Category: Writing Exercises
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Turning Conlangs into Culture: Worldbuilding through constructed languages
This past weekend I gave a presentation at InConJunction in Indianapolis, and one of the attendees requested that I make it available online later on. So let’s give it a go! First of all: What is a Conlang? Conlang is short for “Constructed Language”, meaning any kind of artificially and…
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Happy New Year!
Traditionally, I’ve done a new year’s resolution post on this day. This year, I’m going to not do that– because isn’t making and breaking traditions what today is about? Instead, I give you the first writing prompt of the new year: Your character finds a genie, and they are given…
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Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween to everybody! If you’re curious, Dean Winchester is a character from the TV Show Supernatural. Welcome to Night Vale is a free humor/horror podcast produced by Commonplace Books (very appropriate for Halloween!)
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Writing Exercise: Gender Bender
I’ve heard a lot of people say gender doesn’t matter– that we are all equal in soul and under the skin– and I’m not arguing that, with or against. But it’s undeniable that society changes our expectations of how men and women look, think and behave, and how they should…
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Writing Exercise: Out of Costume
Two of your characters, who are the most bitter of enemies most of the time, unwittingly sit down and have a chat. Maybe they met up on Chat Roulette (is that even a thing anymore?), maybe they’re a superhero and supervillain who ran into each other out of costume. Whatever…
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Writing Exercise: If I’d known then…
For the December section of his “A Calendar of Tales” project, Neil Gaiman wrote a short story in which a runaway briefly meets her future self. (The collection of short stories is posted publicly, so you don’t have to feel guilty about reading them. Seriously, I’m in love with this…
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Writing Exercise: If things had been different…
You already know I’m into Bioshock Infinite, as well as Fringe and the Star Trek reboot. Apart from all being some pretty fun Sci-Fi, all three deal with different timelines and realities. (You’ll also find Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven, Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, and Terry Pratchett’s…
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Borrowed inspiration
The weirdest thing happened this week. I was reading a blog post, when this person named SugarOpal invited me to give the subject of the post a shot. In case you haven’t decided to follow the delectable links, it goes like this: An older– now mostly defunct– therapy technique involved…
JWTroemner.com 