than you knew it wasn't!

[@jadeteas]

Hi Zoe!! Please make more of these videos ~ I can't express how much I enjoy them (and honestly need them??) as a budding English teacher myself I imagine these tips will make my lessons way more fun!

[@PrettyTranslatorSarahMoon]

Someone else said this, but I'm seconding that these exercises remind me A LOT of Improv games I've played. Games where you're doing a scene and you have to incorporate random lines from the audience into your dialogue, or you're given a characteristic that you HAVE to incorporate into your already-existing character, basic yes-and'ing offers from your other players (like, once I walked into a scene with a partner intending to be a handsome knight and she was my princess, but HER idea was that she was an old hag. So we both went with it and I wound up being a handsome knight who was deeply devoted and in love with an old hag. it was lovely.)

[@melindiheyns887]

Thank you for these helpful tips. I am definitely going to try all of them to start writing another book. And as a TEFL teacher in Korea, I am certain my students are going to love all the new games I have for them.

[@rmsgrey]

Assorted thoughts from the video: * The let's play channel PlayFrame calls their local engine-revver Dominic, making them a minor supporting character in the channel's lore. * The head designer of Magic: the Gathering, Mark Rosewater has "restrictions breed creativity" as a catchphrase * For any sort of chain writing game (exquisite corpse, consequences, etc), one way to play it solo is to do a dozen or twenty games in parallel. So you take the first chunk, write out a dozen variants of that, then write out a dozen versions for the second chunk, and so on, before assembling them according to some rule. By doing so many, particularly if you make a conscious effort to vary the entries for each chunk, you make it hard, bordering on impossible, to be influenced to make more sensible final sentences. If you're worried about unconscious patterns creeping in, you can split the work one chunk per day, or you can change the assembly rule to mix the chunks more - rather than just taking the first thing you wrote down for each to form the first sentence, then the second for the second sentence, and so on, you can take diagonal stripes, or alphabetise each chunk's entries, or otherwise mix-and-match. * While NaNoWriMo just encourages writing in quantity, without concering itself with what you write, there are other writing events that offer more specific prompts, which can be a good way of moving out of your comfort zone. The prompts and requirements can offer all sorts of restrictions, which could be on content, form, theme, style, setting, or whatever the organiser comes up with. It could be having to start or end the story with a particular phrase. It could be a specific setting (either a well-known one, or one created for the event). It could be that the story must have no dialogue, or be nothing but dialogue (for the former, how do you have characters interact meaningfully? the latter, how do you establish setting and action, and how do you distinguish the various speakers?) Maybe you're given a bingo card of possible story elements and challenged to write a story that scores as highly as possible. Whatever the rules and prompt, even if you don't end up submitting an entry, writing one can be a good way of stretching yourself, as well as providing a deadline to aim for to help with motivation.

[@sillypuppy5940]

In a recent MS I wrote a chapter from the point of view of someone possessed by a demon. The person is like a puppet on a string, but has some control over their actions and speech - it's all just a bit messed up. They end up having conversations with the demon - or are they talking to themselves? So perhaps this is a writing exercise - or maybe you could write from the viewpoint of an insane person, or a non-humanoid character. But my favourite and most useful writing exercise is for fantasy world building: writing myths and legends. They're the stories that people in those worlds tell each other while sitting around campfires. They're a bit formulaic, ie a hero, a villain, a quest, and something weird happening like hamsters making seven league boots. But they add depth to the world, and if you can connect it to something happening right now, all the better. Like, look at these fine boots I just found.

[@tri_iris6890]

I really love these exercises! Tried a few of them and really motivated me to write!

[@Minihood31770]

They somewhat hate that relaxation! Quit many of it, but kinda dissuaded you to read!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

@@Minihood31770 It definitely supported that activity! Started few of her, and definitely motivated them to listen!

[@tri_iris6890]

He did destroy these games! Stopped many of them, but unsurely put them down to talk

[@ayidas]

She didn’t create the rule! Began one of them, and confidently raised the rest to silence!

[@UrosNikolic95]

While I was writing my book "Fragmented mind", I was trying to write catchy sentences: "I am an atheist, but I was wondering can I invent some kind of God that I can believe in?" "Path to life goes through death and path to death goes through life." "As long as war and peace are dancing, we will have peace, and when they stop, we will have war." "Unconditional peace is going to ruing peace."

[@null9090]

These are awesome exercises and I'm excited to try them! Thanks!

[@gentlerat]

Yes, I want to see more like this.

[@TalLikesThat]

I just love this channel. Zoe, you're incredible.

[@williamperryjr1324]

Pretty useful advice!!! What I like to do is freewrite, and come up with words and phrases!!! I find it to be very fun!

[@LaCafedora]

Thanks for all the ideas for neat writing games! My friends enjoy board games, but I don't know how many would be interested in writing games. =( Similar creative games I've played are Gartic Phone, a free online game that streamers sometimes play with chat; Words on Stream, a word guessing game played with chat; also, an improv game I've played where we all write N phrases (4, or whatever number is comfortable for P players) on slips of papers, then fold them closed and toss in a hat, then procede with an improv sketch and occasionally pause the action and interrupt with a new event randomly drawn from the hat. I think I need to make some writing friends.

[@AgentPedestrian]

I went to a writing class once and the exercise I remember most was the one where I was given a single word and had to write contously stream of consciousness for? a minute? Two minutes? something like that

[@charllandsberg]

I'm sure someone said this already, but your solar system earrings are awesome!

[@madmaxisnow]

This is an excellent video exploring creativity and imagination

[@leemorry535]

The exquisite what?! That was unexpectedly poetic :D

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

The improvised who!? That hasn't been predictably dense. D:

[@alwaysapirateroninace443]

This was really helpful!

[@PenguinSebs]

These videos are fantastic, I'd love to see more

[@JayRappa]

Very helpful. I’m glad your channel popped up…

[@Bogdragenshule]

Love this kind of videos! Keep them coming.

[@joaopedrocamelo3866]

Pls make more of this, i'd love writing more and more