creative writing lesson plans for adults

43 Creative writing exercises

A selection of fun creative writing exercises that can be completed solo, or with a group. Some are prompts to help inspire you to come up with story ideas, others focus on learning specific writing skills.

I run a  Creative Writing Meetup  for adults and teens in Montpellier or online every week. We start with a 5 to 20 minute exercise, followed by an hour and a half of silent writing, during which each participant focuses on their own project. Every exercise listed below has been run with the group and had any kinks ironed out.  Where the exercises specify a number of people, if you have a larger group, simply split everyone up into smaller groups as appropriate.

The solo exercises are ideal to help stimulate your mind before working on a larger project, to overcome writer’s block, or as stand-alone prompts in their own right. If a solo exercise inspires you and you wish to use it with a larger group, give every member ten minutes to complete the exercise, then ask anyone who wishes to share their work to do so in groups of 3 or 4 afterwards.

Looking for something quick to fire your imagination? Check out these  creative writing prompts for adults .

Writing Retreat in South France

A note on running exercises remotely

While you can enjoy the exercises solo, they are also designed for online writing groups using Zoom, WhatsApp, or Discord.

If you're running a group and follow a ' Shut Up and Write ' structure, I recommend connecting on WhatsApp (for example) first, doing the exercise together, sharing writing samples as needed. Next, write in silence for an hour and a half on your own projects, before reconnecting for a brief informal chat at the end. This works great with small remote groups and is a way to learn new techniques, gain online support, and have a productive session.

If you have a larger online group, it's worth looking into Zoom, as this has a feature called  Breakout Rooms . Breakout Rooms let you split different writers into separate rooms, which is great for group activities. The free version of Zoom has a 40 minute limit, which can be restrictive, but Zoom Pro is well worth it if you're going to use it on a regular basis. In my experience, Zoom has a better connection than Facebook chat or WhatsApp.

A Letter From Your Character To You

Spend ten minutes writing a letter from a character in your novel to  you , the author, explaining why you should write about them. This serves three purposes:

• As you write, it helps you get into the mindset of the character. Ask yourself how they would language this letter and what they would consider important.
• It's motivating to know that your character wants you to write about them.
• If your goal is to publish a complete work of fiction one day, whether it be a novel, a play or a movie script, you will want to contact an agent or publisher. This helps you practice in an easy, safe way.

If you're doing this exercise with a group of teens or adults, and some of the group haven't already started working on their masterpiece, they can instead choose any fictional novel they love. Ask participants to imagine that a character within the book wrote to the author in the first place to ask them to write their story. How did they plead their case?

The Opening Sentence

The opening sentence has to grab the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Many authors achieve this by starting with an action scene. In modern literature, it's best to avoid starting with someone waking up, or a description of the weather. In this exercise the task is to write an opening sentence either to a book you're currently writing, or simply for an imaginary piece of literature.  Here are some of my favourite opening sentences to get you going:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

George Orwell , 1984

The Golem's life began in the hold of a steamship.

Helene Wecker , The Golem and the Djinni

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

Diana Gabaldon , Outlander

You better not never tell nobody but God.

Alice Walker , The Color Purple

The cage was finished.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez ,  Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon

Imagine that you are living your life out of order: Lunch before breakfast, marriage before your first kiss.

Audrey Niffenegger ,  The Time Traveler's Wife

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Douglas Adams ,  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There are a plethora of ways you can start a book, however two ways that help engage the reader immediately are:

• Set the scene in as few words as possible, so the reader immediately knows what's happening and wants to know what happens next.  The scene must be original and create a vivid image in the reader's mind.
• Surprise the reader with an unusual event or usual point of view.

Spend 5 minutes working on your own opening sentence, then share it with the other participants.

Make your protagonist act!

Exercise for 2 writers, or can be done solo.

According to John Gardner:

"Failure to recognise that the central character must act, not simply be acted upon, is the single most common mistake in the fiction of beginners."

Spend 5 minutes writing a scene where the protagonist is passive in a conversation with one other character. It could be that the other character says something dramatic, and the protagonist just listens, or it could be anything else of your choice!

Once the 5 minutes is up, swap papers with another writer. If you're using Zoom, or working online, send it to each other in a private chat. Now the other person spends 8 minutes rewriting the scene to make the protagonist as active as possible. This might include:

Read both scenes together. Which makes you want to keep on reading?

If you're doing this as a solo writing exercise, simply complete both parts yourself.

• Showing the emotion this evokes.
• Getting them to disagree with the other character.
• Showing how they respond physically (whether it's as a physical manifestation of how they feel, or a dramatic gesture to make a point).

Overcoming writer's block

Are you staring at a blank page or stuck for any story ideas? This exercise will help anyone who's experiencing writer's block with a particular piece of writing. If this isn't you, that's great, others will value your input!

If anyone has a particular scene they're stuck with (a pool of blood on the floor they have no explanation for, a reason why the rich lady just walked into a particular pub, etc.) then at the start of the exercise everyone briefly describes their scenes (if working online with a large group, typing it into the chat might be best). Everyone then chooses one scene to use as a writing prompt to write a short story for 10-15 minutes.

Afterwards, split into small groups if necessary, and read out how you completed someone else's writing prompt. As everyone listens to everyone else's ideas, this can be a wonderful source of inspiration and also improves your writing. As an alternative solo exercise, try free writing. With free writing, simply write as quickly as you can on the topic without editing or censoring yourself - just let your creative juices flow. If you're not sure what happens next, brainstorm options on the page, jot down story ideas, or just put, "I don't know what happens next." Keep going and ideas will come.

Writing Character Arcs

There are several different types of character arc in a novel, the 3 most common being:

For this exercise choose either a positive or negative character arc. Spend 8 minutes writing a scene from the start of a novel, then 8 minutes writing a scene towards the end of a novel showing how the character has developed between the two points. Don't worry about including how the character has changed, you can leave that to the imagination.

The point here is to capture the essence of a character, as they will be the same, but show their development.

• Positive  - Where a character develops and grows during the novel. Perhaps they start unhappy or weak and end happy or powerful.
• Negative  - Where a character gets worse during a novel. Perhaps they become ill or give in to evil tendencies as the novel progresses.
• Flat  - In a flat character arc the character themself doesn't change much, however the world around them does. This could be overthrowing a great injustice, for example.

Sewing Seeds in Your Writing

In this exercise, we will look at how to sew seeds. No, not in your garden, but in your story. Seeds are the tiny hints and indicators that something is going on, which influence a reader's perceptions on an often unconscious level. They're important, as if you spring a surprise twist on your readers without any warning, it can seem unbelievable. Sew seeds that lead up to the event, so the twists and turns are still surprising, but make intuitive sense. Groups : Brainstorm major plot twists that might happen towards the end of the novel and share it in a Zoom chat, or on pieces of paper. Choose one twist each. Individuals : Choose one of the following plot twists:   -  Your friend is actually the secret son of the king.   -  Unreliable narrator - the narrator turns out to be villain.   -  The monster turns out to be the missing woman the narrator is seeking.   -  The man she is about to marry happens to already have a wife and three kids.

Write for ten minutes and give subtle hints as to what the plot twist is. This is an exercise in subtlety. Remember, when the twist occurs, it should still come as a surprise.

This is a fun writing activity for a small group. You’ve found a magic potion labelled ‘Cat Chat’ and when you drink it, you turn into whichever animal you’re thinking about; but there’s a problem, it also picks up on the brainwaves of other people near you!

Everyone writes down an animal in secret and then reveals it to the other writers.  The spell will turn you into a creature that combines elements of all the animals.  Each person then spends 5 minutes writing down what happens when they drink the potion.

After the 5 minutes is up, everyone shares their story with the other participants.

If you enjoy this exercise, then you may also want to check out our  Fantasy and Sci-Fi writing prompts  full of world building, magic, and character development prompts..

Joe Brainard wrote a novel called:  I Remember It contains a collection of paragraphs all starting with “I remember”.  This is the inspiration for this exercise, and if you’re stuck for what to write, is a great way to get the mental gears turning.  Simply write “I remember” and continue with the first thing that pops into your head.

Spend 5 minutes writing a short collection of “I remember” stories.

Here are a couple of examples from Joe Brainard’s novel:

“I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn't fall off.”

“I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face.”

Giving feedback to authors

If you're running a workshop for more experienced adult authors and have at least an hour, this is a good one to use. This is the longest exercise on this page, but I felt it important enough to include.

Give each author the option to bring a piece of their own work. This should be double spaced and a maximum of 3 pages long. If you're running a workshop where not everyone is likely to bring a manuscript, ask everyone who wants to bring one to print two copies each. If someone forgets but has a laptop with them, the reader can always use their laptop.

Print out a few copies and hand them around to everyone in the workshop of the guide on: 'How to give constructive feedback to writers'

Each author who brought a sample with them then gives them to one other person to review. They write their name on the manuscript in a certain colour pen, then add any comments to it before passing it to a second person who does the same (commenting on the comments if they agree or disagree).

Then allow 5 minutes for everyone to discuss the feedback they've received, ensuring they are giving constructive feedback.

The Five Senses

Painting by Giovanni Battista Manerius -  The Five Senses

Choose a scene and write it for 5 minutes focusing on one sense, NOT sight. Choose between:

Hearing  Taste Smell Touch

This can be internal as well as external (I heard my heartbeat thudding in my ears, or I smelt my own adrenaline).

After the 5 minutes stop and everyone reads it out loud to each other. Now write for another 5 minutes and continue the other person's story, but do NOT use sight OR the sense they used.

You can use any sense to communicate the essentials, just focus on creating emotions and conveying the story with the specific sense(s).

If you need some writing prompts, here are possible scenes that involve several senses:

• Climbing through an exotic jungle
• Having an argument that becomes a fight
• A cat's morning
• Talking to someone you're attracted to

Show don't tell

2 or 3 people

A lot of writing guides will advise you to, "Show, don't tell". What does this actually mean?

If you want to evoke an emotional reaction from your reader, showing them what is happening is a great way to do so.  You can approach this in several ways:

Split up into pairs and each person writes down a short scene from a story where they "tell" it.  After this, pass the description of the scene to your partner and they then have 5 minutes to rewrite it to "show" what happened.  If there are an odd number of participants, make one group of three, with each person passing their scene clockwise, so everyone has a new scene to show.  After the 5 minutes, for small groups everyone reads their new description to everyone else, or for large groups, each person just reads their new scene to their partner.

• Avoid internal dialogue (thinking), instead have your protagonist interact with other people, or have a physical reaction to something that shows how s/he feels.  Does their heart beat faster?  Do they notice the smell of their own adrenaline?  Do they step backwards, or lean forwards?
• Instead of using an adjective like creepy, e.g. "Mary entered the creepy house", show why the house is creepy through description and in the way the protagonist responds - "The light streamed through the filthy skylight, highlighting the decomposing body of a rat resting on top of it.  As Mary stepped inside, she felt a gust of freezing air brush past her. She turned, but there was nothing there..."

World building

World building is the art of conveying the magic of living in a different world, whether it's a spaceship, a medieval castle, a boat, or simply someone's living room. To master world building, it's not necessary to know every intricate detail, rather to convey the experience of what it would be like to live there.

Choose one of the above images as a prompt and spend 10 minutes writing a scene from the perspective of someone who is seeing it for the first time. Now, move your character six months forward and imagine they've spent the last six months living or working there. Write another scene (perhaps with an additional character) using the image as a background, with the events of the scene as the main action.

