Tell us about a writing exercise you might have used?

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Oops-Daisy (still working on it...) by Spuggy

George Szirtes	Look at something, go into a half daze, wait for a line, listen to it intensely, follow the scent of language. It can help if you have some idea of the form and put some obstacles in the way, like metre or rhyme or motif. Poetry is disciplined improvisation that leads you somewhere you don’t know and are only guessing. Form can open as well as close.

Michelle Harrison	I once tried something that was a group exercise, where one person is the leader and suggests various things and the rest of you fill in the blanks. It went something like this: You’re walking on a path in a wooded area. Suddenly, you come to a clearing and see an object on the ground. What is it? How does it make you feel? You pick the object up and put it in your pocket. Then you walk on. Soon after you come to a building. Describe the building . . . etc. It was interesting to see just how different everyone’s finished stories were.

Sue Moorcroft	I am a creative writing tutor; I have hundreds … I suppose something I learnt that was a turning point for me was about giving a character a mission or a quest. For example, Honor in Love and Freedom is an American woman and I’ve brought her to England to look for her mother. That’s a quest in the classic sense. The book is what happens to her, meanwhile, but the quest will always give the book focus.