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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
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Two Truths and a Lie : Page 1, 2, 3
"The Other Person’s Diary"
Put yourself back in the kitchen of your youth, and recall an incident that happened in the kitchen involving another person. (Substitute a character’s experience for your own, if you’d like.) First, write about that incident from your own point of view. Then write the same incident as a journal entry in the other person’s diary. This exercise teaches the relevance of point of view and can give insight into the childhood of an adult character.
-exercise from Karen Essex
"Eavesdropping"
Eavesdrop on a 3 to 5 minute conversation, and then rewrite the scene (in prose or poetry) stealing actual dialogue. Some writers will record the conversations of others in order to examine speech patterns. This exercise works "just because real speech, out of context, is wonderfully mysterious and doesn’t often sound like ‘written’ speech." What becomes noticeable is how often speakers don’t respond to dialogue or they respond inappropriately.
-exercise from Dr. Nancy Walker, quote from Amy Hempel
"Morphing Clichés"
Find a cliché or familiar phrase, like: "Don’t count your chickens before they hatch." Change this statement one word at a time using original and specific language. For example, a writer once transformed this to "You better count your children before they are born," and from there wrote a story about a pregnant teen. This kind of amendment can also be done with quotations from philosophers.
-exercise from Anne Doolittle
Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com
Camille Renshaw is the Senior Editor for Pif Magazine.