Click the above image for a close-up.

Gossiping about a character as if they're a friend.

Judy Blume says that she tells her family about her characters as if they’re real people. 

Chris Claremont said, "For me, writing the 'X-Men' was easy - is easy. I know these people, they're my friends." 

Today’s exercise has 2 parts. First, spend 5 minutes jotting down some facts about a character you’ve invented that might come up if you were telling your friends about them. Either choose a character in something you’ve already written, or invent one from scratch now.

Answer the questions:

What are they up to? How are they? What would you say if you were gossiping about them?

Then split up into groups of 4 to 6 writers. 2 volunteers from each group then role-play talking about their character as if they were a friend (perhaps another character in the story).  The other participants will role-play a group of friends gossiping about the character behind their back and ask questions. If you don’t know the answer, invent it!

Degrees of Emotion Game

This is based on an acting game, to help actors understand how to perform with different degrees of emotion.

Ask everyone to write the following 4 emotions:

For groups of 5 or less, write down numbers starting with 1 and going up until everyone has a number, then give them out in order. For groups of 6 or more, divide groups into 3's, 4's or 5's.

Each person has to write a scene where the protagonist is alone and is only allowed to say a single word, e.g. "Banana".  The writer with number 1 should write the scene with a very low level of the emotion (e.g. happiness), number 2 increases the intensity a bit and the highest number writes a scene with the most intense emotion you can possibly imagine.

Once each writer has written about happiness, rotate the numbers one or two spaces, then move onto anger, then fear, then sadness.

It can help to give everyone numbers showing the intensity of the emotions to write about at the start of the exercise, in which case you may wish to print either the Word or PDF file, then use the ones corresponding to 3, 4 or 5 writers.

Everyone shares their scene with the other course participants.

Three birds, one line

The first paragraph of a surprising number of best-selling novels serves multiple purposes. These are to:

• Establish a goal
• Set the scene
• Develop a character

Nearly every chapter in a novel also serves all three purposes. Instead of establishing a goal though, the protagonist either moves towards it, or encounters an obstacle that hinders them from achieving it.

Some books manage to meet all three purposes with their opening lines, for example:  

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

J.K. Rowling ,  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone  

A little more than one hundred days into the fortieth year of her confinement, Dajeil Gelian was visited in her lonely tower overlooking the sea by an avatar of the great ship that was her home.

Iain M. Banks ,  Excession  

"We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

George R.R. Martin ,  A Game of Thrones

For this exercise write a sentence or short paragraph that serves all three purposes. If you're already writing a novel, then see if you can do this for the first line in a chapter. If not, choose any combination from the following table:

Blind Date on Valentine's Day (Exercise for Adults)

In pairs one writer spends a minute or two describing a character they're writing about, or alternatively they can describe a celebrity or someone from a work of fiction.  The next writer then describes their character.

The story is that these 2 characters (or in my case, person and alien, as I'm writing a sci-fi) have accidentally ended up on a blind date with each other. Perhaps the waiter seated them in the wrong location, perhaps it's an actual blind date, or perhaps they met in some other fashion the writers can determine.

Now spend 10 minutes discussing what happens next!

A Success (Works best for online groups)

This exercise works best for online groups, via Zoom, for example.  The instructions to give are:

"In a few words describe a success in your life and what it felt like to achieve it. It can be a small victory or a large one."

Share a personal example of your own (mine was watching my homeschooled sons sing in an opera together).

"Once you have one (small or large), write it in the chat.

The writing exercise is then to choose someone else's victory to write about for 10 minutes, as if it was the end of your own book.

If you want to write for longer, imagine how that book would start. Write the first part of the book with the ending in mind."

This is great for reminding people of a success in their lives, and also helps everyone connect and discover something about each other.

Your dream holiday

You’re going on a dream holiday together, but always disagree with each other. To avoid conflict, rather than discuss what you want to do, you’ve decided that each of you will choose a different aspect of the holiday as follows:

• Choose where you’ll be going – your favourite holiday destination.
• Choose what your main fun activity will be on the holiday.
• Decide what mode of travel you’ll use to get there.
• If there’s a 4 th  person, choose what you’ll eat on the holiday and what you’ll be wearing.

Decide who gets to choose what at random. Each of you then writes down your dream holiday destination/activity/travel/food & clothes in secret.  Next spend 5 minutes discussing your dream holiday and add any other details you’d like to include, particularly if you’re passionate about doing something in real life.

Finally, everyone spends another 5 minutes writing down a description of the holiday, then shares it with the others.

A haiku is a traditional Japanese form of non-rhyming poetry whose short form makes it ideal for a simple writing exercise.

They are traditionally structured in 3 lines, where the first line is 5 syllables, the second line is 7 syllables, and the third line is 5 syllables again. Haiku tend to focus on themes of nature and deep concepts that can be expressed simply.

A couple of examples:

A summer river being crossed how pleasing with sandals in my hands! Yosa Buson , a haiku master poet from the 18 th  Century.

And one of mine:

When night-time arrives Stars come out, breaking the dark You can see the most

Martin Woods

Spend up to 10 minutes writing a haiku.  If you get stuck with the 5-7-5 syllable rule, then don’t worry, the overall concept is more important!

See  How to write a haiku  for more details and examples.

Unlike a haiku, which is profound and sombre, a limerick is a light-hearted, fun rhyming verse.

Here are a couple of examples:

A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his beli-can He can take in his beak Food enough for a week But I'm damned if I see how the heli-can.

Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1910

There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light; She started one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller in  Punch,  1923

The 1 st , 2 nd  and 5 th  line all rhyme, as do the 3 rd  and 4 th  line.  The overall number of syllables isn’t important, but the 3 rd  and 4 th  lines should be shorter than the others.

Typically, the 1 st  line introduces the character, often with “There was”, or “There once was”. The rest of the verse tells their story.

Spend 10 minutes writing a limerick.

Time Travel - Child, Adult, Senior

Imagine that your future self as an old man/woman travels back in time to meet you, the adult you are today.  Alternatively, you as a child travels forward in time to meet yourself as an adult.  Or perhaps both happen, so the child you, adult you, and senior you are all together at the same time.  In story form write down what happens next.

Participants then share their story with other writers either in small groups, or to the whole group.

Focus on faces

Solo exercise.

One challenge writers face is describing a character. A common mistake is to focus too much on the physical features, e.g. "She had brown eyes, curly brown hair and was five foot six inches tall."

The problem with this is it doesn't reveal anything about the character's personality, or the relationship between your protagonist and the character. Your reader is therefore likely to quickly forget what someone looks like.  When describing characters, it's therefore best to:

• Animate them - it's rare that someone's sitting for a portrait when your protagonist first meets them and whether they're talking or walking, it's likely that they're moving in some way.
• Use metaphors or similes  - comparing physical features to emotionally charged items conjures both an image and a sense of who someone is.
• Involve your protagonist  - if your protagonist is interacting with a character, make it personal.  How does your protagonist view this person?  Incorporate the description as part of the description.
• Only give information your protagonist knows  - they may know if someone is an adult, or a teenager, but they won't know that someone is 37 years old, for example.

Here are three examples of character descriptions that leave no doubt how the protagonist feels.

“If girls could spit venom, it'd be through their eyes.” S.D. Lawendowski,  Snapped

"And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war." Maggie Stiefvater,  The Dream Thieves

"His mouth was such a post office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling." Charles Dickens

Spend 5 minutes writing a character introduction that is animated, uses metaphors or similes and involves your protagonist.

If working with a group, then form small groups of 3 or 4 and share your description with the rest of the group.

Onomatopeai, rhyme and alliteration

Today's session is all about sound.

Several authors recommend reading your writing out loud after you've written it to be sure it sounds natural.   Philip Pullman  even goes as far as to say:

"When I’m writing, I’m more conscious of the sound, actually, than the meaning. I know what the rhythm of the sentence is going to be before I know what the words are going to be in it."

For today's exercise, choose the name of a song and write for 10 minutes as if that's the title for a short story. Focus on how your writing sounds and aim to include at least one onomatopoeia, rhyme or alliteration.  At the end of the 10 minutes, read it out loud to yourself, or to the group.

Alliterations

An alliteration example from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Onomatopoeias

Buzz, woof, quack, baa, crash, purr, beep, belch,...

The alphabet story - creating a story as a group

This is a novel way to write a story as a group, one word at a time.  The first person starts the story that begins with any word starting with “A”, the next person continues the story with a word starting with “B”, and so on.

Keep going round until you have completed the alphabet.  Ideally it will all be one sentence, but if you get stuck, start a new sentence.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t make complete sense!

It can be tricky to remember the alphabet when under pressure, so you may wish to print it out a couple of times, so the storytellers can see it if they need to, this is particularly helpful if you have dyslexics in the group.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Here’s an example of an alphabet story:

A Band Can Dance Each Friday, Ghostly Hauntings In Jail Kill Lucky Men, Nobody Or Perhaps Quiet Rats, Still That Unifies Villains Who X-Ray Your Zebras.

As I mentioned, it doesn’t need to make sense!

A question or two

Small or large groups

The standard format in our group is a short writing exercise followed by an hour and a half of silent writing on our projects.

At one point I felt like we'd done a lot of small group exercises, and wanted to gain an insight into what everyone was working on, so we did the following exercise instead:

Go round the table and ask everyone to briefly talk about their writing.  Each person then asks one or two yes/no questions.

Everyone responds either by raising their hand for 'yes' or shaking their heads for 'no'. You can also leap up and down to indicate a very strong 'yes'.

Questions can be about anything, and you can use them either to help guide your writing or to help find other people in the group who have similar interests.

Here are some random examples you might ask:

• I want to write a romance novel and am considering setting it in Paris, a traditional romantic setting, or Liverpool which is a less obvious setting. Who thinks Liverpool would be best?
• I need to know more about the life of a farmer. Has anyone got farming experience who I can interview in exchange for a drink?
• My character gets fired and that night goes back to his office and steals 35 computers. Does that sound realistic as the premise of a story?

This works best when you give participants some advance notice, so they have time to think of a question.

Murder Mystery Game

Groups of 3 or 4

This exercise takes 20-30 minutes and allows participants to create a murder mystery outline together.

Phase 1 (3 minutes)

• Split into groups of 3 or 4
• Decide as a group where the murder occurs (e.g. the opera house, a bar, a casino)
• Decide one person who will write the details of the victim and the murder itself.  Everyone else writes the details of one suspect each.
• The ‘victim author’ then invents a few extra details about the scene of the crime, who the victim was (a teenage punk, an adult opera singer, etc.) and the murder weapon and summarises this to the others.

Phase 2 (10 minutes)

Each person then writes a police report as if they are either describing the scene of the crime, or recording the notes from their interview with a single suspect:

Write the following:

• 1 line description of the victim.
• When they were last seen by a group of witnesses (and what they were doing).
• How the murder occurred in more detail based on the evidence available.

Write the following (from the perspective of the investigator):

• 1 line description of the suspect
• What they said during the interview (including what they claim to have doing when the murder occurs).
• A possible motivation (as determined by the police from other witnesses).

Phase 3 (5 minutes)

• Each person reads out their police reports to the other members of their small group
• As a group, decide who the murderer was and what actually happened

See more ideas on  creating murder mystery party games

The obscure movie exercise

Pick a famous movie and spend 5 minutes writing a scene from it from an unusual perspective.  Your aim is to achieve a balance between being too obscure and making it too obvious.  Feel free to add internal dialogue.

At the end of the 5 minutes, everyone reads their movie scene to the others and all the other participants see if they can guess what the movie is.

How to hint at romantic feelings

Write a scene with two people in a group, where you hint that one is romantically interested in the other, but the feelings aren’t reciprocated.

The goal of this exercise is to practice subtlety. Imagine you are setting a scene for the future where the characters feelings will become more important. Choose a situation like a work conference, meeting with a group of friends, etc. How do you indicate how the characters feel without them saying it in words?

Some tips for hinting at romantic feelings:

• Make the characters nervous and shy.
• Your protagonist leans forward.
• Asks deeper questions and listens intently.
• Finds ways to be close together.
• Mirrors their gestures.
• Gives lots of compliments.
• Makes eye contact, then looks away.
• Other people seem invisible to your protagonist.

A novel idea

Take it in turns to tell everyone else about a current project you’re working on (a book, screenplay, short story, etc.)

The other writers then brainstorm ideas for related stories you could write, or directions your project could take.  There are no right or wrong suggestions and the intention is to focus on big concepts, not little details.

This whole exercise takes around 15 minutes.

Creative writing prompts

Exercise for groups of 3-5

If you're in larger group, split up into groups of 3 or 4 people.

Everyone writes the first line of a story in the Zoom chat, or on paper. Other people can then choose this line as a writing prompt.

For this exercise:

• Say who the protagonist is.
• Reveal their motivation.
• Introduce any other characters

Once everyone's written a prompt, each author chooses a prompt (preferably someone eles's, but it can be your own if you feel really inspired by it.)  Then write for 10 minutes using this prompt. See if you can reveal who the protagonist is, what their motivation is (it can be a small motivation for a particular scene, it doesn't have to be a huge life goal), and introduce at least one new character.

Take turns reading out your stories to each other.

• Write in the first person.
• Have the protagonist interacting with an object or something in nature.
• The challenge is to create intrigue that makes the reader want to know more with just a single line.

Creative story cards / dice

Cut up a piece of paper and write one word on each of the pieces of paper, as follows:

Give each participant a couple of pieces of paper at random.  The first person says the first sentence of a story and they must use their first word as part of that sentence.  The second person then continues the story and must include their word in it, and so on.  Go round the group twice to complete the story.

You can also do this creative writing exercise with story dice, your own choice of words, or by asking participants to write random words down themselves, then shuffling all the cards together.

Alternative Christmas Story

Every Christmas adults tell kids stories about Santa Claus. In this exercise you write a Christmas story from an alternative dimension.

What if every Christmas Santa didn't fly around the world delivering presents on his sleigh pulled by reindeer? What if gnomes or aliens delivered the presents? Or perhaps it was the gnomes who are trying to emulate the humans? Or some other Christmas tradition entirely that we humans have never heard of!

Group writing exercise

If you're working with a group, give everyone a couple of minutes to write two possible themes for the new Christmas story. Each theme should be 5 words or less.

Shuffle the paper and distribute them at random. If you're working online, everyone types the themes into the Zoom or group chat. Each writer then spends 10 minutes writing a short story for children based on one of the two themes, or their own theme if they really want to.

If working alone, choose your own theme and spend 15 minutes writing a short story on it. See if you can create the magic of Christmas from another world!

Murder Mystery Mind Map

In a murder mystery story or courtroom drama, there's often conflicting information and lots of links between characters. A mind map is an ideal way to illustrate how everything ties together.

Split into groups of 3 or 4 people each and place a blank piece of A3 paper (double the size of A4) in the middle of each group. Discuss between you who the victim is and write their name in the middle of the piece of paper. Then brainstorm information about the murder, for example:

Feel free to expand out from any of these, e.g. to include more information on the different characters involved.

The idea is that  everyone writes at the same time!   Obviously, you can discuss ideas, but anyone can dive in and write their ideas on the mind map.

• Who was the victim? (job, appearance, hobbies, etc.)
• Who did the victim know?
• What were their possible motivations?
• What was the murder weapon?
• What locations are significant to the plot?

New Year’s resolutions for a fictional character

If you’re writing a piece of fiction, ask yourself how your protagonist would react to an everyday situation. This can help you to gain a deeper insight into who they are.

One way to do this is to imagine what their New Year’s resolutions would be.

If completing this exercise with a group, limit it to 3 to 5 resolutions per person. If some participants are historical fiction or non-fiction writers, they instead pick a celebrity and either write what their resolutions  will  be, or what their resolutions  should  be, their choice.

Verb Noun Fiction Exercise (Inspired by Stephen King)

Stephen King said, "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops."

He also said, "Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight that’s nice."

In this fiction writing exercise, start by brainstorming (either individually or collectively) seven verbs on seven different pieces of paper. Put those aside for later. Now brainstorm seven nouns. Randomly match the nouns and verbs so you have seven pairs. Choose a pair and write a piece of fiction for ten minutes. Avoid using any adverbs.

It’s the end of the world

It’s the end of the world!  For 5 minutes either:

If working as a team, then after the 5 minutes is up each writer reads their description out to the other participants.

• Describe how the world’s going to end, creating evocative images using similes or metaphors as you wish and tell the story from a global perspective, or
• Describe how you spend your final day before the world is destroyed.  Combine emotion and action to engage the reader.

7 Editing Exercises

For use after your first draft

I’ve listened to a lot of masterclasses on writing by successful authors and they all say variants of your first draft won’t be good and that’s fine. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman summarise it the best:

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”  

Terry Pratchett

“For me, it’s always been a process of trying to convince myself that what I’m doing in a first draft isn’t important. One way you get through the wall is by convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. No one is ever going to see your first draft. Nobody cares about your first draft. And that’s the thing that you may be agonising over, but honestly, whatever you’re doing can be fixed… For now, just get the words out. Get the story down however you can get it down, then fix it.”

Neil Gaiman

Once you’ve written your first draft, it will need editing to develop the plot, enhance the characters, and improve each scene in a myriad of ways – small and large. These seven creative editing exercises are designed to help with this stage of the process.

The First Sentence

Read the first paragraph of the novel, in particular the first sentence. Does it launch the reader straight into the action? According to  On Writing and Worldbuilding  by Timothy Hickson,  “The most persuasive opening lines are succinct, and not superfluous. To do this, it is often effective to limit it to a single central idea… This does not need to be the most important element, but it should be a central element that is interesting.” Ask yourself what element your opening sentence encapsulates and whether it’s the best one to capture your readers’ attention.

Consistency

Consistency is crucial in creative writing, whether it’s in relation to location, objects, or people.

It’s also crucial for personality, emotions and motivation.

Look at scenes where your protagonist makes an important decision. Are their motivations clear? Do any scenes force them to choose between two conflicting morals? If so, do you explore this? Do their emotions fit with what’s happened in previous scenes?

As you edit your manuscript, keep the characters’ personality, emotions and motivation in mind. If their behaviour is inconsistent, either edit it for consistency, or have someone comment on their strange behaviour or be surprised by it. Inconsistent behaviour can reveal that a character is keeping a secret, or is under stress, so characters don’t always need to be consistent. But when they’re not, there has to be a reason.  

Show Don’t Tell One

This exercise is the first in  The Emotional Craft of Fiction  by Donald Maass. It’s a writing guide with a plethora of editing exercises designed to help you reenergize your writing by thinking of what your character is feeling, and giving you the tools to make your reader feel something.  

• Select a moment in your story when your protagonist is moved, unsettled, or disturbed… Write down all the emotions inherent in this moment, both obvious and hidden.
• Next, considering what he is feeling, write down how your protagonist can act out. What is the biggest thing your protagonist can do? What would be explosive, out of bounds, or offensive? What would be symbolic? … Go sideways, underneath, or ahead. How can your protagonist show us a feeling we don’t expect to see?
• Finally, go back and delete all the emotions you wrote down at the beginning of this exercise. Let actions and spoken words do the work. Do they feel too big, dangerous, or over-the-top? Use them anyway. Others will tell you if you’ve gone too far, but more likely, you haven’t gone far enough.

Show Don’t Tell Two

Search for the following words in your book:

Whenever these words occur, ask yourself if you can demonstrate how your characters feel, rather than simply stating it. For each occasion, can you use physiological descriptors (a racing heart), actions (taking a step backwards) or dialogue to express what’s just happened instead? Will this enhance the scene and engage the reader more?

After The Action

Find a scene where your characters disagree – in particular a scene where your protagonist argues with friends or allies. What happens next?

It can be tempting to wrap up the action with a quick resolution. But what if a resentment lingers and mistrust builds? This creates a more interesting story arc and means a resolution can occur later, giving the character development a real dynamic.

Review how you resolve the action and see if you can stretch out the emotions for a more satisfying read.

Eliminating the Fluff

Ensure that the words used don’t detract from the enormity of the events your character is going through. Can you delete words like, “Quite”, “Little”, or “Rather”? 

Of “Very” Florence King once wrote: “ 'Very' is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen .” Delete it, or replace the word after it with a stronger word, which makes “Very” redundant.

“That,” is another common word used in creative writing which can often be deleted. Read a sentence as is, then reread it as if you deleted, “That”. If the meaning is the same, delete it.

Chapter Endings

When talking about chapter endings, James Patterson said,  “At the end, something has to propel you into the next chapter.”

Read how each of your chapters finish and ask yourself does it either:

• End on a cliff hanger? (R.L. Stine likes to finish every chapter in this method).
• End on a natural pause (for example, you’re changing point of view or location).

Review how you wrap up each of your chapters. Do you end at the best point in your story? Can you add anticipation to cliff hangers? Will you leave your readers wanting more?

How to run the writing exercises

The editing exercises are designed to be completed individually.

With the others, I've always run them as part of a creative writing group, where there's no teacher and we're all equal participants, therefore I keep any 'teaching' aspect to a minimum, preferring them to be prompts to generate ideas before everyone settles down to do the silent writing. We've recently gone online and if you run a group yourself, whether online or in person, you're welcome to use these exercises for free!

The times given are suggestions only and I normally get a feel for how everyone's doing when time's up and if it's obvious that everyone's still in the middle of a discussion, then I give them longer.  Where one group's in the middle of a discussion, but everyone else has finished, I sometimes have a 'soft start' to the silent writing, and say, "We're about to start the hour and a half of silent writing now, but if you're in the middle of a discussion, feel free to finish it first".

This way everyone gets to complete the discussion, but no-one's waiting for ages.  It's also important to emphasise that there's no wrong answers when being creative.

Still looking for more? Check out these creative writing prompts  or our dedicated Sci-Fi and Fantasy creative writing prompts

If you've enjoyed these creative writing exercises, please share them on social media, or link to them from your blog.

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• Writing Activities

105 Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Writing Again

You know that feeling when you just don’t feel like writing? Sometimes you can’t even get a word down on paper. It’s the most frustrating thing ever to a writer, especially when you’re working towards a deadline. The good news is that we have a list of 105 creative writing exercises to help you get motivated and start writing again!

What are creative writing exercises?

Creative writing exercises are short writing activities (normally around 10 minutes) designed to get you writing. The goal of these exercises is to give you the motivation to put words onto a blank paper. These words don’t need to be logical or meaningful, neither do they need to be grammatically correct or spelt correctly. The whole idea is to just get you writing something, anything. The end result of these quick creative writing exercises is normally a series of notes, bullet points or ramblings that you can, later on, use as inspiration for a bigger piece of writing such as a story or a poem. 

Good creative writing exercises are short, quick and easy to complete. You shouldn’t need to think too much about your style of writing or how imaginative your notes are. Just write anything that comes to mind, and you’ll be on the road to improving your creative writing skills and beating writer’s block . 

Use the generator below to get a random creative writing exercise idea:

List of 105+ Creative Writing Exercises

Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again:

• Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment.
• Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour. For example, Orange, the colour of my favourite top. 
• Open a book or dictionary on a random page. Pick a random word. You can close your eyes and slowly move your finger across the page. Now, write a paragraph with this random word in it. You can even use an online dictionary to get random words:

• Create your own alphabet picture book or list. It can be A to Z of animals, food, monsters or anything else you like!
• Using only the sense of smell, describe where you are right now.
• Take a snack break. While eating your snack write down the exact taste of that food. The goal of this creative writing exercise is to make your readers savour this food as well.
• Pick a random object in your room and write a short paragraph from its point of view. For example, how does your pencil feel? What if your lamp had feelings?
• Describe your dream house. Where would you live one day? Is it huge or tiny? 
• Pick two different TV shows, movies or books that you like. Now swap the main character. What if Supergirl was in Twilight? What if SpongeBob SquarePants was in The Flash? Write a short scene using this character swap as inspiration.
• What’s your favourite video game? Write at least 10 tips for playing this game.
• Pick your favourite hobby or sport. Now pretend an alien has just landed on Earth and you need to teach it this hobby or sport. Write at least ten tips on how you would teach this alien.
• Use a random image generator and write a paragraph about the first picture you see.

• Write a letter to your favourite celebrity or character. What inspires you most about them? Can you think of a memorable moment where this person’s life affected yours? We have this helpful guide on writing a letter to your best friend for extra inspiration.
• Write down at least 10 benefits of writing. This can help motivate you and beat writer’s block.
• Complete this sentence in 10 different ways: Patrick waited for the school bus and…
• Pick up a random book from your bookshelf and go to page 9. Find the ninth sentence on that page. Use this sentence as a story starter.
• Create a character profile based on all the traits that you hate. It might help to list down all the traits first and then work on describing the character.
• What is the scariest or most dangerous situation you have ever been in? Why was this situation scary? How did you cope at that moment?
• Pretend that you’re a chat show host and you’re interviewing your favourite celebrity. Write down the script for this conversation.
• Using extreme detail, write down what you have been doing for the past one hour today. Think about your thoughts, feelings and actions during this time.
• Make a list of potential character names for your next story. You can use a fantasy name generator to help you.
• Describe a futuristic setting. What do you think the world would look like in 100 years time?
• Think about a recent argument you had with someone. Would you change anything about it? How would you resolve an argument in the future?
• Describe a fantasy world. What kind of creatures live in this world? What is the climate like? What everyday challenges would a typical citizen of this world face? You can use this fantasy world name generator for inspiration.
• At the flip of a switch, you turn into a dragon. What kind of dragon would you be? Describe your appearance, special abilities, likes and dislikes. You can use a dragon name generator to give yourself a cool dragon name.
• Pick your favourite book or a famous story. Now change the point of view. For example, you could rewrite the fairytale , Cinderella. This time around, Prince Charming could be the main character. What do you think Prince Charming was doing, while Cinderella was cleaning the floors and getting ready for the ball?
• Pick a random writing prompt and use it to write a short story. Check out this collection of over 300 writing prompts for kids to inspire you. 
• Write a shopping list for a famous character in history. Imagine if you were Albert Einstein’s assistant, what kind of things would he shop for on a weekly basis?
• Create a fake advertisement poster for a random object that is near you right now. Your goal is to convince the reader to buy this object from you.
• What is the worst (or most annoying) sound that you can imagine? Describe this sound in great detail, so your reader can understand the pain you feel when hearing this sound.
• What is your favourite song at the moment? Pick one line from this song and describe a moment in your life that relates to this line.
•  You’re hosting an imaginary dinner party at your house. Create a list of people you would invite, and some party invites. Think about the theme of the dinner party, the food you will serve and entertainment for the evening. 
• You are waiting to see your dentist in the waiting room. Write down every thought you are having at this moment in time. 
• Make a list of your greatest fears. Try to think of at least three fears. Now write a short story about a character who is forced to confront one of these fears. 
• Create a ‘Wanted’ poster for a famous villain of your choice. Think about the crimes they have committed, and the reward you will give for having them caught. 
• Imagine you are a journalist for the ‘Imagine Forest Times’ newspaper. Your task is to get an exclusive interview with the most famous villain of all time. Pick a villain of your choice and interview them for your newspaper article. What questions would you ask them, and what would their responses be?
•  In a school playground, you see the school bully hurting a new kid. Write three short stories, one from each perspective in this scenario (The bully, the witness and the kid getting bullied).
• You just won $10 million dollars. What would you spend this money on?
• Pick a random animal, and research at least five interesting facts about this animal. Write a short story centred around one of these interesting facts. 
• Pick a global issue that you are passionate about. This could be climate change, black lives matters, women’s rights etc. Now create a campaign poster for this global issue. 
• Write an acrostic poem about an object near you right now (or even your own name). You could use a poetry idea generator to inspire you.
• Imagine you are the head chef of a 5-star restaurant. Recently the business has slowed down. Your task is to come up with a brand-new menu to excite customers. Watch this video prompt on YouTube to inspire you.
• What is your favourite food of all time? Imagine if this piece of food was alive, what would it say to you?
• If life was one big musical, what would you be singing about right now? Write the lyrics of your song. 
• Create and describe the most ultimate villain of all time. What would their traits be? What would their past look like? Will they have any positive traits?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: Every time I look out of the window, I…
• You have just made it into the local newspaper, but what for? Write down at least five potential newspaper headlines . Here’s an example, Local Boy Survives a Deadly Illness.
• If you were a witch or a wizard, what would your specialist area be and why? You might want to use a Harry Potter name generator or a witch name generator for inspiration.
• What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday night? Write a short story centred around this activity. 
• Your main character has just received the following items: A highlighter, a red cap, a teddy bear and a fork. What would your character do with these items? Can you write a story using these items? 
• Create a timeline of your own life, from birth to this current moment. Think about the key events in your life, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings and so on. After you have done this, you can pick one key event from your life to write a story about. 
• Think of a famous book or movie you like. Rewrite a scene from this book or movie, where the main character is an outsider. They watch the key events play out, but have no role in the story. What would their actions be? How would they react?
• Three very different characters have just won the lottery. Write a script for each character, as they reveal the big news to their best friend.  
• Write a day in the life story of three different characters. How does each character start their day? What do they do throughout the day? And how does their day end?
•  Write about the worst experience in your life so far. Think about a time when you were most upset or angry and describe it. 
• Imagine you’ve found a time machine in your house. What year would you travel to and why?
• Describe your own superhero. Think about their appearance, special abilities and their superhero name. Will they have a secret identity? Who is their number one enemy?
• What is your favourite country in the world? Research five fun facts about this country and use one to write a short story. 
• Set yourself at least three writing goals. This could be a good way to motivate yourself to write every day. For example, one goal might be to write at least 150 words a day. 
• Create a character description based on the one fact, three fiction rule. Think about one fact or truth about yourself. And then add in three fictional or fantasy elements. For example, your character could be the same age as you in real life, this is your one fact. And the three fictional elements could be they have the ability to fly, talk in over 100 different languages and have green skin. 
• Describe the perfect person. What traits would they have? Think about their appearance, their interests and their dislikes. 
• Keep a daily journal or diary. This is a great way to keep writing every day. There are lots of things you can write about in your journal, such as you can write about the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of your day. Think about anything that inspired you or anything that upset you, or just write anything that comes to mind at the moment. 
• Write a book review or a movie review. If you’re lost for inspiration, just watch a random movie or read any book that you can find. Then write a critical review on it. Think about the best parts of the book/movie and the worst parts. How would you improve the book or movie?
• Write down a conversation between yourself. You can imagine talking to your younger self or future self (i.e. in 10 years’ time). What would you tell them? Are there any lessons you learned or warnings you need to give? Maybe you could talk about what your life is like now and compare it to their life?
• Try writing some quick flash fiction stories . Flash fiction is normally around 500 words long, so try to stay within this limit.
• Write a six-word story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. A six-word story is basically an entire story told in just six words. Take for example: “Another football game ruined by me.” or “A dog’s painting sold for millions.” – Six-word stories are similar to writing newspaper headlines. The goal is to summarise your story in just six words. 
• The most common monsters or creatures used in stories include vampires, werewolves , dragons, the bigfoot, sirens and the loch-ness monster. In a battle of intelligence, who do you think will win and why?
• Think about an important event in your life that has happened so far, such as a birthday or the birth of a new sibling. Now using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique describe this event in great detail. The 5 W’s include: What, Who, Where, Why, When and the 1 H is: How. Ask yourself questions about the event, such as what exactly happened on that day? Who was there? Why was this event important? When and where did it happen? And finally, how did it make you feel?
• Pretend to be someone else. Think about someone important in your life. Now put yourself into their shoes, and write a day in the life story about being them. What do you think they do on a daily basis? What situations would they encounter? How would they feel?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: I remember…
• Write about your dream holiday. Where would you go? Who would you go with? And what kind of activities would you do?
• Which one item in your house do you use the most? Is it the television, computer, mobile phone, the sofa or the microwave? Now write a story of how this item was invented. You might want to do some research online and use these ideas to build up your story. 
• In exactly 100 words, describe your bedroom. Try not to go over or under this word limit.
• Make a top ten list of your favourite animals. Based on this list create your own animal fact file, where you provide fun facts about each animal in your list.
• What is your favourite scene from a book or a movie? Write down this scene. Now rewrite the scene in a different genre, such as horror, comedy, drama etc.
•  Change the main character of a story you recently read into a villain. For example, you could take a popular fairytale such as Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time re-write the story to make Jack the villain of the tale.
• Complete the following sentence in at least 10 different ways: Do you ever wonder…
• What does your name mean? Research the meaning of your own name, or a name that interests you. Then use this as inspiration for your next story. For example, the name ‘Marty’ means “Servant Of Mars, God Of War”. This could make a good concept for a sci-fi story.
• Make a list of three different types of heroes (or main characters) for potential future stories.
• If someone gave you $10 dollars, what would you spend it on and why?
• Describe the world’s most boring character in at least 100 words. 
• What is the biggest problem in the world today, and how can you help fix this issue?
• Create your own travel brochure for your hometown. Think about why tourists might want to visit your hometown. What is your town’s history? What kind of activities can you do? You could even research some interesting facts. 
• Make a list of all your favourite moments or memories in your life. Now pick one to write a short story about.
• Describe the scariest and ugliest monster you can imagine. You could even draw a picture of this monster with your description.
• Write seven haikus, one for each colour of the rainbow. That’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 
• Imagine you are at the supermarket. Write down at least three funny scenarios that could happen to you at the supermarket. Use one for your next short story. 
• Imagine your main character is at home staring at a photograph. Write the saddest scene possible. Your goal is to make your reader cry when reading this scene. 
• What is happiness? In at least 150 words describe the feeling of happiness. You could use examples from your own life of when you felt happy.
• Think of a recent nightmare you had and write down everything you can remember. Use this nightmare as inspiration for your next story.
• Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning you can quickly jot down things that you remember from your dreams. These notes can then be used as inspiration for a short story. 
• Your main character is having a really bad day. Describe this bad day and the series of events they experience. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character?
• You find a box on your doorstep. You open this box and see the most amazing thing ever. Describe this amazing thing to your readers.
• Make a list of at least five possible settings or locations for future stories. Remember to describe each setting in detail.
• Think of something new you recently learned. Write this down. Now write a short story where your main character also learns the same thing.
• Describe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Your goal is to amaze your readers with its beauty. 
• Make a list of things that make you happy or cheer you up. Try to think of at least five ideas. Now imagine living in a world where all these things were banned or against the law. Use this as inspiration for your next story.
• Would you rather be rich and alone or poor and very popular? Write a story based on the lives of these two characters. 
• Imagine your main character is a Librarian. Write down at least three dark secrets they might have. Remember, the best secrets are always unexpected.
• There’s a history behind everything. Describe the history of your house. How and when was your house built? Think about the land it was built on and the people that may have lived here long before you.
• Imagine that you are the king or queen of a beautiful kingdom. Describe your kingdom in great detail. What kind of rules would you have? Would you be a kind ruler or an evil ruler of the kingdom?
• Make a wish list of at least three objects you wish you owned right now. Now use these three items in your next story. At least one of them must be the main prop in the story.
• Using nothing but the sense of taste, describe a nice Sunday afternoon at your house. Remember you can’t use your other senses (i.e see, hear, smell or touch) in this description. 
• What’s the worst pain you felt in your life? Describe this pain in great detail, so your readers can also feel it.
• If you were lost on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, what three must-have things would you pack and why?
• Particpate in online writing challenges or contests. Here at Imagine Forest, we offer daily writing challenges with a new prompt added every day to inspire you. Check out our challenges section in the menu.

Do you have any more fun creative writing exercises to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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• For teachers

How to Teach Writing

Welcome, fellow writing teachers! Here, you'll find ideas for how to teach writing, including topics, worksheets and lesson plans for fiction and poetry classes. If you're teaching adults and want to incorporate a workshop component in your classroom, you can find suggestions for how to run a critique here.

Join our email group for creative writing teachers.

Topics for Teaching Fiction Writing

• Reading fiction
• Character development
• Conflict and plot structure
• Narrative point of view
• Showing versus telling
• Summary versus scene
• Descriptive detail
• Story beginnings
• Story middles
• Story endings
• Types of stories and genres
• Setting and world-building
• Revising fiction

Click here for activity ideas.

Topics for Teaching Poetry Writing

• Reading poetry
• Subject and theme
• Specificity
• Sensory details
• Figurative language
• Lines and stanzas
• Meter and scansion
• Rhyme and rhyme schemes
• Fixed forms
• Voice and tone
• Patterns and repetition
• Visual aspects of poetry
• Revising poetry

Poetry Class Activities

Haiku Students write a haiku, a short unrhymed poem with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line. Read more

Found poem Students write a poem using language borrowed from non-poetic sources. Read more

Fairy-tale poem Students write a poem inspired by a fairy tale or folk tale. 

Animal Poem Students write a poem about an animal. Click here for examples and ideas

Epistolary Poem Students write a poem in the form of a letter or email to someone real or imaginary.

Prose Poem Click here to get our Prose Poetry Kit.

Persona poem Students write a poem in the voice of someone else, such as a fictional character, historical figure, or animal.

Blank verse Students write a poem in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Read more

Sonnet Click here for instructions and prompts.

Music Poem You can play music in the classroom and ask students to write poetry inspired by the sounds they hear and the imagery it brings to mind.

Golden shovel poem Students take a line from a poem they admire and use each word from that line as the end word of a line in their new poem. Read more  

Cut-up poem Students write a poem by cutting up a piece of text and rearranging the words or phrases to form something new.

Sestina Click here for instructions, examples, and ideas.

Ekphrastic Poem Students write a poem inspired by a piece of visual art.

Five Senses Poem Students write a poem that describes its subject using details from all five senses.

Anaphora Poem Students write a poem that uses the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of each line or stanza for emphasis. Read more

Acrostic Students write a poem where the first letter of each line spells out a word or message vertically. Read more

Concrete Poem Students write a poem where the arrangement of the words on the page forms a visual image related to the poem's theme. Click here to get a worksheet with examples.

Nature walk poem Students take a walk, paying attention to sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations. Then they write a poem inspired by their observations.

Pantoum Click here to get our Pantoum Poetry Kit.

Limerick Click here for instructions, examples, and ideas.

Poetic translation Students can use AI tools and online translators to explore the meaning of a poem written in a foreign language. Then, they use their poetic skills to craft a translation that reads as a successful poem in English.

Riddle poem Students write a poem that describes something without naming it. Example here  

Erasure Poem: Students write a poem by erasing words from an existing text and leaving behind words that form a new poem. Here's an example created from the Miranda Warning.

Lesson Plans for Teaching Fiction Writing

Character development - teaching ideas.

• Character Development
• How to Show Your Character's Thoughts

Group activity:

Create a character as a class using a picture of a person as a starting point. First, have the students suggest a name for the character. Then, discuss and decide on the character's age and occupation. Continue to develop the character by answering the questions in this character profile questionnaire . To start students thinking about how character profiles can lead to story ideas, ask them the following questions: What problems does this character face? What does this character want more than anything What obstacles could get in the way of the character's desires? In what situation would this character react in an interesting way?

Invent a character with two conflicting personality traits or desires. For example, the character might be exceedingly disorganized yet a perfectionist, or a pacifist with a quick temper, or a rebel who craves parental approval. Imagine a situation where these contradictory aspects come into direct conflict. Write the story.

Worksheets:

• Character Profile Questionnaire
• 160 Characters for Your Stories

Conflict and Plot Structure - Teaching Ideas

• Story Conflict
• Plot Structure
• Story Climax

Present students with one of the following situations:

• Maria goes on vacation to Hawaii.
• David's about to get married.
• Sandra just moved into a new house.

Ask students to suggest ideas for adding conflict to the situation you've presented. What could go wrong for the character?

Choose one of the conflict ideas and ask students to discuss what actions the character might take to try to overcome the story problem. What might happen as a result of the character's actions? How might the character react to that ?

You can use this exercise as an introduction to conflict and the way it moves a story forward.

Write about a job interview, family dinner, celebration, or vacation where something goes terribly wrong. Your character attempts to fix the situation, but their initial efforts only make things worse...

• Plot Templates

Narrators and Narrative Point of View - Teaching Ideas

• Types of Narrators and How to Choose

1) Give students this ten-minute writing task: Write about a first date from the perspective of a character who perceives the date as a disaster. 2) Pair up the students and give them ten minutes to rewrite their partners' scenes from the viewpoint of the other character on the date. This character should view the date as a great success.

Rewrite a fairy tale from the point of view of a character other than the traditional hero. Ideas: "Cinderella" from the point of view of one of the stepsisters, "Little Red Riding Hood" from the point of view of the wolf.

More exercises here

Dialogue - Teaching Ideas

• How to Write Dialogue

Discussion:

Have students read and discuss Hemingway's “ Hills Like White Elephants ” as an example of dialogue where neither character is speaking sincerely. This is a story about a man trying to convince a woman to have an abortion. The man is insincere because he's trying to persuade the woman, and the woman is insincere because she's afraid of losing the man if she refuses to do what he wants. Students can discuss:

• How they know the characters are talking about an abortion, even though abortion is never mentioned specifically.
• How they can tell what each character is feeling, even though it doesn't match what the characters say.

1) The story takes place on a long bus ride between two cities. Two strangers are sharing a seat. Each one secretly hopes to get something from the other. For example, one of them wants a job, money, or a place to stay in the city where they're headed. The other one wants love or a one-night stand. Neither of them mentions directly what they want. They pretend to make casual small talk, but each one is actually trying to manipulate the conversation to achieve their secret goal. Write the conversation. 2) This story takes place at a restaurant. Three acquaintances have gone out to dinner together. Person A has just left their spouse and family. Person B supports this decision. Person C thinks this was criminally irresponsible. Write the conversation. (Suggestion: try giving each character the voice of a different person you actually know. For example, Person A might talk like one of your coworkers, and Person B might talk like your brother or sister. Choose people who are very different from each other. Then try to express each one's unique voice so clearly that you don't need to tell the reader which character said which sentence; the reader can "hear" the difference between who says what.)

Showing Versus Telling, and Summary Versus Scene - Teaching Ideas

• The Truth About "Show, Don't Tell"

Present students with "telling" statements, such as:

•  Julie's angry at Tim.
• Lorena is shy.
• The house is creepy.

Ask students to suggest ways of showing these things instead. Use this to start a discussion the difference between showing and telling, and when it might be better to do one or the other.

1) Your character and their spouse are looking at a house they're thinking of buying. Write a scene which shows (without telling) the following:

• The character doesn't really want to buy a house.
• The character's spouse desperately wants to buy a house.
• The real estate agent is trying to hide something about the house.

2) Two old friends get together for dinner after a long time apart. One of them is secretly in love with the other one. Show this, don't tell it.

Descriptive Detail - Teaching Ideas

• Descriptive details

Group activities:

For an in-person class: if possible, take students somewhere outdoors.

• First, have them take notes on visual details they observe.
• Next, have them spend a few minutes paying attention to, and taking notes on, what they hear.
• Then, have them take notes on smells.
• After that, have them take notes on temperature, textures, and tactile sensations.
• Finally, have students compare notes to discover additional details they might not have noticed.

For an online class, you can conduct a similar activity. Ask students to take notes on their surroundings, starting with visual details, then moving on to sounds, smells, and tactile sensations. Afterwards, have students describe their surroundings to the class.

1) Have students keep a journal, where they take notes on sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations they observe or experience. 2) Prompt: Your character has to leave their hotel in the middle of the night (you decide why; e.g., to catch an early flight, for a clandestine meeting, to avoid paying for the room, etc.). Right when your character is opening the door of their room, all of the lights in the building go out. Your character is determined to leave anyway, even though they can't see a thing. At some point, your character realizes they've lost their way and are in a part of the building they never intended to go. Write the scene, using descriptive details from senses other than sight; i.e., sound, touch, etc.

Story Beginnings - Teaching Ideas

• Great Story Beginnings

Give the students some story beginnings to read, and discuss:

• What expectations are set by each one?
• Which beginnings make them want to read more, and why?

Take a story you've previously written and see if you can improve the beginning.

Try beginning later in the story to see if that works better. Experiment with starting the story in different places.

Experiment with beginning with dialogue, action or something that will provoke the reader's curiosity.

Revision Techniques - Teaching Ideas

• Novel Revision Checklist

For an adult creative writing class, you could offer students the chance to workshop their pieces. It's important to manage the workshops to maintain a positive tone and prevent students from getting discouraged, especially if you are teaching beginning writers.

1) Pretend you're a reader coming to your story for the first time. Read the story from beginning to end. What are your overall impressions?

2) Go through this checklist and see if it gives you ideas for anything you might improve.

3) Experiment with revising or changing different aspects of your story to see if you can make it better. Keep a copy of your original version so that you always have the option to go back to it. That way you can revise without fear, knowing that none of your experiments need to be permanent.

4) Once you have a version you're happy with, go through it again and look for everything you can cut—unnecessary scenes, paragraphs, sentences, or words.

5) Read through your manuscript out loud to look for places where you can smooth or polish the language.

How to Run a Writing Workshop

In most workshops, students read an author's piece ahead of time to prepare for classroom discussion. It's important to keep the discussion encouraging and respectful. Here are two possible workshop formats. Workshop for an advanced class:

• The author should try not to talk during the critique except to ask clarifying questions.
• First, students discuss what they think the piece is about and what it is trying to achieve. At this stage, they are not judging the piece or offering suggestions. This discussion helps the author understand how well the group has grasped the piece.
• Second, students talk about what they think works well in the piece and what caught their interest. Starting with positive feedback makes it easier for the author to listen to criticism later without becoming defensive or discouraged.
• Third, students give constructive criticism. Ensure that criticism is respectful and delivered in a way that helps the author make specific improvements. Keep comments as specific as possible and clearly focused on the piece, rather than on the author.

Workshop for other groups: What is most helpful for beginning writers is often experimentation and practice. The first priority is to help these writers build their confidence and stay motivated. I have found "positive feedback only" workshops to be useful both for beginners and more advanced writers. In these workshops, the authors share their work, and group discussion is limited to the following question:

"What caught your attention about this piece, or what did you think was working well?"

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Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Expert Guide

Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! 

I’ve written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class.

What are some good creative writing exercises?

Some good creative writing exercises include writing prompts, free writing, character development exercises, and fun writing games.

The first week, though, we establish trust—and then we begin powerful creative writing exercises to engage young writers and our community.

How can add encouragement in creative writing lesson plans?

I’ve found students are shy about writing creatively, about sharing pieces of themselves. A large part of the first week of class is setting the atmosphere, of showing everyone they are free to create. And! These concepts will apply to most writing lesson plans for secondary students.

Feel free to give me feedback and borrow all that you need! Below, find my detailed my day-by-day progression for creative writing lesson plans  for week one.

Creative Writing Lesson Day One: Sharing my vision

Comfort matters for young writers. I’m not a huge “ice breaker” type of teacher—I build relationships slowly. Still, to get student writing, we must establish that everyone is safe to explore, to write, to error.

Here are some ideas.

Tone and attitude

For day one with any lesson plan for creative writing, I think it is important to set the tone, to immediately establish what I want from my creative writing students. And that is…

them not to write for me, but for them. I don’t want them writing what they think I want them to write.

Does that make sense? Limitations hurt young writers. My overall tone and attitude toward young writers is that we will work together, create and write together, provide feedback, and invest in ourselves. Older kiddos think that they must provide teachers with the “correct” writing. In such a course, restrictions and boundaries largely go out the window.

Plus, I specifically outline what I believe they can produce in a presentation to set people at ease.

The presentation covers expectations for the class. As the teacher, I am a sort of writing coach with ideas that will not work for everyone. Writers should explore different methods and realize what works for them. First, not everyone will appreciate every type of writing—which is fine. But as a writing community, we must accept that we may not be the target audience for every piece of work.

Therefore, respect is a large component of the class. Be sure to outline what interactions you find acceptable within your classroom community.

Next, as their writing coach, I plan to provide ideas and tools for use. Their job is to decide what tools work for their creative endeavors. My overall message is uplifting and encouraging.

Finally, when we finish, I share the presentation with students so they can consult it throughout the semester. The presentation works nicely for meet-the-teacher night, too!

After covering classroom procedures and rules, I show students a TED Talk. We watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. My goal is to show students that I don’t have a predetermined idea concerning what they should write. This discussion takes the rest of the class period.

Establishing comfort and excitement precedents my other creative writing activities. Personalize your “vision” activities for your lessons in creative writing. Honestly, doing this pre-work builds relationships with students and creates a positive classroom atmosphere.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Two: Activating prior knowledge

Students possess prior knowledge concerning creative writing, but they might not consider that. Students should realize that they know what constitutes a great story. They might not realize that yet. An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

Activation activity

During this activity, I want to see how students work together, and I want to build a rapport with students. Additionally, activating prior knowledge provides a smooth transition into other creative writing activities.

This creative writing activity is simple:

I ask students to tell me memorable stories—books, play, tv shows, movies—and I write them on the board. I add and veto as appropriate. Normally doing these classroom discussions, we dive deeper into comedies and creative nonfiction. Sometimes as we work, I ask students to research certain stories and definitions. I normally take a picture of our work so that I can build creative writing lessons from students’ interests.

This takes longer than you might think, but I like that aspect. This information can help me shape my future lessons.

With about twenty minutes left in class, I ask students to form small groups. I want them to derive what makes these stories memorable. Since students complete group and partner activities in this class, I also watch and see how they interact.

Students often draw conclusions about what makes a story memorable:

• Realistic or true-to-life characters.
• Meaningful themes.
• Funny or sad events.

All of this information will be used later as students work on their own writing. Many times, my creative writing lessons overlap, especially concerning the feedback from young writers.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Three: Brainstorming and a graphic organizer

From building creative writing activities and implementing them, I now realize that students think they will sit and write. Ta-da!  After all, this isn’t academic writing. Coaching creative writing students is part of the process.

Young writers must accept that a first draft is simply that, a first draft. Building a project requires thought and mistakes. (Any writing endeavor does, really.) Students hear ‘creative writing’ and they think… easy. Therefore, a first week lesson plan for creative writing should touch on what creativity is.

Really, creativity is everywhere. We complete a graphic organizer titled, “Where is Creativity?” Students brainstorm familiar areas that they may not realize have such pieces.

The ideas they compile stir all sorts of conversations:

• Restaurants
• Movie theaters
• Amusement parks

By completing this graphic organizer, we discuss how creativity surrounds us, how we can incorporate different pieces in our writing, and how different areas influence our processes.

Creative Writing Lesson, Days Four and Five: Creative Nonfiction

Students need practice writing, and they need to understand that they will not use every word they write. Cutting out lines is painful for them! Often, a lesson plan for creative writing involves providing time for meaningful writing.

For two days, we study and discuss creative nonfiction. Students start by reading an overview of creative nonfiction . (If you need mentor texts, that website has some as well.) When I have books available, I show the class examples of creative nonfiction.

We then continue through elements of a narrative . Classes are sometimes surprised that a narrative can be nonfiction.

The narrative writing is our first large project. As we continue, students are responsible for smaller projects as well. This keeps them writing most days.

Overall, my students and I work together during the first week of any creative writing class. I encourage them to write, and I cheer on their progress. My message to classes is that their writing has value, and an audience exists for their creations.

And that is my week one! The quick recap:

Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Monday: Rules, procedures, TED Talk, discussion.

Tuesday: Prior knowledge—brainstorm the modeling of memorable stories. Draw conclusions about storytelling with anchor charts. Build community through common knowledge.

Wednesday: Graphic organizer.

Thursday and Friday: Creative nonfiction. Start narrative writing.

Students do well with this small assignment for the second week, and then we move to longer creative writing assignments . When classesexperience success with their first assignment, you can start constructive editing and revising with them as the class continues.

These creative writing activities should be easy implement and personalize for your students.

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that  every  student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a  seven-step method  that will  scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process  from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

• personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
• imaginative scenarios
• prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
• lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
• fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

• What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
• What might make us question those beliefs?
• What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
• How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

• allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
• help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
• warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting  is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note:  at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

• a work in progress.

Remind them that  if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

• demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
• taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
• providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

• use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

• Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
• Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
• Which parts am I most uncertain about?
• Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
• Are there places where I could have used a better word?
• Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to  read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note:  if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun  marking  your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on  how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for  supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

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Creative Writing Activity Ideas For The Teen & Adult Classroom

It’s World Creative Writing month, so why not try some creative writing activities with your students? Creative writing allows students to use their imaginations and creativity, and practise essential writing skills. It’s a way to keep students engaged, encourage collaborative learning and allow test-taking students to use their written English skills in a different way from a typical test task type.

Here are four creative writing exercises to use in class with your teen and adult students.

Creative writing activity ideas 

1. group stories.

This creative writing activity encourages learners to work together and use their imaginations to come up with unique and creative stories. 

• Put students into small groups of 4 or 5 and have them arrange themselves into a circle. They each need a pen and a piece of paper. 
• Have students write a famous person at the top of their page, then fold it over so the name can’t be seen. They then pass the piece of paper to the person to their right. 
• Next, they write the name of someone in the class. They fold the paper and pass to the right. 
• Repeat the steps, using different topics for each stage of the game. For example, a place, an action, what they said, what they responded, and what they did after that. 
• Once students have passed the piece of paper for the final time, they open it up to reveal the outline of a story. 
• Have students come up with creative stories for the information on their piece of paper, by working together or individually for homework. They then share their stories with the class. 

2. Tweet me 

This engaging activity shows that creative writing for English language learners doesn’t have to be long! Creative written language can be short, yet a lot can be expressed. 

• Show students an image of a tweet you’ve found online before the class. It should be something that provokes discussion, asks for an opinion or allows for the conversation to be developed. 
• Put students into small groups of 3 or 4. Tell them they are going to write a creative response to the tweet. They can be as funny or as unique as they like. 
• Once they have finished, they pass their tweet on to the next group, who continue the Twitter discussion. 
• Repeat the steps, until you have a ‘thread’ of tweets. Then, choose groups to read out the threads and choose the best or funniest one. 

This activity also works well in online classes, where students work in breakout rooms to come up with their tweets and share them as a whole class. 

3. Finish my story 

This creative writing lesson idea encourages students to share ideas and learn from each other. It works well in both face-to-face and online classrooms. 

• Write a short introduction to a story before the lesson. It can be in any genre, e.g. scary, mysterious or funny.  
• Read the paragraph aloud to the class, and elicit ideas about where they think the story might be going. You can skip this step if you feel your students are already good at using their creativity and imagination. 
• Put students into pairs and give them a copy of the opening paragraph. Have them write the middle and the ending of the story. 
• You could help them develop the story by telling them certain things they need to include, e.g. specific objects, people or places. 
• Have a storytelling lesson where students share their stories. You could also stick them on the wall and have a ‘story exhibition’ where students walk around and choose their favourite stories. 

4. A letter for the future 

This creative writing activity allows students to put different grammatical structures into practice. It also allows the opportunity for reflection on their learning and themselves. 

There are a variety of ways you could do this activity with your students. 

• Have them work individually to write a letter to their future selves about what they’d like to achieve or do professionally and personally. 
• Students could write letters to their future selves about something that happened in the past or present time that they don’t want to forget. 
• Have students work individually or in pairs to write a letter to people in the future, about what life is like in the present. Encourage them to talk about fashion, pop culture, and what’s happening in their lives and in the world. 
• If you’re going to teach your students for an extended period of time, e.g. a year, you could do a ‘time capsule’ where they put pictures or notes about the present into a box, which you’ll open with them a year later. This provides a good opportunity for students to set goals and reflect on their achievements next year. 

Do you do creative writing activities with your English language learners?

What activities have worked well?

Share your ideas below! 

If you want to read more about creative writing activities in the classroom, you can read this blog. 

You may also like

Helping advanced students overcome the language learning plateau, listening activity ideas for adult learners, 6 alternative halloween activities for the classroom.

Thanks a million! I’ll definitely try ‘finish my story” IMO they’re all engaging, motivating and encouraging)

I have a question please. Which strategy is preferable to focus on, free or guided writing to help our students achieve improve their writing skill?

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Creative Writing

15 Classified Ads We Hope Had Happy Endings Writing prompt: choose one of these historical ads and construct a narrative that supports it. Include characters, location, and other necessary details. (Teachers may wish to check the ads for appropriateness.)

20 Mystical Bridges That Will Take You To Another World Creative writing prompt: "I walked across the bridge and ..." The photographs of real bridges on this page are astonishingly beautiful. However, the page also carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

27 Magical Paths Begging To Be Walked Photographs of beautiful paths all over the world, showing a variety of seasons and geography, just waiting to inspire a poem or serve as the setting for a short story. Note: this page carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

The 100-Word Challenge In this activity students respond to a prompt using not more than 100 words. Writing is posted on a class blog, where responses are invited. The activity encourages regular writing for an authentic audience. It's designed for students 16 and under.

Adding Emotions to your Story A good lesson on adding detail, "exploding" an incident, and "show, don't tell." It includes handouts and is designed for grades 3-5.

After the First Draft: 30 Fast, Easy Writing Tips for the Second Draft This 37-page document is designed for writers of novels, but many of the tips apply equally to writers of short stories. Clear, simple, and easy to read, appropriate for 5th or 6th grade (in places) and up. Adobe Reader required for access.

All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing Students write a line of poetry in response to something the teacher reads. Their lines, together, form a poem. This unit is designed for grades K-2.

Bernadette Mayer's List of Journal Ideas A list of journal topics that will work on multiple grade levels. Scroll down for a list of "Writing Experiments" that will work well in a creative writing unit.

The Book of Butterflies by Michael Leunig (Scroll down on the page.) This short (1:06) video explores the question "What happens when a book comes to life?" It will work well on almost any grade level.

By the Old Mill Stream A creative writing prompt, differentiated for elementary and middle and high school students. Students begin writing a narrative. In the second part of the prompt, they write a description.

Calling on the Muse: Exercises to Unlock the Poet Within From Education World.

Can You Haiku? from EdSitement Complete lesson plans for writing haiku, links to additional material.

Character Name Generator Choose ethnicity, decade of birth, and gender, and this site will generate an appropriate name and a possible character description.

Characterization in Literature and Theater Students explore various methods authors use to create effective characters. Students will consider what makes a character believable and create their own characterizations. They will also write a short script using the characters they created and act out the script.

The Clues to a Great Story One-page handout with 5 essential elements for good storytelling. Uses "The Ugly Duckling" and more contemporary stories for examples.

The Color of Love In this lesson students will be invited to reflect on a variety of colors and the pleasurable things that those colors invoke. They then will write a poem about someone they love following Barbara Joosse's style in I Love You the Purplest .

Creating Characters Students examine character as a significant element of fiction. They learn several methods of characterization, identify and critique these methods in well-known works of fiction, and use the methods in works of their own. Students also identify, examine, evaluate, and use the elements dialogue and point of view as methods of characterization.

Creative State of Mind: Focusing on the Writing Process In this lesson, students examine the lyrics of rap artist Jay-Z for literary elements including rhyme, metaphor, puns and allusions, then consider what he says about his own writing process. Finally, they analyze additional lyrics and apply lessons from Jay-Z's process to their own reading and writing.

The Cutting Edge: Exploring How Editing Affects an Author's Work Students examine the writing of short-story author Raymond Carver as well as their own writing to explore how editing can affect the text, content and context of an author's work.

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Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Story Creation Magic Grades Elementary This page contains a lesson plan that helps teachers teach the basic concepts of story creation in an entertaining way using character, setting, and plot.

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Walking by the Way

the road to inspired learning

Engaging Creative Writing Lessons for Your Students

I often hear students protest, “But I’m not creative.” And moms look at me with a shoulder shrug and a mirror claim, “I’m not creative either.”

I don’t buy in.

We have been gifted with a creativity muscle. It’s just that it doesn’t work properly if it hasn’t been exercised.

As I design creative writing lessons , my goal is to provide you with engaging, hands-on activities–creative writing exercises to keep your students smiling, laughing, and moving that yellow pencil (or purple marker!) across the page.

The Importance of Creative Writing

Why should you care about creative writing? Because creative writers are creative thinkers.

Creative thinkers are resourceful problem-solvers. They aren’t afraid to try new things as their curiosity leads them to experiment. Creative thinkers gain emotional intelligence as they explore their own thoughts and feelings, the thoughts and feelings of others, and the big, big world around them.

Creative writing doesn’t have to be hard, scary, or dreadful. I promise. I’m here to help you deliver interesting, enjoyable lessons to your students.

Browse the lessons below to find the just-right creative writing activity for your students.

Creative Writing Lessons and Activities for Early Elementary

Character Sketch: My Pet Dragon Even young students can write a character sketch with this guided writing activity. Students fill out the pet dragon form and then write a short sketch using the information on the form.

Christmas Story Writing Prompts Flip, flap, and mix until you find a setting, characters, and conflict you want to use for your short story.

Circus Writing Prompt Cards This set of writing prompt cards is great for kids who need help generating ideas. The prompts are questions. As the students answer the questions, they will have ample ideas for writing a circus themed story.

Creative Writing Activities for Kids This group of activities from other bloggers will provide you with lots of new ideas for your students.

Creative Writing Dice Game You can partner with your student for this fun dice game; it is the perfect remedy for students who balk at pushing their pencils.

Design a Circus Poster Creative Writing Activity Another great activity for reluctant writers; the circus poster only includes a tiny bit of writing, but a great bit of creating thinking.

Dialogue Lesson Plan for Young Writers Introduce the importance of dialogue with This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. This lesson also includes a hands-on dice writing game that helps students write their own dialogue examples.

Dinosaur Creative Writing Prompts This set of writing prompts will help your student write a paragraph or journal entry about dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Writing Prompt Cards This set of writing prompt cards will motivate your student to write a dinosaur themed short story. The cards are structured in a way to help your student generate gobs of ideas for a short story.

Fairy Tale Writing Prompts Inspire your student to write with fairy tale settings, objects, and characters.

Halloween Story Writing Prompts Write spooky stories with this set of flip, mix, and match strips. Students are given various options for settings, characters, and conflicts.

Hot Air Balloon Writing Prompt Cards If your student complains about not knowing what to write about, try this set of adventure themed writing prompt cards. You can easily guide your student through the writing process with these prompts.

Imaginary Animals Writing Activity Even young students in kindergarten and first grade can enjoy a creative writing lesson. Your students will love creating crazy animals with playdough and using the writing form to compose simple paragraphs.

Listmaking Writing Prompts Students may not be ready to write sentences or paragraphs, but you can entice them to make lists with these engaging prompts.

Mad Science: Adjectives Writing Lab First, students will imagine wonderful and strange things hissing and fizzing in a mad scientist’s lab. Next, students will name and write a description for each item. Finally, students will use their descriptions to write paragraphs about the mad scientist’s lab.

Monster Creative Writing Prompt Cards Boost your student’s imagination with these monster creative writing prompts. You can use these for paragraph writing or journal entries; some of the prompts might even lead to short stories.

Mystery Writing Prompts Do you have a super sleuth? Let your detective try writing some mystery stories using these prompts.

Nurture Creative Thinking with Wordless Books The precursor to creative writing is creative thinking. This activity, designed to build your student’s creative thinking skills, is based on Aaron Becker’s wordless books, Journey and Quest .

Pet Picture Writing Prompts I love using pictures for prompts! Grab this set of free pet pictures and use some of the ideas in the post to get your students writing about pets.

Pirate Writing Prompts It’s a pirate’s life with these fun prompts. Print and cut out the cards. Laminate and put them on a ring and let your student pick one and write.

Teach Parts of a Story with a Picture Book Use Help! We Need a Title!  by Herve Tullet to teach your student about author, title, characters, setting, conflict, and resolution.

Super Hero Writing Prompts Save the day with these fun prompts for your students.

Thanksgiving Dice Writing Activity Your students will laugh out loud as they create silly sentences about Thanksgiving.

Use a Picture Book Teach the Story Element of Conflict The Pencil  by Allan Ahlberg is a fantastic base for teaching how to add conflict and resolution to a short story. Use the lesson and game to teach it to your students.

Writing Activity for Sam and Dave Dig a Hole: Make a List Use the book Sam and Dave Dig a Hole to inspire your student to create a fun (and funny!) list.

Write Backstories for Fairy Tale Characters Have you ever wondered what Rapunzel was doing before she got trapped in that tower? Or what about Goldilocks? What was she doing before she invaded the Three Bears’ house? Explore all kinds of writing possibilities with this fun creative writing lesson.

You can also find an assortment of creative writing lessons and activities for elementary students in the Tip-Top Printables Shop .

Creative Writing Lessons and Activities for Upper Elementary

Pictures to Inspire Creative Writing If you are looking for an easy way to boost interest in creative writing, try this simple activity.

Pourquoi Tales Writing Lesson Why does the leopard have spots? How did the bear lose its tail? Let your students build their creative thinking skills while composing pourquoi tales with this lesson plan.

Creative Writing Lessons for a Homeschool Co-op

I taught this series of posts for a local homeschool co-op, but you can use them however you want.

Creative Writing Lesson One: Cliché and Metaphor Students learn the importance of words with this lesson–including how to avoid clichés and what makes a great metaphor.

Creative Writing Lesson Two: Sensory Details Students consider how a reader experiences the world through writing and how sensory details are a key part of that experience.

Creative Writing Lesson Three: Showing vs. Telling Students learn how to recognize authors who utilize showing, and students will be able to articulate the difference between showing and telling.

Creative Writing Lesson Four: Capturing Images Image is essential. Students learn why images are necessary and how to capture their own.

Creative Writing Lesson Five: Character and Conflict Introduce character and conflict and why these story elements are vital for short story writers.

Creative Writing Lesson Six: Point of View Students learn about point of view and then enjoy reading poems and using pictures to write descriptions from different points of view (and perspectives).

Creative Writing Lesson Seven: Fractured Fairy Tales As we work to put together everything we’ve learned in the previous lessons, students begin composing their own fractured fairy tales.

Creative Writing Lesson Eight: Revision After a mini-lesson about revision, students partner up for peer editing.

You can use this Writing Ideas Notebook to help your students record and explore dozens of writing ideas.

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All About Me

Emotions and Emojis

Indigenous Language Dictionary

Indigenous Language Dictionary Lesson Plan

Indigenous languages carry our ancestors’ wisdom, traditions, and knowledge, bridging our past, present, and future. This lesson plan introduces students to the importance of indigenous languages by creating their own ‘Indigenous Language Dictionary’ using WriteReader. The goal is to enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of indigenous cultures and foster their research, writing, and digital literacy skills.

This lesson is geared towards 1st and 2nd grades and could take 1-2 weeks, depending on how much time you have available in your daily plans. You can download the complete Indigenous Language Dictionary Lesson Plan .

Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale Lesson Plan

Based on three fairy tales from the world famous fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen, we have developed illustrations and a lesson plan with a number of varied writing prompts for different elementary school grade levels.

The three selected fairy tales are:

• The Ugly Duckling • The Nightingale • The Little Match Girl

If you would like your students to create their own fairy tales based on the tales mentioned above, you can download our Hans Christian Andersen Lesson Plan .

Diversity Lesson Plan

WriteReader is proud to be part of a global community, which stands for promoting and welcoming diversity. With this as our foundation, we humbly offer a  Diversity Lesson Plan  to add to the important conversations that so many leaders in the community have already started. The goals of this lesson plan are for children to:

• Recognize and accept similarities & differences in the places where they live, learn, and play
• Commit to being inclusive through their words and actions
• Use writing to communicate and acknowledge diversity as a strength

May this ring true for all of us so that we all can live together in harmony!

You can access or download our Diversity Lesson Plan .

Gratitude Lesson Plan

Expressing gratitude need not be limited to seasonal celebrations. We can show and feel gratitude every day. In fact, scientific research shows that people who are grateful are happier and healthier human beings. As parents and educators, that’s exactly what we want for children too. We can help them to take notice of all the wonderful things in life and teach them the language of a thankful heart. This lesson plan gives you ideas for accessing background knowledge, sparking heartfelt discussions, and inviting young writers to express their gratefulness in creative ways.

If you would like to create a culture of gratitude in your home or school, you can download our Gratitude Lesson Plan.

Fair Play Lesson Plan

Children can develop their social-emotional learning in the gym and on the playground, as well as in the classroom and at home. It’s equally important that they understand the elements of fair play, which requires respect, sportsmanship, and teamwork. WriteReader’s Fair Play lesson plan gives you ideas for pre-writing activities to activate prior knowledge or develop background knowledge. There are also several suggestions for writing topics and tips for young writers. Our custom fair play image bank provides the children with easy access to engaging photos to help stimulate their thinking and enhance their writing. The lesson is suitable for use at sports clubs, home, or school. As always, we provide fillable fields (once the plan is downloaded to a computer) so that you can customize it, according to your team or class. Ready, set … play!

You can download and access the Fair Play lesson plan here. 

“All About Me” Lesson Plan

We all have different inner and outer qualities that make us special, and it’s important for children to recognize this. Research regarding the social-emotional core competencies informs us that positive self-awareness promotes better choices and pro-social behaviors. So, it’s equally important for adults to affirm each child’s uniqueness. For this reason, we’ve created a lesson plan called “All About Me,” which is especially geared towards Pre-K to Grade 1 children. Our lesson plan gives ideas for fun activities while integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) with emergent literacy development. We hope that your young learners will enjoy these activities as they become more self-aware.

You can download or access the All About Me Lesson Plan.

Emotions and Emojis Lesson Plan

We all love using emojis in our texts and emails or adding them as stickers on photos. Educationally speaking, they can also be useful in helping children to interpret facial expressions and express their own feelings. The learning can be further extended by matching the expressions with the correct tone of voice. With this in mind, WriteReader has created a new lesson plan for teachers and parents about “Emotions and Emojis.” We’ve got you covered in all the essential aspects of helping your students grow in their social-emotional learning and the development of their literacy skills!

You can access or download the Emotions and Emojis Lesson Plan.

Ideas for daily or weekly activities (K-5)

The structure and support functionality of the learning tool WriteReader enables kindergarten to 5th-grade students to produce and share multimodal books with images, text and sound – regardless of their written capabilities. WriteReader can be used with almost any theme and genre, as the teaching frameworks are defined and created by the teacher and the content is created by the student.

Examples of suitable and relevant models for the target group can be describing daily events, for example.

• Write a book about  their school  and share it with fellow kindergarten children who might later be starting in the same school. The book can focus on key persons at the school (teachers, educators, the janitor, the cleaning personnel etc.) and central locations at the school (the playground, the library, the cafeteria, the gym, etc.).
• Write a book about their  favorite teddy bear  or  favorite toy , describing why this particular toy means so much to them. The teddy bear/toy can be the main character or object in a fictional text – for example, a fairytale.
• Write a book about their  favorite author  and  book . They can take pictures of the book and write about why they like the book.
• Write a  non-fiction book  about a topic of interest. For example, students can write about horses, dinosaurs, volcanoes, Minecraft, and more. Once finished, the book can be printed out and published at the school library.
• Write a book about a  good experience  they had at school or at home. It can be about a school visit to the zoo or when they went on a family vacation.
• Write a diary. Students can write a page or two about what they  experience at home or school  every day for a period of time. Remember that they should date the pages.
• Write a  guide  or  instruction book . It can be about how to play one of the games in an after school club or how to bake a cake.

Get more ideas from our blog post  Inspiraton for meaningful writing activities .

General ideas

Before writing.

• Find and read a mentor text from the school library which exemplifies the genre the students will write stories about. Talk with the students about the characteristics of the genre and about where and how the characters are presented in the text.
• Assess from the content and educational goals whether it is most relevant for the students to write alone or in pairs.
• Adjust the process so that the majority of the time is spent with students writing together with assistance from an adult.
• It is recommended to engage a middle or senior class at the school. The older students can help the younger ones with the adult writing field, types of genres, and in searching for images. NB: It’s important that the students understand that it is the younger child who is doing the writing.

Assess whether the students would benefit from taking pictures to be used in the book at home. In this way, time at school is spent solely on writing.

While writing

• If it’s difficult to provide writing in the adult field for the entire class, then the students with the most needs should be given the highest priority. The parents of the other children can be encouraged to do conventional writing with their children at home. NB: It is not necessary to add adult writing to gain the benefits of WriteReader, but the opportunity for students to reflect upon themselves and learn from conventional writing will strengthen their written language skills.
• Let the students read their books out loud for their classmates during the writing process in order to receive and provide constructive feedback.

After writing

• Let the students read their books aloud for peers or younger students at the school or a nearby kindergarten.
• The students should read their books aloud for their parents, grandparents, and sibligs at home as often as possible.
• It is recommended to share and publish the students’ books. For instance, print, email the links to family, or share them on the school’s intranet.
• NB: In regards to online publishing, it is important that all persons depicted in the books have given their consent and that the images being used are not subject to copyright restrictions.

Common Core Standards (K-5)

The following writing standards can be accommodated with WriteReader and the above themes/ideas:

Kindergarten

Text types and purposes:.

• Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book 
• Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic
• Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened

Production and Distribution of Writing:

• With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed 
• With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers 

Research to Build and Present Knowledge:

• Participate in shared research and writing projects – e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them 
• With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question
• Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure
• Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure 
• Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure Production and Distribution of Writing
• With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed
• With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers
• Participate in shared research and writing projects – e.g., explore a number of “how-to” books on a given topic and use them to write a sequence of instructions
• Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section 
• Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure
• With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing
• With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers 
• Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question
• Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons 
• Provide a concluding statement or section
• Introduce a topic and group related information together; include illustrations when useful to aiding comprehension
• Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally response of characters to situations
• Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order
• Provide a sense of closure
• With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose 
• With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing 
• With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others 
• Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic
• Recall information from experiences or gather information from print and digital sources; take brief notes on sources and sort evidence into provided categories 

Range of Writing:

• Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences
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Writing Topics

This section provides materials to help incorporate writing into classroom activities.

Writing skills: formal and informal writing

To enable students to break down the different features of formal and informal English by working through a step-by-step text transformation at their own pace.

Writing skills: Fables

Writing skills: thinking about writing.

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Writing Worksheets

An extensive selection of worksheets and lesson plans from Macmillan resources.

When and what?

A British English worksheet to ask and answer questions about daily routines.

Spot the similarities

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One World Elementary Magazine

Twelve writing activities which are part of project to make a magazine.

One World Magazine

Twelve writing activities which are all part of a project to make a magazine called 'One World'.

One World 01: An interview

One world 02: where am i.

All One World Elementary Magazine

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How to Make Lesson Plans for Adult Students

Easy and Effective Lesson Plan Design for Teaching Adults

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It's not difficult to design lesson plans for adult education . Every good course design begins with a needs assessment . Before you design a lesson plan, it's vital that you complete this assessment and you understand what your students need and what your objectives are for the course.

As with any gathering of people, it’s good to begin your class at the beginning and address who is there, why they’ve gathered, what they hope to accomplish, and how they’ll accomplish it. Follow these easy steps for designing adult lesson plans, and see how effective you can be.

Welcome and Introduction

Build in 30 to 60 minutes at the opening of your class to conduct introductions and review your objectives and agenda. Your beginning will look something like this:

• Greet participants as they arrive.
• Introduce yourself and ask participants to do the same, giving their name and sharing what they expect to learn from the class. This is a good time to include an icebreaker that loosens people up and makes them feel comfortable sharing.
• Try a fun classroom introduction for the first day of school.
• Write their expectations on a flip chart or whiteboard.
• State the objectives of the course, explaining why certain expectations on the list either will or won’t be met.
• Review the agenda.
• Review housekeeping items: where the restrooms are, when the scheduled breaks are, that people are responsible for themselves and should take a restroom break early if they need one. Remember, you’re teaching adults.

Module Design

Divide your material into 50-minute modules. Each module will contain a warmup, a short lecture or presentation, an activity, and a debriefing, followed by a break. At the top of each page in your teacher’s guide, note the time needed for each section and the corresponding page in the student’s workbook.

Warmups are short exercises—five minutes or shorter—that get people thinking about the topic you are about to cover. These brief activities can be a game or simply a question you pose. Self-assessments make good warmups. So do icebreakers . For example, if you’re teaching learning-styles , a learning-style assessment would be a perfect war up.

Keep your lecture to 20 minutes or less if possible. Present your information in full, but remember that adults generally stop retaining information after about 20 minutes. They will listen with understanding for 90 minutes, but with retention for only 20.

If you’re preparing a participant/student workbook, include a copy of the primary learning points of your lecture and any slides you’re planning to use. It’s good for students to take notes, but if they have to furiously write everything, down, you’re going to lose them.

Design an activity that gives your students an opportunity to practice what they just learned. Activities that involve breaking into small groups to complete a task or to discuss an issue are good ways to keep adults engaged and moving. This is also a perfect opportunity for them to share the life experience and wisdom they bring to the classroom. Include opportunities to take advantage of this wealth of relevant information.

Activities can be personal assessments or reflections that are worked on quietly and independently. Alternatively, they can be games, role play, or small-group discussions. Choose your activity based on what you know about your students and on the content of your class. If you are teaching a hands-on skill, hands-on practice is a great option. If you are teaching a writing skill, a quiet writing activity may be the best choice. 

After an activity, it’s important to bring the group back together and have a general discussion about what students learned during the activity. Ask for volunteers to share their reactions. Ask for questions. This is your chance to ensure the material was understood. Allow five minutes for this activity. It doesn’t take long unless you discover that learning hasn’t happened.

Take a 10-Minute Break

Get adult students up and moving every hour. This takes a bite out of your available time, but it will be well worth it because your students will be far more attentive when the class is in session, and you’ll have fewer interruptions from people who have to excuse themselves.

Tip: Manage Class Time Wisely

While breaks are important, it’s crucial that you manage them well and begin again precisely on time, regardless of stragglers, or chatter will get carried away. Students will learn quickly that class begins when you said it will, and you’ll gain the respect of the entire group.

End your courses with a short evaluation to determine whether your students found the learning valuable. The emphasis is on "brief" here. If your evaluation is too long, students won't take the time to complete it. Ask a few important questions:

• Were your expectations of this course met?
• What would you have liked to learn that you didn't?
• What was the most helpful thing you learned?
• Would you recommend this class to a friend?
• Please share comments about any aspect of the day.

This is just an example. Choose questions that are relevant to your topic. You are looking for answers that will help you improve your course in the future.

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